- Sponsored by:
September 14, 2007
Yahoo Acquires News Aggregator BuzzTrackerYahoo has acquired BuzzTracker, a news aggregator combining editorial judgment and algorithms taking into account how many times the story was blogged, and how recently.
BuzzTracker founder Alan Warms joins Yahoo as the general manager of News, along with his team. He is tasked with using the BuzzTracker technology to help improve the breadth and relevancy of Yahoo News content,regardless of the source.
"The decision to sell the business and move to Yahoo! was relatively simple. As anyone playing in the online space understands, online media is all about scale. The ability to garner real CPMs, the ability to sell ads directly, the ability to provide innovative solutions to advertisers, all depend on having tens of millions of unique visitors," Warms wrote on his Participate Media blog.
Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 3:58 PM | Permalink
August 5, 2007
Yahoo To Air Presidential DebateYahoo announced it will host an online only Presidential debate Sept. 12 with PBS's Charlie Rose as the host, the UK Register reported.
People will be able to submit video questions similar to those used on YouTube and CNN recently. This debate will only be broadcast online.
Posted by aussiewebmaster at 8:06 AM | Permalink
April 26, 2007
Images and videos appear at top of Yahoo News resultsOver the past two days, images and videos have started to appear at the top of results pages for relevant queries on Yahoo News. For example, do a search for news video, and here's what you see:
Posted by GregJarboe at 1:54 PM | Permalink
April 20, 2007
Addressing the Rights HoldersAt the recent SIIA (Software & Information Industry Association) conference, many traditional publishers heard Yahoo! appeal directly to their interests. Yahoo's Scott Moore explained that more than 80-90% of their content comes from licensing. He touted visitor access to great branded content, and the benefits for publishers.
While Moore was aiming to please, there’s no mistaking that Yahoo competes with publishers. Yahoo’s top priority is to improve site engagement, by encouraging visitors to stick around before heading to publisher sites and resources. Yahoo can draw on some of its own editorial and user-generated functionality too.
By contrast, these SIIA publishers are off-line powerhouses who often struggle to attract their own site visitors. They have cut licensing deals with Yahoo (and others) to expose their content elsewhere, via these portals.
Yahoo's success with social tools creates a wider gap that’s not going to close soon. John Blossom stated this best: “The ability to aggregate both content and communities gives [Yahoo] a powerful edge over most traditional media brands.”
Since Yahoo! has long-standing deals with many SIIA-member companies, Moore seemed to know a lot of people he addressed. Thus I’m not sure why he spent time touting Yahoo's content and capabilities, in a way that was making publishers green with envy. Is this how you treat your friends?
Posted by debbyr at 3:24 AM | Permalink
April 19, 2007
Virginia Tech news story increases traffic to Yahoo NewsHitwise has released some new data about online traffic figures surrounding the Virginia Tech news story. Traffic to Yahoo News increased 62% on Monday, April 16, versus traffic on Sunday, April 15. By comparison, online traffic to Google News increased only 6% over the same period.
* Online traffic to the Virginia Tech Facebook website increased 555% on Monday, April 16 versus traffic on Sunday, April 15. Compared to the previous Monday, April 9, traffic was up 407%. * Online traffic to News and Media websites increased 16% on Monday, April 16 versus traffic on Sunday, April 15. Compared to the previous Monday, April 9, traffic was up 27%. * Yahoo News was the most visited News and Media website on April 16 receiving 8.69% of all visits to the Hitwise News and Media category. * The TV Network websites saw big gains as well - ABCNews.com visits increased 245%, MSNBC.com increased 161%, and FOXNews.com increased 64% and CNN.com increased 59%.
Posted by GregJarboe at 8:27 AM | Permalink
April 16, 2007
PR.com adds Yahoo News to press release distributionPR.com has announced several upgrades and enhancements to its press release distribution service. This includes distribution to Yahoo News, social bookmarking, enhanced distribution via industry regional distribution channels, file attachments, and a PDF version of the press release.
While other press release distribution services offer similar features, the pricing for PR.com ranges from free to $199 a year for its high visibility option and $499 a year for its maximum visibility option.
Here are some of the enhancements and upgrades now available at PR.com:
● Yahoo News PR.com already distributed press releases to Google News, Topix.com, and other smaller news search engines. Now, it has added Yahoo News, the #1 visited news site, for those selecting the enhanced visibility level for their release.
● Social Bookmarking PR.com now provides the ability for people to add a press release to social bookmarking sites, such as Digg and Del.icio.us. While the Digg community rarely promotes press releases and tends to bury them, most of the other press release distribution services offer this feature. So, PR.com has jumped on the bandwagon.
● Industry Distribution Channels and Regional Distribution Channels By default, each press release is distributed globally. However, for those seeking industry focused news, each press release may now be additionally distributed to “Industry Distribution Channels” selected for the release. And, for those seeking relevant local news, each press release may now be additionally distributed to “Regional Distribution Channels” selected for the release. Of course, if you really want to reach targeted online media, there's no substitute for pitching them personally by email or phone. No online press release distribution newswire can replace the art of the schmooze.
● File Attachments You can now attach .gif, .jpg, .pdf, audio or video files, or Word documents to a press release. Again, other press release distribution services offer this feature -- but, generally, at higher prices.
● PDF Version of the Press Release A PDF version of the press release is automatically generated and made available for use for readers to download. While this creates duplicate content for the regular search engines, some people who want to forward an press release to others like this option.
Posted by GregJarboe at 12:51 PM | Permalink
March 28, 2007
Yahoo News Partners With Major Newspaper PublisherThe McClatchy Company, third largest newspaper publisher in the United States, will provide International news for the Yahoo News platform.
The companies issued a press release today explaining the newly formed partnership.
The release stated:
Yahoo! News and The McClatchy Company (NYSE:MNI) announced today that they will team up to offer international news coverage from a range of international geographic regions on Yahoo! News. The project, to be called "Trusted Voices," will offer in-depth perspectives and coverage from McClatchy foreign correspondents based in select regions, including Iraq, the Middle East, China and Latin America. The coverage will include traditional news stories from McClatchy newspapers and will further tap the regional expertise of the correspondents through exclusive blog reports designed to guide readers in understanding the news from these regions.
"The daily blog contributions from the international correspondents, combined with their traditional news reports, will offer our readers an on-the-ground perspective unavailable from traditional news outlets," said Scott Moore, head of news and information, Yahoo! "World News is among the most popular categories on Yahoo! News, and partnering with The McClatchy Company will significantly expand Yahoo!'s coverage of the world's most important regions."
"Trusted Voices" is expected to launch early in the second quarter of 2007, and the scope of the program will be expanded on the basis of early experience. One of the program's first initiatives will be the "Inside Iraq" blog written by native Iraqi staffers based in the McClatchy Baghdad bureau, which has been operating continuously since the U.S. invasion in 2003. McClatchy journalists based there and elsewhere in the region, such as Cairo and Jerusalem, also will contribute stories and blog posts and will advise Yahoo! readers about finding other sources for additional perspectives.
"This project marries Yahoo!'s enormous range of coverage and unmatched audience with unique 'Trusted Voices' from McClatchy who can supply almost personalized guidance for those readers who are searching for more," said Howard Weaver, McClatchy vice president, news.
About McClatchy
The McClatchy Company is the third-largest newspaper company in the United States, with 31 daily newspapers and approximately 50 nondailies. McClatchy-owned newspapers include The Miami Herald, The Sacramento Bee, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, The Kansas City Star, The Charlotte Observer, and The (Raleigh) News & Observer. In addition, McClatchy has a robust network of internet assets, including leading local websites in each of its daily newspaper markets, offering users information, comprehensive news, advertising, e-commerce and other services. The company also owns and operates McClatchy Interactive, an interactive operation that provides websites with content, publishing tools and software development; Real Cities the largest national advertising network of local news websites, including more than 140 newspaper websites; and 15 percent of CareerBuilder, the nation's largest online job site. McClatchy also owns 25.6 percent of Classified Ventures, a newspaper industry partnership that offers classified websites such as cars.com and apartments.com. McClatchy is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol MNI.
