
Redesigning Google News - sndean
https://www.blog.google/topics/journalism-news/redesigning-google-news-everyone/
======
philipkglass
I dearly hope that they restore advanced search options and access to all
search-matches. It's currently a nightmarish Playskool version of yesterday's
Google News, suitable for ages 6-12. I like to search for specific topics in
time buckets, e.g. "wind power" in the past day or "spectroscopy" in the past
week. Maybe even search between specific user-specified dates if I'm diving
into the history of a complex topic. Now I can't specify the time range and
can't see all matching results even for the search terms I turn into a
dedicated section. It's as limited and frustrating as Google News on Android.

They've also hidden the snippet text that let me quickly judge whether or not
I wanted to click through to a full article. Presumably that's to protect
themselves against European copyright disputes, but it's a big step backward
for users.

I'm trying Bing News for the first time today. It still has snippets and time
ranges, but also lets me see only a small fraction of the stories that match
my search criteria. Yahoo News apparently doesn't permit time based searches
at all. What other products best fill this Google News-shaped void for news
power-searchers?

EDIT: for now I can get the old, powerful Google News by initiating a regular
Google search and then clicking over to the News tab. But I wouldn't count on
this escape hatch remaining much longer :-(

~~~
niutech
If you don't like it, you can get back to the classic version of Google News
by installing the User-Agent Switcher for Chrome
([https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/user-agent-
switche...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/user-agent-switcher-
for-c/djflhoibgkdhkhhcedjiklpkjnoahfmg)) and switching the user agent string
on Google News to Windows Phone 8.

~~~
fosco
confirmed, this works. Thank you.

guess this is a reason to learn python and try scraping google news and
headlines to look more like a hackernews page with article descriptions. my
python-fu is low so if anyone thinks this is 'easy' or already done please let
me know.

------
ekianjo
> [https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-uniblog-publish-
> prod/ima...](https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-uniblog-publish-
> prod/images/06.19.17_before-after_katrinat.width-1000.png)

It's not designed for readability, it's designed for less density of
information. It's easy to do that by putting space everywhere, but the real
challenge is keeping the same kind of information density while making it more
readable. Really disappointed by their redesign.

~~~
doomlaser
It's not even less density of information. It's less information period.

The previous design showed headlines and the first sentence or two of each
article's lede. The current design just shows the headline. That's just
broken, especially in the era of deceptive headlines.

~~~
fosco
know an alternative news source? looking for one as a result.

~~~
dublinben
Techmeme remains the best tech-focused news aggregator. Their sister sites
Memeorandum (political news) and Mediagazer (media news) also deserve a spot
in your bookmarks.

One of their best features, which Google has moved away from, is linking to
multiple news sources for each story.

------
oblib
Personally, I think using "Snopes" as a fact checking source gives it much
more credibility than it deserves.

And the whole idea of publishing "Fact Checks" like this sounds and feels
Orwellian.

I don't mean to say that I don't trust those media fact checkers who dig into
claims made by competing media sources, but I don't trust them 100% and I've
seen blatant spin in too many "Fact Check" claims to not have to fact check
them too.

Hell, I don't even trust Google search results anymore.

~~~
comex
> And the whole idea of publishing "Fact Checks" like this sounds and feels
> Orwellian.

You think it’s Orwellian for there to be an objective truth separable from
political spin? Because I’m pretty sure it’s the other way around: a big part
of /1984/ was how the government ignored truth altogether in favor of whatever
‘facts’ best fit the political agenda of the moment. “We’ve always been at war
with Eastasia,” etc.

