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I keep hearing Google News, but I can't see how and why people would use it frequently. Is anybody here using it? What for?

by fh973 9y ago

wyldfire 9y ago
I use it at least daily to get updates on what's going on in my city, around the world and with my interests.
andybak 9y ago
I check it most days as I like to skim a variety of international news sources in one list. I'd welcome suggestions of alternatives - especially if I could filter out the Daily Mail and other low quality sources.
- vatueil 9y ago
  You can filter out the Daily Mail in Google News, too. Scroll down to "See news from your favorite sources" for how to block/prefer certain sources: https://support.google.com/news/answer/1146405 https://support.google.com/news/answer/1146405
- blowski 9y ago
  I guess you don’t like the Daily Mail because it’s a source of nationalist sensationalism rubbish at its worst, and I completely agree with you about that. But I’m worried that, by filtering it out, we create tribal echo chambers. Personally, I hold my nose, read at least some of the articles, and try to argue against them.
- jasonjayr 9y ago
  Someone mentioned this on HN before: https://spidr.today/ https://spidr.today/ It seems like a reasonable alternative. I wonder how sites will react if it gets as big as Google.
vatueil 9y ago
To prevent possible confusion, I should first note that there are several different ways users may find news articles via Google: in search results, suggested articles in mobile Chrome, articles in your Google feed (formerly Google Now), the Google Play Newsstand app (which unlike the others supports paid subscriptions), and probably others I'm forgetting. In this case the subject is Google News: https://news.google.com https://news.google.com Personally, I use Google News because it's better at finding news I want to read than other aggregators (including other feeds from Google itself, at least for a while). The options to customize the topics I'm interested in and to block/prefer certain news sources are tremendously useful, while at same time it also brings up news from sources I haven't heard of before so I'm not limited to a handpicked selection. Google News is also good for browsing articles from many different sources about a single news story. Most news cards show at least two, and you can expand the card and click "view full coverage" to bring up all the related articles. Makes it easy to peruse all the coverage.
pre 9y ago
Usually if there's some news story that people are talking about and I dunno what the story is about I'll do a Google News search on it to find out. Often can't do a normal google search coz then it mostly shows reference and history rather than latest news story.
Semaphor 9y ago
When I search for bitcoin, I get random sites. But when I wanna know why the price just jumped/crashed, I click on news and see why people panic bought/sold this time.
michaelcampbell 9y ago
> but I can't see how and why people would use it frequently. I suspect you can, to both of these and are using hyperbole to make some point? What is it?

I keep hearing Google News, but I can't see how and why people would use it frequently. Is anybody here using it? What for?

by fh973 9y ago

I keep hearing Google News, but I can't see how and why people would use it frequently. Is anybody here using it? What for?

wyldfire 9y ago

I use it at least daily to get updates on what's going on in my city, around the world and with my interests.

andybak 9y ago

I check it most days as I like to skim a variety of international news sources in one list. I'd welcome suggestions of alternatives - especially if I could filter out the Daily Mail and other low quality sources.

vatueil 9y ago
You can filter out the Daily Mail in Google News, too. Scroll down to "See news from your favorite sources" for how to block/prefer certain sources: https://support.google.com/news/answer/1146405 https://support.google.com/news/answer/1146405
blowski 9y ago
I guess you don’t like the Daily Mail because it’s a source of nationalist sensationalism rubbish at its worst, and I completely agree with you about that. But I’m worried that, by filtering it out, we create tribal echo chambers. Personally, I hold my nose, read at least some of the articles, and try to argue against them.
jasonjayr 9y ago
Someone mentioned this on HN before: https://spidr.today/ https://spidr.today/ It seems like a reasonable alternative. I wonder how sites will react if it gets as big as Google.

vatueil 9y ago

To prevent possible confusion, I should first note that there are several different ways users may find news articles via Google: in search results, suggested articles in mobile Chrome, articles in your Google feed (formerly Google Now), the Google Play Newsstand app (which unlike the others supports paid subscriptions), and probably others I'm forgetting. In this case the subject is Google News: https://news.google.com https://news.google.com Personally, I use Google News because it's better at finding news I want to read than other aggregators (including other feeds from Google itself, at least for a while). The options to customize the topics I'm interested in and to block/prefer certain news sources are tremendously useful, while at same time it also brings up news from sources I haven't heard of before so I'm not limited to a handpicked selection. Google News is also good for browsing articles from many different sources about a single news story. Most news cards show at least two, and you can expand the card and click "view full coverage" to bring up all the related articles. Makes it easy to peruse all the coverage.

pre 9y ago

Usually if there's some news story that people are talking about and I dunno what the story is about I'll do a Google News search on it to find out. Often can't do a normal google search coz then it mostly shows reference and history rather than latest news story.

Semaphor 9y ago

When I search for bitcoin, I get random sites. But when I wanna know why the price just jumped/crashed, I click on news and see why people panic bought/sold this time.

michaelcampbell 9y ago

> but I can't see how and why people would use it frequently. I suspect you can, to both of these and are using hyperbole to make some point? What is it?