Thursday, March 10, 2005
Google News offers customization
There is a new Customize this Page option appearing on Google News (including international versions).
This offers the ability to define which sections of news appear, and in what order, and how many stories they contain. There is also the ability to add custom sections where the stories contain particular keywords (though all keywords must appear - why no option for an OR search?)
The customization is saved via a cookie - rather unfortunate that since it means the customization is not portable between computers, and is limited to just one set. I'd prefer a additional URL parameter so that I can bookmark different sets of news - the news I want during the week is different from the set I want to read at the weekends, and I may want to share the customizations around a team of people, or access it from different computers. However, I'm glad they have not gone the "sign in to read personalized news" route.
This offers the ability to define which sections of news appear, and in what order, and how many stories they contain. There is also the ability to add custom sections where the stories contain particular keywords (though all keywords must appear - why no option for an OR search?)
The customization is saved via a cookie - rather unfortunate that since it means the customization is not portable between computers, and is limited to just one set. I'd prefer a additional URL parameter so that I can bookmark different sets of news - the news I want during the week is different from the set I want to read at the weekends, and I may want to share the customizations around a team of people, or access it from different computers. However, I'm glad they have not gone the "sign in to read personalized news" route.
# posted by zmarties @ 3/10/2005 08:23:00 am 
