Google News: Finally Out of Beta, Pretty Much!
Posted by Harry McCracken | Tuesday, January 24, 2006 12:39 AM PT
One of the most Googley things about Google has got to be its approach to betas. Much of the software world releases shipping products that should still be beta (or alpha); Google, on the other hand, keeps stuff labeled as beta long after it works so wonderfully well that it's become indispensable.
Google, by the way, sometimes calls its own traits "Googley," but I'm using my own definition here--which is that Googley behavior is contrarian, kind of admirable, possibly self serving, and a tad mysterious, as much (though not all) of Google's actions are.
Anyhow, the Official Google Blog says that Google News, after more than three years, is
departing betaland. (It's still labeled as "beta" as of this moment; maybe Google means it'll graduate in the next few days.) It also has a new personalized news feature that--assuming you let Google keep a history of your searches--will add some recommended stories to your news page. (I'm not sure why Google thinks I'll care about some of the stories it's spotlighting for me right now, but I assume that its suggestions will get savvier the more I search.)
As I've
remarked before, Google Groups, Google's Usenet service, may be some sort of record-setter when it comes to staying in beta. Unless Google takes it out of beta in the next month or so, I believe it'll have gone a full five years saddled with a moniker that suggests it's something less than fully baked. I'm not sure if Google has grand plans for Groups it hasn't gotten around to implementing, or whether it's unsatisfied with the service as it stands, or what.
The Froogle shopping search engine, which has also been kicking around a long time, is also stuck in beta. Clearly, the Google guys don't believe in social promotions.
As for other Google betas, it's worth
visiting Google Labs periodically to see what's in the works.
Google sucks.
No, You are mistaken.
You suck.
Google is the best search engine. Compared to other search engines such as netscape, yahoo, and others google has the smallest amount of popups with the largest degree of security. Not to mention that It functions on every browser and doesnt discriminate like yahoo does. And unlike other search engines you pretty much get back whatever you search for.
Pros-
Security
Low amount of popups
Search Results
Cons-
Google has cons? Can someone name one for me?
yahoo RULES..GOOGLE SUCKS
Hey Swagman. You being so internet saavy, im sure you prolly use a mac because you care as to a website descriminating against your browser.
Let me reinform you of your statements..."and unlike other search engines you pretty much get back whatever you search for". That is why we call it search engine.
Yahoo does not have popups you moron. do your research.
Go back into your crawlspace and play with your sh1tbox mac.
hate to break it to you both, but google nor yahoo has popups... furthermore, i dislike yahoo because of its java based "pop-ups" (useing the word loosely) the lil ads that pop up and u have to click close on.
yahoo's interface is also much more crowded, and returns A LOT LESS search results. for example, if u search for something nuetral... oh say... "computer"
yahoo returns: 1,160,000,000 results
google returns: 3,520,000,000 results
dont believe me? try it yourself.
i have nothing against yahoo's products, but it does indeed return less intelligent and few results.
google forever!
just never bring gmail out of beta plz.... then it will remain geeky forever!
the only reason google's products stay in beta is because they must be absolutly perfect to google's standard before they are "offically release". something i love about google.
Ever Wonder why when someone mentions Google, Yahoo fanatics come out to play and bash it, it's because Yahoo has secret spies crawling around the internet trying to prove it's worth whereas Google is just so good it has no need to do that. News companies and magazines promote it well enough and it works well enough that it can just sit back and enjoy eing great, unlike yahoo and other search engines
I wonder how many results after the first 100 for such a broad search matter. A gazillion results = 1 billion = 1 million = 100 results
Now look for something as narrow as "pachacutec first son war" and then we're talking.
Anyways, 8 years later, Google doesn't seem any wonder to me today but since I haven't found anything better yet I'm sticking to it for the foreseeable future.
Not a basher, but one theory I read elsewhere is that the reason Google News was in beta for so long is that they had trouble with the copyright owners - i.e. the newspapers that they were linking to.
Hey Turd Ferguson,
I run a Dell 2400 Pentium 4 Desktop with a Nvidia 6600 Video card.
I have Windows XP SP2.
Last time I checked....
WINDOWS =\= MAC
Idiot, you should learn something about computers you jackass, Google gets about 1million more search results on yahoo than any search. Can you list off hand, 1 million websites that have to do with computers? Yahoo can, and google can, both are good search engines, but google is better because of Less popups(non of which are java popups with hotspotted closes) and more search results.
I love google coz it's simple.
google is crazzyyyyyyyyyy