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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

#41

Post by BigJono »

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…

> 10 years ago there was a such thing as standards in journalism

Was there? Because last I checked all that these so called 'reputable' sources of news seem to put out is biased garbage full of misleading data and often blatant lies.

I've seen better journalism from bloody buzzfeed than I have from some of the "proper" news networks in Australia...

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

#42

Post by usaphp »

Who visits google.com anyway? I am pretty sure majority of those users who aren't interested in seeing these news are already using google search via browser address bar. Only those who go to google.com will see these news , and they seem to be an exact type of people who would enjoy such content and spend hours browsing it generating more revenue to google

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

#43

Post by dx034 »

azinman2 wrote: post #38
chartreusek wrote: post #23

Didn't they try basically this before, then had it fail and discontinue in the form of iGoogle(2005-2013)? The idea of google going back to that is just nuts. At least DuckDuckGo has got the search page concept right.

This seems to auto-populate which is different, and is far simpler. iGoogle was widget based and relied on you to pick the info sources.

But iGoogle still was very popular. It was killed despite being used by many because Google decided everyone should use Google+ from now on.

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

#44

Post by BigJono »

headmelted wrote: post #37
rtpg wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

As a longtime Guardian reader, I'd be careful about implicitly declaring the Guardian as any more "legitimate" than anyone else. Can't speak on the topic of NYT, but at least in the case of the Guardian, it's clearly lowered its standards over the last several years to find a market. (I still read it, but it's slowly becoming a left-wing Daily Mail cough Owen Jones cough , which is really disappointing).

Yep, I read the Guardian's Australian edition every now and then and some of their stuff is absolute rubbish.

I'd love to know what the go-to center-left news source is over here. So far I haven't found it...

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

#46

Post by aphextron »

BigJono wrote: post #41
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…

> 10 years ago there was a such thing as standards in journalism Was there? Because last I checked all that these so called 'reputable' sources of news seem to put out is biased garbage full of misleading data and often blatant lies. I've seen better journalism from bloody buzzfeed than I have from some of the "proper" news networks in Australia...

>Was there? Because last I checked all that these so called 'reputable' sources of news seem to put out is biased garbage full of misleading data and often blatant lies.

The inculcation of this sentiment is precisely the effect I'm referring to. The waters have become so muddied with nonsense that no one can tell right from wrong anymore. And thus, actual news organizations with trained reporters and fact checkers and a tradition of at least being held to some kind of accountability lose all credibility. It's not a perfect system, but it's one which evolved to solve the exact problems we are facing here. There's a reason Trump attacks the media's credibility on a daily basis. Throwing your hands up and saying "it's all fake news" is precisely what the propagandists want.

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

#48

Post by abakker »

BigJono wrote: post #44
headmelted wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a longtime Guardian reader, I'd be careful about implicitly declaring the Guardian as any more "legitimate" than anyone else. Can't speak on the topic of NYT, but at least in the case of the Guardian, it's clearly lowered its standards over the last several years to find a market. (I still read it, but it's slowly becoming a left-wing Daily Mail cough Owen Jones cough , which is really disappointing).

Yep, I read the Guardian's Australian edition every now and then and some of their stuff is absolute rubbish. I'd love to know what the go-to center-left news source is over here. So far I haven't found it...

bloomberg.com, I think. Many of their articles border on totally apolitical.

edit to add: their core business isn't actually selling ads on news articles, which also helps quite a bit.

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

#50

Post by riffraff »

usaphp wrote: post #42

Who visits google.com anyway? I am pretty sure majority of those users who aren't interested in seeing these news are already using google search via browser address bar. Only those who go to google.com will see these news , and they seem to be an exact type of people who would enjoy such content and spend hours browsing it generating more revenue to google

I don't, but I like google now on my phone, and occasionally hit news.google. so, if google.com includes those two, I might start to visit it while on desktop.
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