About Yahoo! News
Yahoo! News (http://news.yahoo.com) is the largest news site on the web. Offering consumers news from dozens of news outlets, and a News Search tool that searches more than 8,000 news sources, Yahoo! News is a leading platform for breaking news, offering up-to-the-minute access to every important story happening. Yahoo! News is part of the globally branded Yahoo! network that reaches hundreds of millions of unique visitors each month.
Posted by aussiewebmaster at 12:46 PM | Permalink
February 22, 2007
Yahoo! Sings The News - Will Investors Sing the BluesSinging newscasters? Why not just buy the Naked News - or is that next?
Is something wrong at Yahoo! ? Have the patients taken over the asylum?
There have been so many changes and moves going on at Yahoo lately that you need a dance card to keep track.
Okay every company restructures - and Yahoo has done that a couple of times recently (thanks to whoever leaked the memo giving a better idea of what motivated things over the past couple of months).
Staff are being juggled, people are leaving - okay.
Yahoo is pushing search into a corner - well in the case of International (for now) it is being combined with the media sales division (sort of like how MSN has been doing it).
In China they are moving to a business search engine - so niched search seems to be getting tested. If it succeeds in Asia watch for Europe and then the US to follow suit. Hey it is about being profitable, right.... leave the egos at the door and don't screw with the stock price!
Adapting the popularity and future potential of social networking, Yahoo has started some creative niched social portals. The Pontiac users group is an interesting case study (I have an article to write about this and will post it soon). The concept is a solid one that employs many of the Web 2.0 elements.
The stock price has been up and down lately - so I think investors would love to see a little unity and direction.
Hey maybe the crooner can sign the stock prices - at least that way they sound better!!!
Posted by aussiewebmaster at 12:17 PM | Permalink
February 19, 2007
Google News isn’t top dog in UK news search, eitherLast week, my article, “Is Google News the Tail Wagging the News Search Dog?,” appeared in Search Engine Watch – just as Search Engine Strategies was getting underway in London. The article cited data showing that Yahoo News and AOL News have larger unique audiences than Google News – in the US. So, what’s the story in the UK?
According to comScore Media Metrix, there were 17.3 million unique visitors to General News sites in the UK during December 2006. The #1 site in the category was BBC News, with 7.8 million unique visitors. Yahoo News was #2, with 3.6 million unique visitors. Google News had 2.7 million, The Sun Online had 2.6 million, Guardian.co.uk had 2.5 million, MSN News had 2.4 million, AOL News had 1.9 million, and Times Online had 1.9 million.
UK data from Nielsen//NetRatings provides a similar picture. BBC News ranked #1 in the Online Current Events and Global News Destinations category during December 2006, with 6.2 million unique visitors. Yahoo News was #2 with 2.6 million unique visitors. Guardian Unlimited had 2.1 million unique visitors, Times Online had 1.6 million, The Sun had 1.5 million, Google News had 1.3 million, MSN News & Weather had 1.1 million, and AOL News had 1.0 million.
When I showed this data to people in London last week, many said they were shocked by two findings.
The first was that Yahoo News, not Google News, was the top dog in UK news search.
On the other hand, very few of the people who I talked with in London seemed interested in the strong showing of MSN News or AOL News – or the fact that four of the top eight news sites are news search engines. Most of them appeared to be more concerned about who was on top.
The second shocker was the appearance of The Sun, one of Britain’s “red top” tabloids, in the rankings.
Unlike the “quality” newspaper sites in the UK, the red tops feature photos of scantily clad women on Page 3 and sensational stories like the one reporting that “Brit boobs are biggest.” And, going down-market now appears to be as popular a way of building an online audience as developing distinctive journalism that readers cannot find elsewhere.
Meanwhile, very few of the people who saw these findings seemed even remotely interested to hear that the BBC News is optimizing its headlines for news search engines. Most of the “lads” wanted to turn back to The Sun and re-examine Page 3.
Posted by GregJarboe at 1:48 PM | Permalink
January 18, 2007
Belgian editors go after Yahoo NewsAccording to a story by AFP, Belgium's French-speaking newspapers are seeking redress from Yahoo News -- after taking action against Google News a year ago. The editors group, Copiepresse, accuses Yahoo of violating copyright laws.
Posted by GregJarboe at 3:48 PM | Permalink
January 8, 2007
CNN.com to offer comprehensive on-site news searchShankar Gupta of OnlineMediaDaily reports that CNN.com has selected Inform Technologies to provide an on-site news search engine that "allows users to search other news sources without leaving the CNN site."
Launched in July 2006, Inform's publisher service allows news sites to offer their users comprehensive on-site news search, in the hopes of discouraging Web users from leaving sites to visit news search engines like Google News and Yahoo! News. The service also allows publishers to build special areas on their sites focused on specific topics or keywords.
Posted by GregJarboe at 8:58 AM | Permalink
December 29, 2006
Yahoo! Drops News Message BoardsYahoo announced they are dropping the message boards for their news vertical. They have announced they will be introducing new features in the near future.
Posted by aussiewebmaster at 11:29 PM | Permalink
December 19, 2006
Top news searches differ from top web searchesWhen is a search term not a search term? That’s a question worth asking after looking at a year’s worth of search results on Google, Yahoo and AOL.
Google has just released its 2006 Year-End Google Zeitgeist. To compile its year-end lists and graphs, Google reviewed a variety of the most popular search terms that people typed into its news search engine as well as its web search engine.
Here are the top searches in 2006 on Google News:
1. paris Hilton 2. orlando bloom 3. cancer 4. podcasting 5. hurricane katrina 6. bankruptcy 7. martina hingis 8. autism 9. 2006 nfl draft 10. celebrity big brother 2006
Now, compare the list above with the one below for the top searches in 2006 on Google:
1. bebo 2. myspace 3. world cup 4. metacafe 5. radioblog 6. wikipedia 7. video 8. rebelde 9. mininova 10. wiki
To state the obvious: The top news search terms are completely different from the top web search terms.
If you go to Yahoo’s Top Searches of 2006, you will also see some striking differences between Yahoo’s Top 10 Searched News Stories of 2006 and Yahoo’s list of the most popular web search terms this year.
The tragic passing of Steve Irwin and the mysterious death of Daniel Smith rank as this year’s top searched news stories. Interest in the Middle East also dominated the top rankings in 2006, with conflict in Iraq, the Israel Lebanon conflict and the Saddam Hussein trial all ranking well.
Here’s Yahoo’s list of top news search terms for 2006: 1. Steve Irwin death 2. Anna Nicole’s son dies 3. Iraq 4. Israel and Lebanon 5. U.S. elections 6. Fidel Castro stroke 7. North Korea Nuke 8. Jonbenet confession 9. Saddam Hussein trial 10. Danish Cartoon
In other words, it appears that one group of people is turning to Yahoo News Search for hard-hitting information.
Meanwhile, on another part of the portal, Britney Spears topped Yahoo’s list of most popular web search terms in 2006 – for the fifth time in six years. The rest of the search engine’s overall top 10 searches for the year were dominated by the under 30 celebrity set making a mark on pop culture.
Here’s Yahoo’s list of top 10 web search terms for 2006: 1. Britney Spears 2. WWE 3. Shakira 4. Jessica Simpson 5. Paris Hilton 6. American Idol 7. Beyonce Knowles 8. Chris Brown 9. Pamela Anderson 10. Lindsay Lohan
In other words, it appears that an entirely different group of people is turning to Yahoo Web Search for celebrity happenings and scandals – or the same group of people is conducting news searches in the office by day and different set of web searches at home by night.