I know, I know, you’re claiming that Snopes is acting like the government in
that analogy… you’d say they’re establishing what purports to be objective
truth, and what Google and others are now promoting as such, but in fact may
be tainted by political bias…

But I don’t buy it. You say yourself that you consider fact checkers valuable:
then it shouldn’t be seen as Orwellian to promote them, even if they’re not
100% infallible. If anything, what’s Orwellian is the actual government, as
currently headed by a president who has (as president) made assertions as
blatantly false and disprovable as anything about Eurasia and Eastasia.

~~~
leereeves
Snopes doesn't know the objective truth. All they do is check other sources:
other media, press releases, and such, and decide whether they trust those
sources.

How well do they choose sources to trust? When "fact checking" claims that
Obama paid for the release of hostages from Iran, they used Vox as a primary
source.[1] Surely we all agree Vox is biased.

The story originated in claims by Iranian officials, and lacking direct
evidence to support either claim, any objective observer would admit there was
no way to know whether Iran or Obama was telling the truth. Snopes, not being
objective, confidently rated the story "FALSE".

Snopes is most useful when they're able to trace a story back to an admitted
satirical source. When they attempt to judge the truth of disputed claims,
they don't know more than anyone else. They shouldn't attempt to rate those
disputes at all, but the temptation to use the platform to promote opinions is
the Shakespearean flaw in fact checking.

1: [http://www.snopes.com/obama-bribed-iran-400-million-to-
relea...](http://www.snopes.com/obama-bribed-iran-400-million-to-release-u-s-
prisoners/)

~~~
comex
That does pretty bad for Snopes. Though I suspect you’re cherry picking… To be
honest, I don’t usually read Snopes. However, I do read PolitiFact from time
to time, largely for amusement, so I have a pretty good idea of what their
output looks like. They do fake news checks too (more since the Facebook
partnership thing), but most of their fact checks are for actual claims from
politicians or pundits. The articles provide value with a few different
elements:

\- They do the research, things like finding the relevant statistics buried in
some government website, as well as supplementary/background information to
provide context for the claim. You or I might know how to use Google well
enough to find the same information after spending enough time on it, but I’m
not going to do that for every claim I feel like questioning; that’s their
job.

\- Most of the time there’s at least one interview with a relevant expert -
indeed, even when that would seem semi-unnecessary, like when they’ve already
found statistics proving something false, but still get an expert confirmation
of “yeah, that‘s bogus”. I don’t know how often Snopes does this, but it
definitely bolsters credibility.

\- And they reason through the claim, consider different angles, and
ultimately decide on a rating. This is the most subjective element, of course,
and the easiest to challenge with claims of bias. Certainly I’ve ended up
disagreeing with a decent fraction of their ratings, even as a sort of
moderate liberal, pretty close politically to where you’d imagine PolitiFact
to be. (Usually in a minor way, though, e.g. thinking something rated False
should be Mostly False.) Nevertheless, I find their perspective valuable: more
analytical and details-oriented than traditional publications tend to be, even
the ones I like. Your mileage may vary.

Again, I don’t know how well Snopes holds up by comparison - if nothing else,
PolitiFact seems to make it much more clear what exact statement is being
checked. And certainly no outlet is perfect, as demonstrated by your link. But
at least what I’ve read I believe to be far, far better than nothing, if you
care about finding the truth rather than throwing around political slogans.

------
uberuberuber
A giant leap backwards in information density.

The "in the news" section is just trending hashtag fluff.

"Easier Navigation" == More clicks to access the same content.

And best of all... no option in settings to opt out.

~~~
eyelidlessness
I'm getting older and I have poor eyesight. The information density of the old
design was a huge distraction for me, making it very difficult to actually
read the news.

Whitespace can be incredibly helpful for readability.

~~~
magoghm
I agree that whitespace is helpful for readability, but the amount of
whitespace they're using is overkill.

------
fmfernandez
Horrible!!!! I have been using this product for years, suddenly they make this
change without the option to rollback. I can't search, I can't filter. If
these options are there I can't find them. These usability experts... how can
they fail so miserably at times.

------
rocky1138
Does anyone anywhere think this is good? Why?

Material design, in my opinion, is a disaster. Especially for desktop, where
screens are huge and existing UI feedback loops are in place and well known.

~~~
RachelF
Looks like Google news has employed the Windows 10 UI designers from
Microsoft.

