Comments on: You’re on Google News

By: Michael Ward

Michael Ward — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Damn it, I can’t make it so I’ll miss out on my free copy of Arial :(

Anyone fancy sneaking in a camcorder and sending me a pirate copy, sounds like an interesting panel.

Like the google thing as well…

By: Lance

Lance — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Thanks for the tip on the customization for Google News – it definitely is the one of the only news sites that offers that much “personal” or customer content on the front page. I think back to My Yahoo, but they still decided what articles, etc. even though you could choose the topics somewhat.

I hadn’t had a chance to thank you on the expired domain article, as it was perfect timing for me. I read it last night and was trying to decide on a domain that has huge importance to me; the domain incidentally was expiring…today! We’ll see what happens (I have submitted a couple backorders through Godaddy and Snapnames and I’m keeping my fingers crossed!).

SXSW! Glad to have at least one panel specifically on typography, and I plan on being there Tuesday morning, hopefully in the first 100. It’s not as hot of a topic as it should be, in my opinion. Thanks again for the great posts in the last few days, at least one of them will hopefully save my bacon.

By: Jeremy Flint

Jeremy Flint — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Now if we could just get Google to start offering RSS feeds for their news, it would be complete.

I hate that I will miss your panel (flying out monday afternoon) but we still need to get a Fantasy league meet-up in sometime.

By: Mike (mdipi)

Mike (mdipi) — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Wow, I dont think that i would have seen that if i didnt read this. In fact, I did read this and still didnt find it.

For those of you that are having trouble, look on the right, you will see big text thats says “Customize this page!” hard to miss :D.

As Jermy mentioned, Google News RSS and we’d be set! CNN and the BBC already do it, so it shouldnt be to hard fo them to do.

Great find!

By: Pete F.

Pete F. — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Google Blog has just been updated with the News news ;-) http://google.blogspace.com/archives/001607

By: Cody Lindley

Cody Lindley — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

What kind of license comes with the Arial font? Can I use on the web, print, and video?

(Editor’s Note: Yes, we will be giving away special volume licenses with unlimited usage rights. Don’t miss out.)

By: Adam

Adam — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Damn... I will try to make it if you throw in Comic Sans

By: gb

gb — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Silly as it may sound, but this may actually make me use Google News more often. I mean, one site to aggregate all my apple news (including all the apple news sites?)…

(side note: Mike, I’m seeing scrollbars on every comment block in Firefox 1.0.1/Mac… umm… yeah)

By: Ben

Ben — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I had to laugh when I saw that feature last night. Its pretty much identical to my senior thesis project I did in the first half of 2002. Except mine only allowed you to choose from a predefined list of topics (the only free xml feeds I could find at the time), but it was was all in Flash so you could drag the different modules around, resize them and adjust their color and control their font.

Turns out Google has access to slightly more resources than I did as a college senior. Think I could sue and claim “prior artwork”? :)

Ben

By: Joe D'Andrea

Joe D'Andrea — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Nice. I was wondering when you'd start giving away fonts. No wait - I mean I was wondering when Google News would bring customization to the mix! (Alright, and the font thing too. Can I take a raincheck?) I've weighed in elsewhere with my $0.02 on the Google News News. On my wishlist: Ability to shift news sections in more than one direction (right now you can only shift things downward, with some possibly unexpected side-effects), and more flexibility in defining keywords (e.g., "CSS or cascading style sheets"). Wishlist aside, I agree - this is a big step in the right direction. Well done Google!

By: Why do I have to fill out my name?

Why do I have to fill out my name? — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Haha, you’re as important as the entire fields of health or science :)

By: Eric Wright

Eric Wright — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

For all you coding pedants out there, there’s an HTML encoding problem on for the custom sections. To trigger it, create a custom section in quotes:

“Mike Davidson”

Save changes, then edit it again. It transforms to:

"Mike Davidson"

Save changes and edit again, and it’s:

"Mike Davidson"

Then

&quot;Mike Davidson&quot;

And so on, ad infinitum. I’ve certainly made mistakes like this (encoding in only one direction), but I’m surprised an organization like Google would make a rookie mistake.

By: Martin Neczypor

Martin Neczypor — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

@Eric Wright: Well, Google News is in beta so little bugs can be expected, but when would a person need to use quotes around their custom sections? It seems really minor to be categorized as a “rookie mistake”.

By: Eric Wright

Eric Wright — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Martin,

I would expect quotes to work the same as they do for web searches – to find news for a phrase instead of a group of words (eg, “New York University” is a specific phrase, and just finding news for New, York, and University will bring up a broader range of news stories that don’t have to do with NYU).

It is minor, but it’s the kind of thing I always feel a little embarrased when I catch something like this in my own code. That’s why I consider it “rookie”.

By: kines

kines — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Apparently they’ve released this feature long before on other Google international pages because I’ve seen it on Google France for about a week now.

(Editor’s Note: I posted this about a week ago. :) )