If you go to AOL’s 2006 Year End Hot Searches, you’ll discover that it, too, appears to have a split personality.
The top 10 news topics at AOL News for 2006 were: 1. Gas prices 2. Steve Irwin 3. Immigration 4. Bird flu 5. Iraq 6. Natalee Holloway 7. Debra Lafave 8. Rush Limbaugh 9. Lebanon 10. Hurricane Katrina In other words, the group of people using AOL News seems interested in “hard news.”
Contrast that with AOL’s list of the top 10 web search terms for the year: 1. Weather 2. Dictionary 3. Dogs 4. American Idol 5. Maps 6. Cars 7. Games 8. Tattoo 9. Horoscopes 10. Lyrics
In other words, the group of people using AOL Search seems to be looking for general interest information.
So, why do top news search terms differ so often from top web search terms?
One possible explanation might be demographics and/or psychographics. The smaller group of people using news search may differ demographically and/or psychographically from the larger group of people using web search.
And, who knows, perhaps a higher percentage of news search engine users are older, richer, better educated, and more experienced search users with children and homes in suburbs. Or, maybe web search engine users have different lifestyles, behaviors, interests and values. We can’t say.
Why? Because there’s another possible explanation: Situational intent. Each of us often acts differently in different situations.
A new eye-tracking study from Enquiro found that “intent impacts searching.” For research-related queries, we tend to “thin slice” sponsored content out of the way. But, for purchase-related queries, we tend to focus more on sponsored content.
So, maybe most of us use web search engines to look for one type of information and we use news search engines to look for another.
While it may not be clear yet why top news search terms often differ from top web search terms, one thing is perfectly clear. They are often different.
So, using web search term research tools like Wordtracker, Keyword Discovery, Yahoo’s Keyword Selector Tool, or the Google AdWords Keyword Tool to identify potential web search terms makes a lot of sense. But, if you are trying to optimize a news story or press release, then using these same tools to identify potential news search terms may often produce mixed results.
If you are looking for news search terms, you might get better results using Google Trends, Google Suggest for Google News, the Yahoo News “also try” feature, or Keyword Discovery’s news keywords database. But, don’t be surprised if their news search term suggestions often seem surprising.
The most popular news search terms are often different from the most popular web search terms. That’s a fact you can take to the bank – even if we can’t explain why this is true just yet.
Posted by GregJarboe at 10:52 AM | Permalink
December 13, 2006
ABC News to be Yahoo News' top video content partnerAccording to Carly Mayberry of The Hollywood Reporter, ABC News will become the premiere video content partner of Yahoo News through an expansion of their current deal.
Under the new agreement, which is expected to be announced today, ABC News will double the amount of content it contributes to Yahoo News, including clips of breaking news stories as well as additional features and interviews like video segments from "Good Morning America" and "20/20."
The deal extends the current relationship between ABC News and Yahoo News, which began in September 2005. The new deal will showcase ABC News video more prominently throughout Yahoo News -- including on its front page, within other special sections on the site, and on relevant story pages.
According to Nielsen//NetRatings data for the week ending Nov. 26, Yahoo News is the most popular news site on the Internet, averaging 10.3 million unique visitors.
Posted by GregJarboe at 1:03 PM | Permalink
November 8, 2006
In The Election Results Race, Yahoo's The Winner
Like many Americans, I wanted to know what was up with the vote in the US midterm elections this morning. As a search analyst, I then wanted to know how the search engines performed in helping me find out. The results are in! Yahoo's the winner by far, but I'd still take the New York Times over it. Come along for an illustrated tour.
Google told us last month that Google Earth was all geared up to be an election guide. That's great if you've downloaded Google Earth and wanted to learn more before the election. But how about a quick, fast summary of what happened yesterday? What's Google got for us?
The Google home page is as minimal as always, no help there -- not even a special logo as in the 2004 race.
How about a search for "election results," which I think is a fair query to try. After all, using Google Trends, I can see a huge spike for that term after the last elections in the US:
I also checked the volume for just "results," and that was even higher whereas "elections" was much lower (see them all compared here). So my two queries for this test were "election results" and "results." On Google, both disappointed.
Here are election results on Google:
CNN's top with 2004 results! I know -- web search is always behind the times. That's why Google inserts that big news results OneBox unit above the regular results. Let's click on the main news link there, which takes us to news results:
Pretty bad. News about the dollar, stock prices -- but who won?!!! I've got to really work to figure this out, especially compared to the New York Times, as I'll show at the end of this story.
Maybe I head to the actual Google News home page:
Nope. I get some headlines telling me about the Democratic house victory, but it could be much better.
FYI, checking on a search for just results, I don't even get the news headlines inserted. Overall, I found Google to be a pretty poor resource.
How about Yahoo? The home page there immediately gives you some news:
If I actually gravitate to the picture and resist the pull of the search box, the "Full elections coverage" link takes me to a Full Coverage page with lots of info, including an interactive results page (my link takes that out of the normal pop-up box, but it still works great):
This is very, very nice. I can see at a glance who is ahead in the race for control of the US House Of Representatives, plus with a click I can check out the Senate or governor races. Selecting any state also gives me the information about races with that state.
I love this. It very similar to what impressed me at the New York Times. I hope Yahoo searchers found it. However, I suspect many bypassed it. To understand why, let's do that search for election results:
Similar to Google, Yahoo inserts a big "News Results" shortcut unit above the regular results, to help detour searchers into the freshest results. Of course, searcers might bypass that. If so, unlike Google, Yahoo has managed to get the CNN 2006 results page up rather than the CNN 2004 page. Nice. After that, there's Fox News 2006. But c'mon -- Yahoo's own special election results are third. This is one case where I'd totally applaud a little hand manipulation to get that to the top, especially to highlight that interactive results summary page.
Still, the web search results for this particular day at Yahoo far outshine Google. That's almost certainly due to some human editing, which is fine. Along with the sites I've mentioned, you get the New York Times politics page, USA Today's politics page, C-SPAN's 2006 results page, the ABC News politics page, CBS News's 2006 page, politics from the LA Times, then the Washington Post's 2006 results page. All of these are excellent choices. If Yahoo did human intervention to make this happen, kudos to them. You can check out a snapshot of the entire page here.
Over at Google, nothing is either timely or general enough. The Virginia state election board, California election info, assorted things dating from 2004 -- then oddly Virginia and California get another bump for their 2006 pages. Ugh. See the entire list in the snapshot here.
What happens if we detour into the news area that Yahoo promotes at the top of the page? Disappointment:
Yes, relevant news stories. And the image results to the side are kind of fun. But some hand help could have made a difference. How about a promo for that awesome election map of Yahoo's?
Let's go over to Ask, where I had high hopes. Ask has made a big deal of its special Smart Answers for the election, and they are cool. But will I see them? Yes, if I search for election:
I'd also get to this box if I went to the Ask home page and clicked on the Election Day link there:
But for election results (what I believe to be the more popular query), all I get is a small news unit:
The news unit will take me over to some news results, but like Yahoo's, these aren't thrilling. It's pick and choose through what you want, rather than any type of easy overview. As for a search on just results, that doesn't even bring back the news unit at all.
The overall web search results, similar to Google, are underwhelming. Nothing really helpful for the 2006 results pops up (see the full results in the snapshot here).
Even the special Smart Answers box, had it shown up, isn't that helpful for what I want now -- RESULTS! None of the featured links with it takes me to results.
Microsoft, what have you got for me at Windows Live Search? On the home page, nothing. For search on election results, it's disappointing old or non-targeted results (screenshot here). Unlike the others, there are no news results inserted above these. A search for just results is no better. If I specifically try a news search for election results, as with the others, there's no attempt to get me a comprehensive overview. It's up to me to review each story and hope for a good match.
