I probably don’t have to tell you that I am an information junky. I absolutely love to learn new things. When I encounter a current news piece, I often long for more information on that subject. Case in point: I recently heard a news blurb about a new AIDS drug called Fuzeon. I wanted to learn more about Fuzeon. Of course, I turned to the Internet, but instead of simply typing Fuzeon into a search engine, I turned to a new Internet tool called Google News. Within a few seconds, I had a list of all the current news stories about Fuzeon. I was able to learn where, when, and how the drug was created, its potential for AIDS patients, and much, much more.
Google news searches through 4,500 news sources worldwide to find the most current news. When you click over to Google News at http://news.google.com, you get a listing of the Top Stories, followed by World News and U.S. News. After that comes news that is categorized by topic: There is Business, Sci/Tech, Sports, Entertainment, and Health News. This news is updated continuously, so you get the most current news available. Since the news story lists are generated by computer algorithms, the articles shown often have differing viewpoints and information on the same subject, making a news search extremely fruitful. Also, there is no human bias, political or otherwise in the selection and placement of the Google News stories.
At Google News, you can also search for information by categories, or you can enter keyword (s) into the search box to look for specific information, as I did to find information on Fuzeon. The articles appear in order of relevance to the words you entered, but you can also click on the “sort by date” function. This will arrange the stories in chronological order with the most recent articles first. This is great for tracking the history of an issue that you may be following.
Since Google News is not edited by humans, it will occasionally come up with an article that the computer determines pertinent, but any human can immediately see is totally out of place. I find this interesting, since, when it does occasionally happen, it always makes me laugh out loud.
The folks at Google say that the Google News area is a work in progress. They are constantly tweaking the algorithms to make the search function work better and often experiment with new features. They recently added an ”In the News” section where the top news-getting people and things are listed and you can click on them for further stories. In my recent endeavor with Google News, the “In the News” area listed people like Christopher Reeve, Michael Jackson, and Prime Minister Zoran. It also listed things like Security Council and Centre Party. I noticed that the number “400” was also listed. When I clicked on it, I found that it referred to the Carolina Dodge Dealers 400 Nascar race that was run the day I was using Google News. (Sometimes, those computers come up with interesting results!)
Google News includes articles that appeared in within the last 30 days. I wish that it would go back a little farther, but as of right now that is my only complaint. Otherwise, I find this new news tool a real winner. I use it almost daily. If you are an information junkie, you may find that you love it too.