~~~
NDT
RachelFGuitar?

------
bpodgursky
Ugh. This means the two-column view is disappearing (it was an option in
labs). Infuriating that phone-driven design is destroying the desktop
experience.

~~~
taurath
I will try it for a day, but it looks like this is the end of me using google
news, a site that I have visited daily for the last 8 years. I was still
clinging to 2-column view despite their efforts to change it.

* Too little information on the page

* WAY too much blank space on desktop

* It seems optimized for the brand new user experience, rather being than a powerful tool. Stop getting rid of options

* Fact check section is useless - it should be in-line related to the story if you're going to have it.

* "More about" seems like a less useful google search. Where's the value here? Picking "NASDAQ:SPLS" doesn't even show the stock price, while if I enter it into google I get links to company stats and the stock price

Imagine if the NYTimes did a design like this - they would be out of business.

So incredibly frustrating.

~~~
anigbrowl
Same. Google may still have the best database but their product design has
really gone into the toilet.

------
r1b
I am working on [https://news.r1b.solutions](https://news.r1b.solutions) out
of frustration with Google News. Goals include:

* Wire services only

* Fast, minimal interface

* Global perspective

I am currently focused on adding wire services from non-western countries.

~~~
ilamont
I would like this, if only to eliminate the fluff and click bait that
dominates unfiltered Google News. For the service you are developing, is there
a way to control the topics shown, or eliminate certain subjects or keywords
from the display?

One comment about using wire services from other countries: Many of them are
government-sponsored or otherwise controlled by the government/ruling
political parties, and therefore can be quite biased in their presentation of
local or regional news. Xinhua, Taiwan's Central News Agency, and Voice of
America are examples.

~~~
r1b
Thank you for your thoughtful comment. Filters are on the ROADMAP.md - I am
interested in allowing users to create different "views" of the firehose (e.g
via presence / absence of keywords) that function in a similar way to Google
Alerts.

I am aware of the bias that exists in many wire services & I appreciate the
reminder. Some would say that there is a significant (western) bias in the
services already that I have made available! I am still struggling to find a
way to present a global perspective while still making people aware of these
prejudices.

One of my favorite wire services I have encountered is the Non-Aligned
Movement News Network
([http://namnewsnetwork.org/v3/index.php](http://namnewsnetwork.org/v3/index.php)),
which was established to publish news that is not controlled by the interests
of major world powers.

------
seanf
I left feedback that the sidebars should be collapsable. I also miss seeing
the lede under each headline. Even the "Full Coverage" view is missing a
preview of article content. Perhaps an issue with fair use?

Regular users will not need that left sidebar to be reminded of what sections
they have configured for the page, and it takes up a large amount of screen
space. The right sidebar might be useful to more people, but the "In the News"
block is just words and phrases pulled from the main content. It seems
redundant.

Overall I like the fresh look. Google News is one of the few sites I have been
visiting almost every day for well over a decade now!

~~~
eatbitseveryday
> the sidebars should be collapsable

> Regular users will not need that left sidebar

It is collapsable, but I could not determine from your writing if you figured
it out; click the Main Menu icon in the top left.

I agree, there is often more whitespace added with new "revisions" to Google
services - Gmail, G+, News, Hangouts, etc.

~~~
seanf
Thanks! No, I did not notice that hamburger menu +50px away :)

------
jMyles
First reaction: OK, what do we use instead of Google News now?

~~~
JoshMnem
An RSS reader that fetches articles from a few news sources that you like.

~~~
lukateake
I've missed Google Reader for a long, long time.

~~~
Larrikin
As a non-Google Reader user, what did it offer that Feedly doesn't on the free
tier?

~~~
lukateake
Stats, sir. Stats. Plus, some killer search functionality obviously.