Ironically, at the largely overshadowed MSN site, similar to Yahoo, I get a big election photo on the home page along with links, including one called "state-by-state results" that leads to MSNBC here. And over there is a pretty neat "Democracy Dashboard" giving me that type of overview I wanted:
It's a pity Windows Live didn't reach out to either MSN or MSNBC and do something special to point to this or somehow integrate it into the results.
What about AOL? From the home page, it's pretty easy to spot a link to a AOL election page with results for the House, Senate and more:
Searching for election results brings back disappointing Google listings in the main results. However, the new FullView column does a good job of dividing news into elections overall, US Senate coverage, US House coverage and more. And clicking on any of the "View all" links brings up the special AOL election page (see the full page here).
Now to the New York Times. I headed over there pretty much by chance. There are any number of newspapers I might of thought of off the top of my head, and usually its my original home town paper of the Los Angeles Times. But I hit the NY Times today, and boy was I glad.
Right on the home page, above the "fold" is an easy-to-spot election map. In seconds, it organized the most important information I was looking for into a way for me to know what was going on:
Drilling into the full map was even better. There, I could click on any state -- in particular the undecided ones -- and see the current situation:
Just when I was thinking "what if," I saw the "Create Outcomes" tab where I could click on a state and flip it to the Democrats or the Republicans to see how it might go with the Senate. Outstanding!
Other newspapers or web sites might have done as well with similar displays. If so, my apologies that this wasn't a review of the best election results sites. Instead, it was really meant to see how well the search engines held up as information resources for this particular news event.
Overall, I've written many times before that there's a role humans can play in search results. Today -- this was a perfect example of that. Yahoo almost certainly put some human effort into crafting results, and it was the clear victor in terms of quality of what was coming up in web search listings. AOL comes in second, again where human effort has helped its FullView listings help make up for the poor crawler-based results from Google.
In third, I put Google and Ask. Google's results were poor, but at least it floated some news results that may have helped. Ask, I was rooting for. But that Smart Answers box simply wasn't showing up for the queries I thought people were doing. Even if people were getting it for "election," it wasn't helpful to get election results. I really appreciate the effort, and if this had been for something other than actual results, Ask would have been great. In last place -- Windows Live.
This campaign of sorts is also one of those classic "what if" races. With just a little more effort, Yahoo would have had a landslide victory by getting people to its great overview page. The same is true for AOL. Ask, with just a bit more thought, could have had that box coming up for "election results" rather than just "elections" and added some links to get people to actual results. Windows Live, if it had remembered its MSN origins, might not be in last. And Google? A company that's all about organizing information might not have put in such a poor performance if it used some human power in the way the New York Times did.
Postscript: See also Case Study: Digg Versus Google News Traffic from me on my personal blog that covers how this article ultimately brought in lots of traffic from Google News from those unable to find election results there, along with lots of other data and a comparison to traffic from a top story at Digg on the same day.
Posted by Danny Sullivan at 4:17 AM | Permalink
October 16, 2006
CBS News Partnering With Yahoo; CBS News Stories In Google EarthYahoo adds CBS news to video lineup from the Associated Press covers how Yahoo News will be getting CBS News video clips from 14 local markets in the US to post to Yahoo News. Meanwhile, CBS Puts News on the Map Inside Google Earth from Micro Persuasion covers how CBS has a special feed (background here) that will plot CBS News stories within Google Earth. CBS appears to have been doing this since at least August, so it's not new nor requiring a specific partnership to do, as with the Yahoo program.
Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:12 AM | Permalink
March 22, 2006
A Deeper Look At Personalized News Search EnginesMark Glaser at MediaShift wrote a great review named Your Guide to Personalized News Sites. He reviews the history of personalized news sites, and discusses many of the new free options people have to search news with a personal touch. Here is a listing of some of the engines he reviewed;
Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:31 AM | Permalink
A Deeper Look At Personalized News Search EnginesMark Glaser at MediaShift wrote a great review named Your Guide to Personalized News Sites. He reviews the history of personalized news sites, and discusses many of the new free options people have to search news with a personal touch. Here is a listing of some of the engines he reviewed;
Posted by Kevin Heisler at 9:31 AM | Permalink
A Deeper Look At Personalized News Search EnginesMark Glaser at MediaShift wrote a great review named Your Guide to Personalized News Sites. He reviews the history of personalized news sites, and discusses many of the new free options people have to search news with a personal touch. Here is a listing of some of the engines he reviewed;
Posted by Kevin Heisler at 9:31 AM | Permalink
A Deeper Look At Personalized News Search EnginesMark Glaser at MediaShift wrote a great review named Your Guide to Personalized News Sites. He reviews the history of personalized news sites, and discusses many of the new free options people have to search news with a personal touch. Here is a listing of some of the engines he reviewed;
Posted by Kevin Heisler at 9:31 AM | Permalink
March 20, 2006
Yahoo Launches Local News BetaSearch Engine Journal reports that Yahoo News has launched a local beta version. For example, you can go to news.yahoo.com/local/New+York to check out local news in New York. I do not currently see an RSS feed for local news results. There is a link to "Suggest a Local News Source" that takes you here. I am a big fan of Yahoo's local efforts, especially at local.yahoo.com but these local news headlines can be done better, in my opinion. Postscript From Danny: Want to see all the local news available? Visit the Yahoo Local News home page here. You should see a map of the US with a drop down option to choose a state, then a local news area. Don't panic if that page then suddenly refreshes to automatically take you to a particular area. If that happens, look in the lower right-hand side of the page. You'll see a "Browse More Local News" area with the map and the drop-down box.
Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:24 AM | Permalink
Yahoo Launches Local News BetaSearch Engine Journal reports that Yahoo News has launched a local beta version. For example, you can go to news.yahoo.com/local/New+York to check out local news in New York. I do not currently see an RSS feed for local news results. There is a link to "Suggest a Local News Source" that takes you here. I am a big fan of Yahoo's local efforts, especially at local.yahoo.com but these local news headlines can be done better, in my opinion. Postscript From Danny: Want to see all the local news available? Visit the Yahoo Local News home page here. You should see a map of the US with a drop down option to choose a state, then a local news area. Don't panic if that page then suddenly refreshes to automatically take you to a particular area. If that happens, look in the lower right-hand side of the page. You'll see a "Browse More Local News" area with the map and the drop-down box.
Posted by Kevin Heisler at 10:24 AM | Permalink
Yahoo Launches Local News BetaSearch Engine Journal reports that Yahoo News has launched a local beta version. For example, you can go to news.yahoo.com/local/New+York to check out local news in New York. I do not currently see an RSS feed for local news results. There is a link to "Suggest a Local News Source" that takes you here. I am a big fan of Yahoo's local efforts, especially at local.yahoo.com but these local news headlines can be done better, in my opinion. Postscript From Danny: Want to see all the local news available? Visit the Yahoo Local News home page here. You should see a map of the US with a drop down option to choose a state, then a local news area. Don't panic if that page then suddenly refreshes to automatically take you to a particular area. If that happens, look in the lower right-hand side of the page. You'll see a "Browse More Local News" area with the map and the drop-down box.
Posted by Kevin Heisler at 10:24 AM | Permalink
Yahoo Launches Local News BetaSearch Engine Journal reports that Yahoo News has launched a local beta version. For example, you can go to news.yahoo.com/local/New+York to check out local news in New York. I do not currently see an RSS feed for local news results. There is a link to "Suggest a Local News Source" that takes you here. I am a big fan of Yahoo's local efforts, especially at local.yahoo.com but these local news headlines can be done better, in my opinion. Postscript From Danny: Want to see all the local news available? Visit the Yahoo Local News home page here. You should see a map of the US with a drop down option to choose a state, then a local news area. Don't panic if that page then suddenly refreshes to automatically take you to a particular area. If that happens, look in the lower right-hand side of the page. You'll see a "Browse More Local News" area with the map and the drop-down box.
