4 ms·

Why the New Google News Sucks

39 points by wazoox 16y ago

wazoox 16y ago
As he mentioned, the international versions of Google news still use the traditional layout. It's not hard to find it incredibly better...
billjings 16y ago
Check out the political rant masquerading as #1.
- wazoox 16y ago
  He doesn't masquerade anything; it states that the new layout isn't as politically neutral as the old one, and affirms it to be a bad thing, which is hard to argue against given the sad state of politics in the US.
  - billjings 16y ago
    Well, right or wrong, it was a little out of left field in the midst of an extended design critique. And saying it was "a force in stabilizing the United States of America" is a little bit overblown.
    - protomyth 16y ago
      I agree with you about the overblown part, but I do think it has a part in a design article. The selection of information is an important factor in the final output from a design perspective. Design is not just look and layout without consideration of content and content selection. That being said, I kinda like being able to exclude certain sources, but mostly for a different reason then to create and echo chamber. I like excluding sites that have poor viewing experience.
    - acqq 16y ago
      I don't think so. That was the first mainstream channel which provided convenient links to news in English even from other countries.
- hugh3 16y ago
  It's not much of a political rant; I can't even tell which side of politics he's on by reading it.
CapitalistCartr 16y ago
"The United States of America has the oldest government in the world." That's sure not true. Iceland holds that distinction. Google News might have screwed up their layout, but Google is still helpful for fact checking before publishing.
- hugh3 16y ago
  That's not a matter of fact, that's a matter of semantics. Checking up on your fact, I find that the Althingi was founded in 930 but suspended in 1789 and Iceland was ruled by Denmark until 1918, so that doesn't sound very continuous. England has had a (Cromwell aside) unbroken series of monarchs since 1066, does that count? Still, the US should get some kind of old-government distinction since it's had absolutely uninterrupted constitutional democracy on all levels since Washington's time. (At least in the states that didn't secede.)
  - waqf 16y ago
    The author had to mention England explicitly in order to give an excuse for why it didn't count. (I would be interested to learn when this supposed "transition from monarchy to democracy" took place. 1215? 1689?) Yes, that was the paragraph that lost me all respect for the article.
  - saulhoward 16y ago
    > the US should get some kind of old-government distinction "Washington's time" was only 270 years ago! As experiments in government go, the USA is still a spring-chicken.
Hoff 16y ago
I stopped visiting both Google News and BBC News because of their respective and recent UI degradations; the former because I can't find anything and the latter because I can't find what I used to. Both web sites have been replaced with the Reuters and BBC News iOS apps.
cdr 16y ago
I changed my "edition" to Canada, as that's apparently the only way to avoid the new design. Hopefully it takes them a very long time to push the new design to other editions.

39 points by wazoox 16y ago

As he mentioned, the international versions of Google news still use the traditional layout. It's not hard to find it incredibly better...

billjings 16y ago

Check out the political rant masquerading as #1.

wazoox 16y ago
He doesn't masquerade anything; it states that the new layout isn't as politically neutral as the old one, and affirms it to be a bad thing, which is hard to argue against given the sad state of politics in the US.
- billjings 16y ago
  Well, right or wrong, it was a little out of left field in the midst of an extended design critique. And saying it was "a force in stabilizing the United States of America" is a little bit overblown.
  - protomyth 16y ago
    I agree with you about the overblown part, but I do think it has a part in a design article. The selection of information is an important factor in the final output from a design perspective. Design is not just look and layout without consideration of content and content selection. That being said, I kinda like being able to exclude certain sources, but mostly for a different reason then to create and echo chamber. I like excluding sites that have poor viewing experience.
  - acqq 16y ago
    I don't think so. That was the first mainstream channel which provided convenient links to news in English even from other countries.
hugh3 16y ago
It's not much of a political rant; I can't even tell which side of politics he's on by reading it.

CapitalistCartr 16y ago

"The United States of America has the oldest government in the world." That's sure not true. Iceland holds that distinction. Google News might have screwed up their layout, but Google is still helpful for fact checking before publishing.

hugh3 16y ago
That's not a matter of fact, that's a matter of semantics. Checking up on your fact, I find that the Althingi was founded in 930 but suspended in 1789 and Iceland was ruled by Denmark until 1918, so that doesn't sound very continuous. England has had a (Cromwell aside) unbroken series of monarchs since 1066, does that count? Still, the US should get some kind of old-government distinction since it's had absolutely uninterrupted constitutional democracy on all levels since Washington's time. (At least in the states that didn't secede.)
- waqf 16y ago
  The author had to mention England explicitly in order to give an excuse for why it didn't count. (I would be interested to learn when this supposed "transition from monarchy to democracy" took place. 1215? 1689?) Yes, that was the paragraph that lost me all respect for the article.
- saulhoward 16y ago
  > the US should get some kind of old-government distinction "Washington's time" was only 270 years ago! As experiments in government go, the USA is still a spring-chicken.

Hoff 16y ago

I stopped visiting both Google News and BBC News because of their respective and recent UI degradations; the former because I can't find anything and the latter because I can't find what I used to. Both web sites have been replaced with the Reuters and BBC News iOS apps.

cdr 16y ago

I changed my "edition" to Canada, as that's apparently the only way to avoid the new design. Hopefully it takes them a very long time to push the new design to other editions.