------
dayaz36
It seems like they've also changed the algorithm. I'm getting completely
irrelevant articles to what I search for. For example if you search for
"Chobani" the top articles are about Yoplait(??)...then there is a bunch of
results about Alex Jones interview with Megyn Kelly(???)...I know there was a
whole debacle between Alex Jones and Chobani but these articles are not even
about that. They're about Alex Jone's interview with Megyn Kelly. Maybe
they'll have a sentence or two in the article about the incident with Chobani
but these articles have nothing to do with Chobani! I'm just using one
example, it's like this for everything I search for.
[https://news.google.com/news/search/section/q/chobani/choban...](https://news.google.com/news/search/section/q/chobani/chobani?hl=en&ned=us)

~~~
gnufied
Yep yep - they either changed the Algorithm or did something stupid with the
UI. For example, searching for "H4 EAD" on news.google.com returns nothing now
-

new -
[https://news.google.com/news/search/section/q/h4%20ead/h4%20...](https://news.google.com/news/search/section/q/h4%20ead/h4%20ead?hl=en&ned=us)

VS

Old - [https://tinyurl.com/y9tf8cou](https://tinyurl.com/y9tf8cou)

Very weird.

~~~
Jordrok
Oh wow, now that is really bad. I would assume that would have to be a bug,
but it seems like a pretty massive thing to overlook.

------
jacquesm
The biggest improvement they could make to Google news is to do better
selection of sources. With some regularity I get 'breitbartnews' as one of the
things that I should supposedly be interested in.

------
cm2187
I hope scrolling on an ipad now works (not a small feature for a website, but
html is fun to break).

I wonder if they also fixed the picture problem. They seemed to collect a
random picture on the website of the article and associate it with the story
on the front page of google news. This leads to terrible associations, like
you would have a headline about the Queen of England illustrated with a
mugshot of a thug, or an article about some rapist being arrested illustrated
by a movie star that happened to promote a movie the same day.

~~~
cm2187
Actually for scrolling on the ipad I can confirm they didn't fix it. It is
stilly very jerky.

------
dgudkov
Google Now suggests interesting news on my Android phone. After a bit of
training it I now find 40-50% of suggested articles worth reading (which is a
rather high ratio). Google News had a different selection algorithm that is
not so "trainable" and therefore less efficient (despite being linked to the
same account). It would be great if besides the new UI for the News they also
started using the selection algorithm from Google Now.

------
strooper
Google News has been the first page of any news media for me for last several
years. I have relied on the the summery of the news under the headlines to
consider whether to go to the news details or skip to the next news. And this
latest redesign removes that summery. I can't think of any reason to using it
as the first source of news any longer, unless Google decides to revert to
last design.

------
z6
At first glance I'm not a fan, but I'll give it some time. So much white
space. I wish they give us a compact option.

------
anigbrowl
Way to take something mediocre and make it truly awful. I'm not trying to be
witty here, this is one of the worst user interfaces I've ever seen. Every
single aspect of it is worse and I have no idea what benefit it's supposed to
be offering. It's like something that was designed by someone who hates
reading and has little or no interest in news.

I wish it could be a great opportunity for someone else but it would probably
be quite difficult for a small vendor to effectively aggregate so many
different news sources. Suggestions welcome, but I've already been looking for
a while :-/

------
richardw
Cards, cards everywhere. Not using the full width of large screens. Not a fan
yet, but maybe I'll warm to it. Or it'll be like when they changed the effect
of "+" in search and I'll hate it but it'll work perfectly for Grandma (since
I assume they've tested this a lot). We are after all a set of people who like
the HN amount of news density.

News is such an alluring area for change. It kinda sucks. I see the same
stories for many days on Google News, can't mark it as "read"/"hide"/"don't
care about this topic". Would prefer that over a new look.

------
augustocallejas
This redesign has the look and feel of the Facebook feed plus Trending section
on the upper-right hand side. With so many people consuming news from
Facebook[1], this is not surprising at all. Maybe Google News is where the
Google Plus feed will ultimately show up.

[1]: [http://www.niemanlab.org/2016/05/pew-report-44-percent-
of-u-...](http://www.niemanlab.org/2016/05/pew-report-44-percent-of-u-s-
adults-get-news-on-facebook/)

------
colordrops
A new design can't hide the fact that news aggregated through google seems to
have a strong ideological bent. I've spent a lot of time setting up the
weighting of various news sites and still can't seem to get certain agendas
filtered out of the news. Perhaps this is a problem with news in general and
only reflected through Google News, but I don't think so - things have gotten
worse over time and certain sites seem to be over-represented.