Posted by Kevin Heisler at 10:24 AM | Permalink
February 2, 2006
Yahoo News Not Competing With Content Owners; Personalization, Better Recommendations May ComeGreg Linden points to the Budde Outlines Yahoo News Future article at MediaPost, where Yahoo News general manager Neil Budde reassures content owners that Yahoo News doesn't want to compete with them with its own original news content. Um, then why does Yahoo have it at all? Budde says Yahoo's own content will only be in areas underreported by the mainstream media. He also covers plans to create personalized news pages and the possibility of a better recommendation service, perhaps more Digg like in nature.
Posted by Danny Sullivan at 1:17 PM | Permalink
Yahoo News Not Competing With Content Owners; Personalization, Better Recommendations May ComeGreg Linden points to the Budde Outlines Yahoo News Future article at MediaPost, where Yahoo News general manager Neil Budde reassures content owners that Yahoo News doesn't want to compete with them with its own original news content. Um, then why does Yahoo have it at all? Budde says Yahoo's own content will only be in areas underreported by the mainstream media. He also covers plans to create personalized news pages and the possibility of a better recommendation service, perhaps more Digg like in nature.
Posted by Kevin Heisler at 1:17 PM | Permalink
Yahoo News Not Competing With Content Owners; Personalization, Better Recommendations May ComeGreg Linden points to the Budde Outlines Yahoo News Future article at MediaPost, where Yahoo News general manager Neil Budde reassures content owners that Yahoo News doesn't want to compete with them with its own original news content. Um, then why does Yahoo have it at all? Budde says Yahoo's own content will only be in areas underreported by the mainstream media. He also covers plans to create personalized news pages and the possibility of a better recommendation service, perhaps more Digg like in nature.
Posted by Kevin Heisler at 1:17 PM | Permalink
Yahoo News Not Competing With Content Owners; Personalization, Better Recommendations May ComeGreg Linden points to the Budde Outlines Yahoo News Future article at MediaPost, where Yahoo News general manager Neil Budde reassures content owners that Yahoo News doesn't want to compete with them with its own original news content. Um, then why does Yahoo have it at all? Budde says Yahoo's own content will only be in areas underreported by the mainstream media. He also covers plans to create personalized news pages and the possibility of a better recommendation service, perhaps more Digg like in nature.
Posted by Kevin Heisler at 1:17 PM | Permalink
October 10, 2005
Yahoo Integrates News, Blogs & Flickr Search ResultsYahoo is testing a new approach to delivering news search results, combining traditional media sources with "citizen journalism" from blogs and images from its Flickr photo sharing site.
Although not the long-anticipated blog/feed search that we know is coming soon, Yahoo's blending of news and blog sources is a nice way to get perspectives on current events from both professional and amateur sources.
Run a search on Yahoo News and your results will include traditional news sources from the 6,500 media outlets Yahoo crawls, as always. On the right side of search results you'll also see a pane with blog search results. Click on the "all blog results" link at the bottom of this pane, and you'll see a page with additional blog search results, as well as a new pane displaying Flickr images that have been tagged with keywords relevant to your search terms.
Results are sorted by relevance, with an option to sort by date. You can also use the new "topic tracker" to add your query to My Yahoo, or click the xml button to add a feed for the search to an RSS aggregator.
Blog posts are drawn from those included in the My Yahoo feed directory, a collection in the "high hundreds of thousands" of blogs. Yahoo plans to expand this coverage to the millions of blogs that ping its blo.gs service, but gave no date for when this additional coverage would be rolled out. Yahoo also plans to launch a stand-alone blog/feed search service in the near future.
The integration of blogs and news in Yahoo news search results is well done, clearly separating professional news sources from blogs, but making it easy to get content from multiple sources. Yahoo says that it's an easy way to expose the 20 million plus monthly Yahoo news users to the world of the blogosphere.
If you publish a blog and would like to be included in blogs displayed in Yahoo News search results, see the Publisher's Guide to RSS which has instructions on submitting your RSS feed to Yahoo.
Posted by Chris Sherman at 10:00 PM | Permalink
Yahoo Integrates News, Blogs & Flickr Search ResultsYahoo is testing a new approach to delivering news search results, combining traditional media sources with "citizen journalism" from blogs and images from its Flickr photo sharing site.
Although not the long-anticipated blog/feed search that we know is coming soon, Yahoo's blending of news and blog sources is a nice way to get perspectives on current events from both professional and amateur sources.
Run a search on Yahoo News and your results will include traditional news sources from the 6,500 media outlets Yahoo crawls, as always. On the right side of search results you'll also see a pane with blog search results. Click on the "all blog results" link at the bottom of this pane, and you'll see a page with additional blog search results, as well as a new pane displaying Flickr images that have been tagged with keywords relevant to your search terms.
Results are sorted by relevance, with an option to sort by date. You can also use the new "topic tracker" to add your query to My Yahoo, or click the xml button to add a feed for the search to an RSS aggregator.
Blog posts are drawn from those included in the My Yahoo feed directory, a collection in the "high hundreds of thousands" of blogs. Yahoo plans to expand this coverage to the millions of blogs that ping its blo.gs service, but gave no date for when this additional coverage would be rolled out. Yahoo also plans to launch a stand-alone blog/feed search service in the near future.
The integration of blogs and news in Yahoo news search results is well done, clearly separating professional news sources from blogs, but making it easy to get content from multiple sources. Yahoo says that it's an easy way to expose the 20 million plus monthly Yahoo news users to the world of the blogosphere.
If you publish a blog and would like to be included in blogs displayed in Yahoo News search results, see the Publisher's Guide to RSS which has instructions on submitting your RSS feed to Yahoo.
Posted by Kevin Heisler at 10:00 PM | Permalink
Yahoo Integrates News, Blogs & Flickr Search ResultsYahoo is testing a new approach to delivering news search results, combining traditional media sources with "citizen journalism" from blogs and images from its Flickr photo sharing site.
Although not the long-anticipated blog/feed search that we know is coming soon, Yahoo's blending of news and blog sources is a nice way to get perspectives on current events from both professional and amateur sources.
Run a search on Yahoo News and your results will include traditional news sources from the 6,500 media outlets Yahoo crawls, as always. On the right side of search results you'll also see a pane with blog search results. Click on the "all blog results" link at the bottom of this pane, and you'll see a page with additional blog search results, as well as a new pane displaying Flickr images that have been tagged with keywords relevant to your search terms.
Results are sorted by relevance, with an option to sort by date. You can also use the new "topic tracker" to add your query to My Yahoo, or click the xml button to add a feed for the search to an RSS aggregator.
Blog posts are drawn from those included in the My Yahoo feed directory, a collection in the "high hundreds of thousands" of blogs. Yahoo plans to expand this coverage to the millions of blogs that ping its blo.gs service, but gave no date for when this additional coverage would be rolled out. Yahoo also plans to launch a stand-alone blog/feed search service in the near future.
The integration of blogs and news in Yahoo news search results is well done, clearly separating professional news sources from blogs, but making it easy to get content from multiple sources. Yahoo says that it's an easy way to expose the 20 million plus monthly Yahoo news users to the world of the blogosphere.
If you publish a blog and would like to be included in blogs displayed in Yahoo News search results, see the Publisher's Guide to RSS which has instructions on submitting your RSS feed to Yahoo.
Posted by Kevin Heisler at 10:00 PM | Permalink
Yahoo Integrates News, Blogs & Flickr Search ResultsYahoo is testing a new approach to delivering news search results, combining traditional media sources with "citizen journalism" from blogs and images from its Flickr photo sharing site.
Although not the long-anticipated blog/feed search that we know is coming soon, Yahoo's blending of news and blog sources is a nice way to get perspectives on current events from both professional and amateur sources.
