Google News Gets a Facelift

I did a double-take logging on to Google News this morning when I noticed Google has given its interface a much-needed overhaul. Google has not mentioned the new interface on either its official Google Blog, where the company often announces new Google features and services, or in a press release. Google also is apparently not ready to roll out the new interface to everyone. The revamped interface, as of this writing, is only appearing in my Internet Explorer browser and not when I access Google News using Firefox. (click on above image, or here, for complete screenshot of new interface)

What's new about the interface? The most striking difference is that Google News now features content blocks that run along the right side of the Google News page, introducing modules such as Featured Video, Developing Stories, In The News, Featured Photo, Images, Popular Stories, and Interesting Stories. If you're familiar with Google News you know that the In The News content block was always there - but the others are new.

Google has also revamped the look of its news page, reducing the size of fonts, making subtle cosmetic changes to menus, and stacking news content categories such as Sports, Health, and Sci/Tech in one column instead of laying them out in two columns.

(Old Sci/Tech)

(New Sci/Tech)

The changes are great and add a fresh look to the Google News, which has begun to look stale compared to competing destinations for news junkies. In fact, Google News hasn't really changed that much since I reported on its launch in 2002. Content blocks on the right aren't exactly matching offerings from social bookmarking sites and news aggregators such as Digg, Techmeme, and Yahoo News. But Google appears to be embracing some aspects of their approach as it tries to compete more squarely with those news destination sites.

My guess is all content blocks generated by Google News are based on algorithms. The introduction of content blocks on the right side could open up the door for Google to introduce Digg-like voting on stories and hints of future reader comments alongside news stories.

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