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Google to add 'news feed' to website and app

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Google to add 'news feed' to website and app

#21

Post by rtpg »

aphextron wrote: post #11

The "newsfeed" pattern is one of the worst ideas humanity has ever had. Never has it been so easy to manipulate public opinion at will. 10 years ago there was a such thing as standards in journalism. Now anypoliticalblog.com's headline has been promoted to the equal status of an actual news organisation by means of the implicit legitimacy of appearing in a news feed. This insanity has reached a crescendo with the off…

Let's not forget that standard media diet includes Fox News and One America Network (which has ~15% the viewer count of Fox News). Old media isn't necessarily great at filtering out nonsense.

Though I agree that the newsfeed tends to put these things next to the NYT or the Guardian, I feel like "page rank"-y stuff could help smooth this out. I've already seen improvements to my FB newsfeed for this kind of stuff over the yearse.

Re: Google to add 'news feed' to website and app

#25

Post by SkyMarshal »

flyingprogram wrote: post #10
pesenti wrote: post #9

20 years ago, all the engines (AltaVista, Lycos) did exactly that. And then they all became "portal" like. And then a brand new engine with just a search box (so refreshing so clean) came along and swiped them over....

Great startup idea!

Someone already did it! https://duckduckgo.com/

Re: Google to add 'news feed' to website and app

#26

Post by thomyorkie »

pesenti wrote: post #9

20 years ago, all the engines (AltaVista, Lycos) did exactly that. And then they all became "portal" like. And then a brand new engine with just a search box (so refreshing so clean) came along and swiped them over....

The difference is personalization. I never would visit a portal site like yahoo, but every morning I look through my Google Now feed. Relevance matters.

Re: Google to add 'news feed' to website and app

#27

Post by to_bpr »

ehnto wrote: post #6
to_bpr wrote: post #5

>The feed will include news stories from a variety of publishers, to avoid the so-called filter bubble effect, where people follow only content aligned with their pre-existing point of view. >"To provide information from diverse perspectives, news stories may have multiple viewpoints from a variety of sources... and, when available, you'll be able to fact check," the company said in a blog post. I'm growing increasin…

They wouldn't be in the position to guide content if it weren't for users submitting that choice to them. I agree with your sentiment and I too am uncomfortable with it, but we the individuals should take responsibility and ownership of our consumption. It sounds like you are preparing to do so, but I don't have high hopes for society at large. I might extrapolate that at some point I would have pinned the blame enti…

I share your outlook on the future of society with regards to its relationship of the mass with technology and privacy. If anything the last decade has shown us, it's that the average person will readily sacrifice freedom and privacy for security and convenience at the earliest opportunity and almost entirely without question or protest.

With that being said, I've some feeling that the "consent" FB and Google have from its users to essentially bulk collect and analyze their data may largely stem from ignorance as to what is being collected and how it's being used i.e. the relationship between the content one produces in Gmail and the ads that same person receives.

That's a tightly coupled, straightforward relationship too. I've no doubt that the average person has zero idea what is involved when Google touts that it can now confidently track an ad being served/viewed online to an in-store, in-person purchase offline.

Then again, with the Snowden leaks and similar and the absolutely apathetic (at best) reaction from the public at large, maybe convenience merely trumps all and will forever more.

Re: Google to add 'news feed' to website and app

#29

Post by empressplay »

pasbesoin wrote: post #3

Really, Google, all I want is my search-oriented "plus" operator back, and for you to unfuck search. I would have bought into the other Plus, your social network, but you fucked over your base product (search) during its launch, and then went all "real names" et al. on us.

If you click on Tools and then change "All Results" to "Verbatim", then it behaves a bit more like it used to

Re: Google to add 'news feed' to website and app

#30

Post by yohui »

quarterbox wrote: post #19
yohui wrote: post #2

Google's blog post talks about introducing the newsfeed to the Google app, but I don't see any mention of Google.com: https://www.blog.google/products/search/feed-your-need-know/ Anyone know where the BBC found this confirmation?

I think they weren't being precise and just meant how the app will look, which some people might equate with google.com itself. I don't see any reason to believe it would affect the site.

Perhaps the BBC spoke to someone at Google who said the news feed would be available via the web – à la https://news.google.com or https://newsstand.google.com/ – which the reporter misunderstood to mean Google.com itself would display the news feed?

It just seems anomalous that such a great change would be announced with so little fanfare (a single sentence in the article). I need to see confirmation before I believe it.

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