Run a search on Yahoo News and your results will include traditional news sources from the 6,500 media outlets Yahoo crawls, as always. On the right side of search results you'll also see a pane with blog search results. Click on the "all blog results" link at the bottom of this pane, and you'll see a page with additional blog search results, as well as a new pane displaying Flickr images that have been tagged with keywords relevant to your search terms.
Results are sorted by relevance, with an option to sort by date. You can also use the new "topic tracker" to add your query to My Yahoo, or click the xml button to add a feed for the search to an RSS aggregator.
Blog posts are drawn from those included in the My Yahoo feed directory, a collection in the "high hundreds of thousands" of blogs. Yahoo plans to expand this coverage to the millions of blogs that ping its blo.gs service, but gave no date for when this additional coverage would be rolled out. Yahoo also plans to launch a stand-alone blog/feed search service in the near future.
The integration of blogs and news in Yahoo news search results is well done, clearly separating professional news sources from blogs, but making it easy to get content from multiple sources. Yahoo says that it's an easy way to expose the 20 million plus monthly Yahoo news users to the world of the blogosphere.
If you publish a blog and would like to be included in blogs displayed in Yahoo News search results, see the Publisher's Guide to RSS which has instructions on submitting your RSS feed to Yahoo.
Posted by Kevin Heisler at 10:00 PM | Permalink
June 13, 2005
Yahoo News Beats Google News In Jackson VerdictThe fact that Google News uses automation to decide what to feature on its home page versus Yahoo employing human editors is often raised as a issue when comparing the services. In the case of the Michael Jackson trial, it looks like the humans won out. I've been watching both this afternoon to see how they responded to the not guilty verdicts in the case. All times listed are Eastern Daylight Savings Time.
- Approximately 3:50pm, Word Breaks that Verdict will be Read
- Approximately 4:00pm, Top Story at Yahoo News
- Approximately 4:27pm, Top Story at Google News
Note: The MJ story was listed at the top of Google News "Entertainment" section several minutes before being listed as a Top Story. Then, it was listed as only a headline in "Top Stories" before moving to one of the two top two stories (posted with image) on the left side of the "Top Stories" section.
- Approximately 5:14pm, Verdicts Begin Being Read
- Approximately 5:18pm, Reading of Verdicts Ends
- Approximately 5:19pm, Michael Jackson Acquitted Top Story on Yahoo News
- Approximately 5.41pm, Michael Jackson Not Guilty Listed Top Story at Google News
Posted by Gary Price at 6:29 PM | Permalink
Yahoo News Beats Google News In Jackson VerdictThe fact that Google News uses automation to decide what to feature on its home page versus Yahoo employing human editors is often raised as a issue when comparing the services. In the case of the Michael Jackson trial, it looks like the humans won out. I've been watching both this afternoon to see how they responded to the not guilty verdicts in the case. All times listed are Eastern Daylight Savings Time.
- Approximately 3:50pm, Word Breaks that Verdict will be Read
- Approximately 4:00pm, Top Story at Yahoo News
- Approximately 4:27pm, Top Story at Google News
Note: The MJ story was listed at the top of Google News "Entertainment" section several minutes before being listed as a Top Story. Then, it was listed as only a headline in "Top Stories" before moving to one of the two top two stories (posted with image) on the left side of the "Top Stories" section.
- Approximately 5:14pm, Verdicts Begin Being Read
- Approximately 5:18pm, Reading of Verdicts Ends
- Approximately 5:19pm, Michael Jackson Acquitted Top Story on Yahoo News
- Approximately 5.41pm, Michael Jackson Not Guilty Listed Top Story at Google News
Posted by Kevin Heisler at 6:29 PM | Permalink
Yahoo News Beats Google News In Jackson VerdictThe fact that Google News uses automation to decide what to feature on its home page versus Yahoo employing human editors is often raised as a issue when comparing the services. In the case of the Michael Jackson trial, it looks like the humans won out. I've been watching both this afternoon to see how they responded to the not guilty verdicts in the case. All times listed are Eastern Daylight Savings Time.
- Approximately 3:50pm, Word Breaks that Verdict will be Read
- Approximately 4:00pm, Top Story at Yahoo News
- Approximately 4:27pm, Top Story at Google News
Note: The MJ story was listed at the top of Google News "Entertainment" section several minutes before being listed as a Top Story. Then, it was listed as only a headline in "Top Stories" before moving to one of the two top two stories (posted with image) on the left side of the "Top Stories" section.
- Approximately 5:14pm, Verdicts Begin Being Read
- Approximately 5:18pm, Reading of Verdicts Ends
- Approximately 5:19pm, Michael Jackson Acquitted Top Story on Yahoo News
- Approximately 5.41pm, Michael Jackson Not Guilty Listed Top Story at Google News
Posted by Kevin Heisler at 6:29 PM | Permalink
Yahoo News Beats Google News In Jackson VerdictThe fact that Google News uses automation to decide what to feature on its home page versus Yahoo employing human editors is often raised as a issue when comparing the services. In the case of the Michael Jackson trial, it looks like the humans won out. I've been watching both this afternoon to see how they responded to the not guilty verdicts in the case. All times listed are Eastern Daylight Savings Time.
- Approximately 3:50pm, Word Breaks that Verdict will be Read
- Approximately 4:00pm, Top Story at Yahoo News
- Approximately 4:27pm, Top Story at Google News
Note: The MJ story was listed at the top of Google News "Entertainment" section several minutes before being listed as a Top Story. Then, it was listed as only a headline in "Top Stories" before moving to one of the two top two stories (posted with image) on the left side of the "Top Stories" section.
- Approximately 5:14pm, Verdicts Begin Being Read
- Approximately 5:18pm, Reading of Verdicts Ends
- Approximately 5:19pm, Michael Jackson Acquitted Top Story on Yahoo News
- Approximately 5.41pm, Michael Jackson Not Guilty Listed Top Story at Google News
Posted by Kevin Heisler at 6:29 PM | Permalink
May 20, 2005
Google News Study Finds Bias But Not Favoritism -- But Study Also Has Flaws A study has found that Google News results are significantly more likely to have an ideological bias than Yahoo News, though the bias will be on both ends of the spectrum.Caveat alert! The study involved only one particular type of story -- those related to the 2004 US presidential election. Findings on one story do not indicate the situation with other types.
You can read a summary of the study in Non-traditional sources cloud Google News results from Online Journalism Review. The full study in PDF format is available here. Below, I'll highlight the findings and then give my own comments:
Findings
- Bias was almost entirely attributed to "non-traditional" news sources. In other words, if all those non-traditional sites had been dropped, Google would have been seen as the same as Yahoo.
- Stories coming up for searches on "George W. Bush" and "John Kerry" were analyzed.
- Checks for stories were done every four hours in the two weeks before the actual election, resulting in 80 "snapshots."
- Five snapshots were chosen randomly, then the first five articles in each were analyzed.
- If articles required payment, a short "free" version was used if offered, otherwise the article was skipped and the "next highest" article was used.
- Articles were analyzed sentence-by-sentence to check for bias in a particular direction. Reviewers were given a code to determine if they reflected bias.
- Reviewers were also asked to rate stories overall, rather than on a sentence-by-sentence basis.
- Despite acknowledging some weaknesses in using candidate names (and exactly what style), the study used them anyway saying it emulated what an average user would do.
- While Google was found to have bias, it was more biased in both directions. In other words, Yahoo's results were more balanced overall. Google had balance and extremes at either end. It wasn't seen as slanted more or less toward liberal/conservative or Bush/Kerry.
My Observations
First, the study singles-out Google for not listing its sources. As a reminder, neither does Yahoo nor most any other news search engine I can think of, as I've written before.
Next, the study doesn't show any data of how an "average user" might search for either candidate or indeed, for information about the election at all. So when I'm told that using names in this way they were used in the way typical people might, I'm not reassured unless I see some query logs.
