Google June 30 rolled out several changes to Google News, led by News for
You, a headline stream based on users' interests.
Google News is a Web page where the search engine collects
news stories from sources all over the world, organizes them and presents them
in an orderly fashion. The service launched in 2002 and has been tweaked every
year. However, the new changes are the most ever.
News readers can scroll down to the News for You section
to set up their news-reading preferences.
Users can rank subjects they are
interested in, opting to see stories chunked in sections or in classic list
view, and click done to save their changes. Another nifty feature lets users
hover over a headline to see more stories on that topic.
Users tend to prefer some news brands over others. To
shuffle this order, Google News now lets reader go to Settings at
the top of the page and click the News Settings option to choose whether to see more news from The New York Times
or less from the Wall Street Journal.
This is the sort of promotion and demotion functionality users have
become accustomed to seeing in social networks and social applications
that offer user groups with ratings and comments.
Those who choose not to have their news customized can
hit Reset personalization to clear all personalization preferences
and close the Edit personalization option by clicking done next to
the reset control.
Google News boasts several other new features, including links
to top stories in the news, such as Hurricane Alex, immigration reform and
other hot topics of interest.
These top stories appear as hyperlinked keywords at the
top of popular story clusters and in the Top Stories section on the left side
of the homepage. Clicking on a topic link or top story entry allows users to
add the issue as part of their personalized news page.
The Google News Spotlight section features stories of
more lasting interest than breaking news and a local news section highlights
local weather and headlines. A region tab over the righ-hand rail lets users
target news by language and location
Socially inclined readers can share story clusters they
like with friends, family and colleagues via Facebook, Twitter, Google Buzz and
Google Reader by clicking the drop-down menu marked by an arrow on the top right
of each story cluster.
The redesigned Google News homepage is live now in U.S.
English, though Google will roll it out to all editions in the coming months.
Indexing & Search Engine News & Reviews 
