The Future of News Rests With Google
Well, Google is at it again. No, I’m not talking about more Gmail paper, or fantasy trips to Mars…however, I can’t wait till April to see whats next. But, the good folks in Mountain View, California have worked out a deal with the New York Times and Washington Post to collaborate on a new project called: Google Living Stories.
I know they’re always releasing something new in The Lab, and when I ran across this…I thought it was just another “one of those things.” I know Google employees are given 20% of their time to work on projects that interest them; thus Gmail was created.
Alas, Living Stories was birthed during 20% time.
Being one who is a regular follower of the news..(yes, I’ve already seen the Oslo speech), I thought I’d give this thing a try.
Basically, two weeks ago while I was doing my daily reading on Yahoo! News I saw an article pop up saying, “Tiger Woods Seriously Injured in Car Accident.” At the time the article was only 4 minutes old. The only details given was a press release from the local police department. Remember, this was without any special news reading tool…just me browsing the headlines. And then, 45 minutes later more facts are given about the story…he wasn’t seriously injured, his wife broke the back window with a golf club (this makes for an entirely new article), he was leaving at 2:35am…etc. An hour later, we find out this happened 12 hours before the report surfaced..the list goes on.
The truth is, when a breaking story hits the net, you’ll always see on going developments take place, with a new version surfacing every half hour or so. But, isn’t there an easier way to track all of the key players, events and regular updates.
This is what Google Living Stories attempts to do. New stories can now be put into historical context. For instance, there’s an on going debate in the United States about health care. Reading today’s article will only tell you what happened recently, with a few updates at the end.
I looked up the same article using the new tool, and Google gives you a scrolling bar across the top giving every update back to October. 9th. With a time line of important events. This also cuts down on the time one spends reading the news. You could have been living under a rock the past two months, but a quick scan of the time line and articles back to October will get you caught up in 30 seconds.
I guess this is taking “organizing the worlds information,” one step further.
I would recommend watching the official Google tutorial on this tool below:
Let us know what you think.