Most important, the study doesn't seem to take the clustering of news stories that Google does into account. Google will "cluster" similar stories under each other like this generated in a query I did on the word bush at Google News:
Bush May Risk Court Deadlock With Unpopular Choice (Update1) Bloomberg - 21 hours ago May 19 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush would risk a deadlocked US Supreme Court were he to choose someone ``way out of the mainstream'' to fill a ... Reid: Bush, GOP Seek to Reinvent Reality ABC News Reid: Bush, GOP Seek to Reinvent Reality Guardian Unlimited Possible Supreme Court Vacancy Said Driving Senate Battle Over ... Black Enterprise Savannah Morning News - San Francisco Chronicle - all 2,284 related
Social Security adviser casts doubt on Bush plan Chicago Tribune, IL - 6 hours ago WASHINGTON -- Robert Pozen, the business executive who developed the theory behind President Bush's plan to trim Social Security benefits in the future, urged ... How Bush Makes Sure They Agree Los Angeles Times Investment chief questions Bush plan Boston Globe Bush Committed to Private Accounts Plan ABC News Kansas City Star - Washington Post - all 265 related
Bush would veto House bill on stem cells Reuters - 1 hour ago WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush said on Friday he would veto legislation that would loosen restrictions on embryonic stem cell research and expressed ... Bush Vows Stem Cell Veto CBS News Bush threatens veto on stem cell research bill CNN Bush Says He'd Veto Bill Easing Stem Cell Fund Limits (Update1) Bloomberg news4colorado.com - FXstreet.com - all 229 related
Bush should have been told of plane scare - wife Reuters - 45 minutes ago AMMAN (Reuters) - Contradicting the White House line, US first lady Laura Bush said on Thursday the president should have been interrupted during a bike ride ... Mrs. Bush's 5-Day Mideast Mission CBS News Mrs. Bush: Trip Should've Been Interrupted Washington Post Mrs. Bush Says President's Bike Trip Should Have Been Interrupted ... KOTV Expressindia.com - all 85 related
Bush cheers FCAT scores for reading Sun-Sentinel.com, FL - 2 hours ago ... The results left Gov. Jeb Bush expressing confidence the state was moving in the right direction, despite problems in the upper grades. ... FCAT scores show Dade closing gap Miami Herald FCAT Scores Rise for Students in Grades 3 through 10 WJXX Younger students fare best on FCAT Gainesville Sun Tampa Tribune - Palm Beach Post - all 81 related
Now which five links are you counting? The ones shown in bold represent the links that are actually biggest on the Google News page. The other links are in a smaller font. Do you count the first five links you come to, or just the first biggest links. From what I can tell, the study counted just the biggest ones.
That makes a big difference when comparing to Yahoo. Yahoo doesn't cluster results, so it will show less diversity at a glance. In other words, Yahoo might show 10 stories that same the same thing, keeping alternative views out. In my experience, Google is better at clustering all 10 similar stories under one major headline/link, allowing others stories on slightly different topics/angles to emerge.
Here are more examples, to show this better. Going back to the list above, this is what you get if you count only the biggest/bold links:
- Bush May Risk Court Deadlock With Unpopular Choice (Update1)
- Social Security adviser casts doubt on Bush plan
- Bush would veto House bill on stem cells
- Bush should have been told of plane scare - wife
- Bush cheers FCAT scores for reading
As you can see, there are five different stories involved (Judicial Appointments, Social Security, Stem Cell Resarch, Plane Scare & FCAT scores).
Now compare to the first five stories listed at Yahoo News for bush:
- Bush says he does not fear violent reaction to Saddam photos
- Bush: I'll Veto Stem Cell Legislation
- Bush: Ideology Motivates Iraq Insurgents
- Bush would veto House bill on stem cells
- Bush threatens to veto bills easing ban on federal stem cell research funding
As you can see, there are essentially only two stories represented (Iraq, Stem Cell Research)
Now go back to Google. Let's say you took the first five news links -- not the biggest/bold news links, but literally the first five actual article links you came to, just as is the case with Yahoo
- Bush May Risk Court Deadlock With Unpopular Choice (Update1)
- Reid: Bush, GOP Seek to Reinvent Reality
- Reid: Bush, GOP Seek to Reinvent Reality
- Possible Supreme Court Vacancy Said Driving Senate Battle Over ...
- Savannah Morning News (Isakson says filibuster will fail to stop Bush's judicial nominations)
Now you can see only one story is represented -- that of the fight over judicial appointments.
And the point is? Google's system allows more different stories to appear in response to a query, if you count the biggest links. That means you may end up with more diversity in views -- and yes, more bias. But count things differently, and that might go away.
It's also somewhat troubling that if a story couldn't be read without paying, it was dismissed. Yahoo has agreements with major publishers so stories can be read right on its site. Google does not. By dismissing some inaccessible stories, further skewing or bias may have been brought into the study.
Overall, it's an interesting look, but I find it hard to feel that it concludes anything.
Want to comment? Please join our forum thread, Google News Unbiased When Blogs Left Out?Posted by Danny Sullivan at 1:25 PM | Permalink
Google News Study Finds Bias But Not Favoritism -- But Study Also Has Flaws A study has found that Google News results are significantly more likely to have an ideological bias than Yahoo News, though the bias will be on both ends of the spectrum.Caveat alert! The study involved only one particular type of story -- those related to the 2004 US presidential election. Findings on one story do not indicate the situation with other types.
You can read a summary of the study in Non-traditional sources cloud Google News results from Online Journalism Review. The full study in PDF format is available here. Below, I'll highlight the findings and then give my own comments:
Findings
- Bias was almost entirely attributed to "non-traditional" news sources. In other words, if all those non-traditional sites had been dropped, Google would have been seen as the same as Yahoo.
- Stories coming up for searches on "George W. Bush" and "John Kerry" were analyzed.
- Checks for stories were done every four hours in the two weeks before the actual election, resulting in 80 "snapshots."
- Five snapshots were chosen randomly, then the first five articles in each were analyzed.
- If articles required payment, a short "free" version was used if offered, otherwise the article was skipped and the "next highest" article was used.
- Articles were analyzed sentence-by-sentence to check for bias in a particular direction. Reviewers were given a code to determine if they reflected bias.
- Reviewers were also asked to rate stories overall, rather than on a sentence-by-sentence basis.
- Despite acknowledging some weaknesses in using candidate names (and exactly what style), the study used them anyway saying it emulated what an average user would do.
- While Google was found to have bias, it was more biased in both directions. In other words, Yahoo's results were more balanced overall. Google had balance and extremes at either end. It wasn't seen as slanted more or less toward liberal/conservative or Bush/Kerry.
My Observations
First, the study singles-out Google for not listing its sources. As a reminder, neither does Yahoo nor most any other news search engine I can think of, as I've written before.
Next, the study doesn't show any data of how an "average user" might search for either candidate or indeed, for information about the election at all. So when I'm told that using names in this way they were used in the way typical people might, I'm not reassured unless I see some query logs.
