Google has just done a complete redesign of the Google News site which should make it much more interesting for users. Rather than a simple static page full of news you may or may not be interested in, Google is now making it possible for you to customize your sources and articles. This should make it easier to find news relevant to you.
The primary news feed on the site is now called News For You and you have almost complete control over what shows up. The next time you visit Google News, you should see a customization dialog mid-way down the page. This wizard will let you rate what topics you want to see based on how often you read them. You can specify Never, Sometimes, and Always for each topic.
If a specific topic seems to be missing, you can add it using the search box. For instance, type African-American in the box, click Add, and you can see the latest news related to the AA community. You can be pretty creative with what you specify here to get exactly what you want. You specify whether the layout is divided into topic sections or just a river or list of news stories. Once you find a story you like, you can hover the title to display more related stories.
You don’t have to customize your Google News. Simply close the personalization box without making any changes and Google News will work like it always has. If you have made customizations and are not happy with the results, simply open the customizations box and click Reset Customizations.
For more fine-tuned control, click the arrow on any cluster of stories and choose whether you want to see more stories from that source or less. From this menu, you can also shore the cluster via Email, Google Reader, Facebook, Twitter, or Google Buzz.
Last, but certainly not least, you can now navigate Google News using keyboard shortcuts. There are only a few now, but they come in very handy:
- j or n – next story
- k or p – previous story
- . or f – open the options menu
- s – star a story
- / – search
Have you tried the new Google News?