~~~
ajmurmann
I've been concerned about my need intake being too biased and started using a
app called "read across the aisle". It has news sources categorized by
political position and tracks how balanced your news diet is. Maybe that can
help you not being negatively impacted by certain agendas since you are more
likely to get a balanced view?

~~~
panic
The concept of "sides" and where the lines are drawn between them are part of
the agenda: you're not escaping it. If every morning you're reading Fox News
and The Huffington Post, you're getting "both sides" but not much insight.

------
exodust
The problem that has plagued Google News at least here in Australia for some
time is the regular inclusion of headlines that redirect to paywalls. These
links need to be flagged as paywall only, otherwise it's no different to the
kind of behaviour Google claims to be against - links not accurately
representing their destination.

It's about link integrity. Nobody wants to play "roll the dice" every time
they click a news article, with some asking for a credit card, others not. No
doubt the paywall services pay Google to include those links, but Google
should be honest and correctly label paywall links on the Google News page, or
stop including those news outlets that use these redirect tactics.

Apart from that, the redesign seems to be re-inventing link hover style. Mouse
over a section and every link in that section turns blue, not just the link
you're hovering over. I'd prefer if the main headlines stood out more for
easier scanning, keep them always blue for example, and the other text black.
Or just keep links blue and non-links black. Right now it all seems to blend
in, without enough visual separation. I'll be visiting less, and might jump
over to Feedly or similar.

~~~
porjo
As a fellow Australian, I used to browse to news.google.com.au and see
predominantly Australian news. Now, I get redirected to news.google.com and
see no Australian content! (no, I'm not signed into Google)

I really hope that gets fixed.

EDIT: this URL gets me Australian news:
[https://news.google.com/news/headlines?ned=au&hl=en-
AU](https://news.google.com/news/headlines?ned=au&hl=en-AU)

------
dreamcompiler
I had already pretty much stopped using GN because it was so overburdened with
Javascript that pages refused to scroll. (And that was on Android, which you'd
think Google would optimize for.) Now it seems to scroll well enough, but you
_have_ to scroll a lot more because the information density is so low. Yet
another website designed to impress rather than inform. Not interested.

------
thewhitetulip
I am a regular user of google news and the color combination hurts my eyes and
the main reason why I used google news till now was that I would read the
gist.

now, the hover function hurts my eyes too blue color (perhaps the people at
Google have very high end monitors) and there is no two-three lines, just the
title. Sigh. Google news is now successfully destroyed like Quora was few
years ago.

------
corford
I can't believe they've got rid of the text snippets below the headline
(why??) but I like the dedicated fact check box!

------
fosco
Here is a redesign that does not increase efficiency, my opinion of course.
Now more of my page has less information and in my opinion my goal is to
consume more information in less space. this is terrible.

[http://www.nooooooooooooooo.com/](http://www.nooooooooooooooo.com/)

------
luord
I stopped using Google news because too often the same news piece appeared
several times in the RSS feed.

If these features address that, particularly labels, maybe I can get back to
getting news from there, but the comments here aren't encouraging. I'll check
it out myself anyway.

------
howard941
Pro: News sites I never want to see are _finally_ gone from the editors
recommendations.

Cons: White space as far as the eye can see, no more article preview, much
less content available with a lot more scrolling, slow on my i5.