Most important, the study doesn't seem to take the clustering of news stories that Google does into account. Google will "cluster" similar stories under each other like this generated in a query I did on the word bush at Google News:
Bush May Risk Court Deadlock With Unpopular Choice (Update1) Bloomberg - 21 hours ago May 19 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush would risk a deadlocked US Supreme Court were he to choose someone ``way out of the mainstream'' to fill a ... Reid: Bush, GOP Seek to Reinvent Reality ABC News Reid: Bush, GOP Seek to Reinvent Reality Guardian Unlimited Possible Supreme Court Vacancy Said Driving Senate Battle Over ... Black Enterprise Savannah Morning News - San Francisco Chronicle - all 2,284 related
Social Security adviser casts doubt on Bush plan Chicago Tribune, IL - 6 hours ago WASHINGTON -- Robert Pozen, the business executive who developed the theory behind President Bush's plan to trim Social Security benefits in the future, urged ... How Bush Makes Sure They Agree Los Angeles Times Investment chief questions Bush plan Boston Globe Bush Committed to Private Accounts Plan ABC News Kansas City Star - Washington Post - all 265 related
Bush would veto House bill on stem cells Reuters - 1 hour ago WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush said on Friday he would veto legislation that would loosen restrictions on embryonic stem cell research and expressed ... Bush Vows Stem Cell Veto CBS News Bush threatens veto on stem cell research bill CNN Bush Says He'd Veto Bill Easing Stem Cell Fund Limits (Update1) Bloomberg news4colorado.com - FXstreet.com - all 229 related
Bush should have been told of plane scare - wife Reuters - 45 minutes ago AMMAN (Reuters) - Contradicting the White House line, US first lady Laura Bush said on Thursday the president should have been interrupted during a bike ride ... Mrs. Bush's 5-Day Mideast Mission CBS News Mrs. Bush: Trip Should've Been Interrupted Washington Post Mrs. Bush Says President's Bike Trip Should Have Been Interrupted ... KOTV Expressindia.com - all 85 related
Bush cheers FCAT scores for reading Sun-Sentinel.com, FL - 2 hours ago ... The results left Gov. Jeb Bush expressing confidence the state was moving in the right direction, despite problems in the upper grades. ... FCAT scores show Dade closing gap Miami Herald FCAT Scores Rise for Students in Grades 3 through 10 WJXX Younger students fare best on FCAT Gainesville Sun Tampa Tribune - Palm Beach Post - all 81 related
Now which five links are you counting? The ones shown in bold represent the links that are actually biggest on the Google News page. The other links are in a smaller font. Do you count the first five links you come to, or just the first biggest links. From what I can tell, the study counted just the biggest ones.
That makes a big difference when comparing to Yahoo. Yahoo doesn't cluster results, so it will show less diversity at a glance. In other words, Yahoo might show 10 stories that same the same thing, keeping alternative views out. In my experience, Google is better at clustering all 10 similar stories under one major headline/link, allowing others stories on slightly different topics/angles to emerge.
Here are more examples, to show this better. Going back to the list above, this is what you get if you count only the biggest/bold links:
- Bush May Risk Court Deadlock With Unpopular Choice (Update1)
- Social Security adviser casts doubt on Bush plan
- Bush would veto House bill on stem cells
- Bush should have been told of plane scare - wife
- Bush cheers FCAT scores for reading
As you can see, there are five different stories involved (Judicial Appointments, Social Security, Stem Cell Resarch, Plane Scare & FCAT scores).
Now compare to the first five stories listed at Yahoo News for bush:
- Bush says he does not fear violent reaction to Saddam photos
- Bush: I'll Veto Stem Cell Legislation
- Bush: Ideology Motivates Iraq Insurgents
- Bush would veto House bill on stem cells
- Bush threatens to veto bills easing ban on federal stem cell research funding
As you can see, there are essentially only two stories represented (Iraq, Stem Cell Research)
Now go back to Google. Let's say you took the first five news links -- not the biggest/bold news links, but literally the first five actual article links you came to, just as is the case with Yahoo
- Bush May Risk Court Deadlock With Unpopular Choice (Update1)
- Reid: Bush, GOP Seek to Reinvent Reality
- Reid: Bush, GOP Seek to Reinvent Reality
- Possible Supreme Court Vacancy Said Driving Senate Battle Over ...
- Savannah Morning News (Isakson says filibuster will fail to stop Bush's judicial nominations)
Now you can see only one story is represented -- that of the fight over judicial appointments.
And the point is? Google's system allows more different stories to appear in response to a query, if you count the biggest links. That means you may end up with more diversity in views -- and yes, more bias. But count things differently, and that might go away.
It's also somewhat troubling that if a story couldn't be read without paying, it was dismissed. Yahoo has agreements with major publishers so stories can be read right on its site. Google does not. By dismissing some inaccessible stories, further skewing or bias may have been brought into the study.
Overall, it's an interesting look, but I find it hard to feel that it concludes anything.
Want to comment? Please join our forum thread, Google News Unbiased When Blogs Left Out?Posted by Kevin Heisler at 1:25 PM | Permalink
Google News Study Finds Bias But Not Favoritism -- But Study Also Has Flaws A study has found that Google News results are significantly more likely to have an ideological bias than Yahoo News, though the bias will be on both ends of the spectrum.Caveat alert! The study involved only one particular type of story -- those related to the 2004 US presidential election. Findings on one story do not indicate the situation with other types.
You can read a summary of the study in Non-traditional sources cloud Google News results from Online Journalism Review. The full study in PDF format is available here. Below, I'll highlight the findings and then give my own comments:
Findings
- Bias was almost entirely attributed to "non-traditional" news sources. In other words, if all those non-traditional sites had been dropped, Google would have been seen as the same as Yahoo.
- Stories coming up for searches on "George W. Bush" and "John Kerry" were analyzed.
- Checks for stories were done every four hours in the two weeks before the actual election, resulting in 80 "snapshots."
- Five snapshots were chosen randomly, then the first five articles in each were analyzed.
- If articles required payment, a short "free" version was used if offered, otherwise the article was skipped and the "next highest" article was used.
- Articles were analyzed sentence-by-sentence to check for bias in a particular direction. Reviewers were given a code to determine if they reflected bias.
- Reviewers were also asked to rate stories overall, rather than on a sentence-by-sentence basis.
- Despite acknowledging some weaknesses in using candidate names (and exactly what style), the study used them anyway saying it emulated what an average user would do.
- While Google was found to have bias, it was more biased in both directions. In other words, Yahoo's results were more balanced overall. Google had balance and extremes at either end. It wasn't seen as slanted more or less toward liberal/conservative or Bush/Kerry.
My Observations
First, the study singles-out Google for not listing its sources. As a reminder, neither does Yahoo nor most any other news search engine I can think of, as I've written before.
Next, the study doesn't show any data of how an "average user" might search for either candidate or indeed, for information about the election at all. So when I'm told that using names in this way they were used in the way typical people might, I'm not reassured unless I see some query logs.
Most important, the study doesn't seem to take the clustering of news stories that Google does into account. Google will "cluster" similar stories under each other like this generated in a query I did on the word bush at Google News:
Bush May Risk Court Deadlock With Unpopular Choice (Update1) Bloomberg - 21 hours ago May 19 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush would risk a deadlocked US Supreme Court were he to choose someone ``way out of the mainstream'' to fill a ... Reid: Bush, GOP Seek to Reinvent Reality ABC News Reid: Bush, GOP Seek to Reinvent Reality Guardian Unlimited Possible Supreme Court Vacancy Said Driving Senate Battle Over ... Black Enterprise Savannah Morning News - San Francisco Chronicle - all 2,284 related
Social Security adviser casts doubt on Bush plan Chicago Tribune, IL - 6 hours ago WASHINGTON -- Robert Pozen, the business executive who developed the theory behind President Bush's plan to trim Social Security benefits in the future, urged ... How Bush Makes Sure They Agree Los Angeles Times Investment chief questions Bush plan Boston Globe Bush Committed to Private Accounts Plan ABC News Kansas City Star - Washington Post - all 265 related
Bush would veto House bill on stem cells Reuters - 1 hour ago WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush said on Friday he would veto legislation that would loosen restrictions on embryonic stem cell research and expressed ... Bush Vows Stem Cell Veto CBS News Bush threatens veto on stem cell research bill CNN Bush Says He'd Veto Bill Easing Stem Cell Fund Limits (Update1) Bloomberg news4colorado.com - FXstreet.com - all 229 related
Bush should have been told of plane scare - wife Reuters - 45 minutes ago AMMAN (Reuters) - Contradicting the White House line, US first lady Laura Bush said on Thursday the president should have been interrupted during a bike ride ...