‘Google News’ comes out of beta, adds personalized page

Google News is taking the beta tag off. This from the Official Google Blog this afternoon.

We’re taking Google News out of beta! When we launched the English-language edition in September 2002, we entered untested waters with a grand experiment in news browsing – using computers to organize the world’s news in real time and providing a bird’s eye view of what’s being reported on virtually any topic. By presenting news ‘clusters’ (related articles in a group), we thought it would encourage readers to get a broader perspective by digging deeper into the news — reading ten articles instead of one, perhaps — and then gain a better understanding of the issues, which could ultimately benefit society. A bit more than three years later, we offer 22 regional editions in 10 languages, and have a better sense of how people use Google News.

Google News is also adding a personalized page.

Here’s how it works: You can sign up for Personalized Search to view and manage your history of news searches and the articles you’ve read. When you’re signed in to your Google Account, you’ll receive recommended news stories based on the previous stories you’ve read. These recommendations will be highlighted just below the top news stories on the page, in a clearly marked section. You can also get a full page of recommended stories by clicking on the section. All of this is done automatically using algorithms. For example, we might recommend news stories to you that many other users have read, especially when you and they have read similar stories in the past. We’ve also added a section to show you the most popular stories in the Google News edition you are viewing (e.g., U.S.). Now you can see the top stories being published by editors across the web, as well as other stories popular with readers, plus topics that you track or are interested in — all on one page.

As experienced bloggers know, Google News is a wonderful place to get ‘bloggable’ content to share with your target audience. Remember you can set up RSS feeds of your selected news in order to avoid the mail notifications. Just click on the RSS link on the left of the search results page.