All in all it's a dogs lunch

------
fragmede
And yet, ditching Google's much-maligned AMP project is not discussed at all.
If this were a wholistic attempt at a redesign by an no outside party, AMP and
its detractors reasons would at least merit a mention.

------
xemdetia
Can Google stop making these backwards layout changes? The old version is key
logical headlines and related articles from multiple sources which was
actually pretty nice as an aggregator. Now there is only one related article
instead of 3.

The plaintext version of the page because of the horizontal bar is now even
harder to use. It feels like I need to make a site just to undo google changes
and just give me a list of links again.

------
visarga
It's more readable but I hate the horizontal menu bar. I use a MacBook Pro and
the screen is already short and wide. Taking valuable vertical space is bad,
when there is so much more horizontal space.

Another: why cut titles at 10 words short? There is so much empty space
around, but I can't read the last 2 words of the title without opening the
article.

What I love the most: having the entities extracted from text and entity-
centric news navigation.

------
Jordrok
Gotta say, I'm not a fan of this redesign. Others have touched on the biggest
issues - lack of information density and missing article snippets, but here's
the one I really can't figure out: Why is the left sidebar so crazily wide?
There's at least an inch of wasted space and none of the bar's items even come
close to using the full width.

------
malloci
I have mixed feelings about the ability to block certain sources. On the one
hand it's nice to be able to block random blogs or poorly written sources (in
the grammatical sense) that somehow make their way into the google news
docket. On the other hand, I worry that this will only increase the
polarization we're seeing in todays political arena.

------
iamthepieman
anything branded google for content consumption I avoid or mitigate with other
sources.

I use gmail because I almost entirely control that (unsubscribe, spam filters,
user filters and auto forwarding) Unless they are actively deleting email sent
to me and changing the content of email I am getting exactly what I want to
get in my inbox

I use Google search in conjunction with duck duck go, bing, content
aggregators, offline sources and for things i don't care about the source or
that doesn't really have a possibility of bias (weather forecast, traffic) or
when i know that the google search is really just a quick way to search
something else (stack overflow, wikipedia)

the google new tab interface on mobile has such abominable suggestions that I
quit using chrome on mobile (helps that I don't have a phone, just a tablet
for e-reading, music and causal games)

Maybe it would have better suggestions if I turned on google tracking (app and
website) or if I turned off the VPN and anonymizing proxy on my router - yeah
right.

------
xname2
Even from their example, you can see the political bias clearly in the first
pic. I believe that they believe themselves have an unbiased algorithm which
creates this result, which they believe is unbiased.

However, it is clear to me, their result is definitely biased. I do not
believe an unbiased algorithm will generate a top list of covering on the
supreme court decision on the travel ban only includes reports from NYT, WP,
The Atlantic, Chicago Tribune (the only right), CNN. I also do not believe an
unbiased algorithm will generate a list of other top stories from only
Politico, NPR, WP. So In a list of nine titles, only one right media (Chicago
Tribune) got a shot, but not Fox News or WSJ. Not even CBS, ABC which are kind
of centrist.

Of course, an argument would be that most of the media is left. But don't
forget, the left / right split among the American voters is not that extreme.
If you generate a list of new reports, which one is more unbiased: A)
represent the perspective of journalists (90% left), B) represent the
perspective of voters (60% left)?

My experience with Google News is that, if you do not manually customize new
feed, you will get mostly from NYT and WP, almost never FN or WSJ. You will
also get a lot far / crazy left stuff from Huffington post, Daily Beast,
Mother Jones, but you will never get national review, not to mention
breitbart.

~~~
smt88
Reality is not bipartisan. Fox has a recent history of peddling alarmingly
dangerous and inaccurate conspiracy theories. I'm in favor of an algorithm
that gives them less weight.

Also, I see lots of Fox and WSJ.

A study a few years ago found that WSJ's news is liberal, but their editorials
are conservative. I think things look very different if you are able to forget
about the editorials.

And, finally, the left/right split of people who read news is not the same as
the US overall. Even if it were, it would still skew liberal, just as the US
does.

