The news aggregator developed by Google in 2002 presents a continuous flow of live news, customizable articles by many versatile publishers, and interesting magazines. The homepage presents news in categories such as World News, US, Business, Science, Technology, Sports, etc. There is also a search button on the home page to search and select news. Google News redesign is seen which shows the major changes in the priorities in Google’s thinking about journalism. Google News redesign puts great prominence on local stories.
The news desktop is more inclined toward the important stories. There is a corner for the top stories and personalized picks but particular focus is now on the local stories as the local story section is at the top of the page. One can even customize and add multiple locations in case the city coverage is not enough for the viewer.
Google has given independence to its users to choose their topics of interest for the news updates. For that, there is a customized icon on the right side of the page that says “Customize”. The reader can choose, add and delete or can even reshuffle topics to match their own tastes. So the customize claim has been given a place just next to the headline.
The redesign also supports the long-running campaign of Google News which is an initiative to support the newsrooms to keep the quality of the news up to date. In this regard, Google started taking applications for the Global News Equality fund which will keep the minority circles within the loop. A Data-Driven Reporting Project has also been started which will give funding to these underrepresented groups. This project will assist communities with data-heavy investigations.
Let’s see how people will react to the redesign in the future. It seems to be a good effort as in the past people used to scroll past the multiple sections to see the local news. The new layout is also giving a modern look which will surely attract the news readers. The simpler layout will surely attract more readers and will force them to skip the specific media outlets or dedicated apps for the News updates and articles.
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