~~~
mythrwy
Correct. Reality isn't partisan at all.

Human expression on the other hand generally is.

~~~
smt88
No, I'm saying reality _is_ party. For example, in the US, accepting that
climate change is real is "liberal" (in the US usage of the word) and denying
climate change is conservative. So if a newspaper reports factually and
responsibly about climate change, the newspaper looks "liberal" and partisan.

~~~
mythrwy
Cherry picking one example (which happens to also be not "reality" but rather
a best fit to evidence and which also does not fall as neatly along partisan
lines as you appear to imagine) doesn't show anything about "reality" being
politically partisan.

Partisan, by definition, is prejudice, the opposite of objectivity, and an
enemy of "reality".

The natural human condition, (at least in culture or society) is to be biased
(often unthinkingly, out of cultural training or personal interest).
Overcoming this is the path towards understand reality.

~~~
smt88
OK, we're just not talking about the same thing.

What I mean is that, in the US, Democrats are not equally far from the truth
as Republicans. Or, if you want to rephrase it without the parties, liberals
are not equally far from the truth.

Objective facts will not be perfectly diplomatic. They will appear to be
biased in one direction or another.

This is true of literally every issue in which one side is closer to
reality/truth than the other side. I don't need to cherry pick because that's
every single issue (as long as they disagree, anyway).

~~~
mythrwy
"in the US, Democrats are not equally far from the truth as Republicans"

Sure they are. Perhaps further on some things. It just depends on what aspect
of the truth you are talking about. Economic reality or the age of the earth?

Mistaking bias, value judgement or personal preference for objective reality
is a common mental trap. It's taken people, organizations and even whole
cultures down many times.

------
throwaway1892
I was disappointed by their redesign and I think I won't be using it much.
There is too much wasted space, the banner at the top is useless (for how I
use the site) and the selection of article for a story is too limited, only 3
compared to a dozen in the old design.

At least this afternoon I still had access to the old design by disconnecting.

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rockland1
The allegiance to an ideologically driven monopoly that is stripping basic
news search features is undeserved. There are alternatives that provide full
featured search and ideologically neutral alternatives such as
[https://Newslookup.com](https://Newslookup.com)

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visarga
It would be amazing to have this kind of service operate over reddit, HN,
Twitter, other forums and blog comments and tag them with 1000s of categories.
I want to select only specific posts from all these sources.

What Google has now is a collection of mainstream press classified in just a
few subjects, almost the opposite of what I want.

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sterban
I built [https://statesreport.com](https://statesreport.com) because I found
Google News lacking. The goal being a highly optimized news aggregator that
doesn't use ML to create an echo chamber of news you agree with.

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cliveb
The Google News redesign makes reading the news difficult. My 24 inch vertical
monitor- right have nav has 11 inches x 3 1/4 inches of blank grey space. Too
much blank space to content ratio. You had one job...

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bra-ket
this is terrible, they really ruined a good product

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kogepathic
Good lord this redesign is terribad. I can't even limit news stories to a time
period as I can regular Google search results.

I guess it will make Google News appeal more to Joe Everyman, but holy cow it
is a blow to being able to find news stories for a specific period of time
(e.g. only show me stories on "am4 itx" within the last week, so I don't read
blogs reposting news about a "new" motherboard 3 months after it was
announced)

And yet Google continues to ignore Google Finance, which is by far the least
updated Google operated site I've seen in ages. I mean, you still have to
install _Adobe Flash_ to get interactive charts, and the basic charts are
simply an image. Seriously now?! Every other finance site has had fully HTML5
interactive charts since years.

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glorithm
And yet this is not sync with Play Newsstand. Is product management a thing at
Google these days? Or they like many concurrent experiments by different teams
don't talk to each other?

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amelius
It doesn't have a "comments" section? That's a missed opportunity, imho.

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mythrwy
I suppose this is an anti-example of using your "market dominance in one area
to gain unfair competitive advantage"?

