Google has been experimenting with its Google News page for a while, but now it has placed a link on the front page of the site, so it must mean business.
The front page is full of US and World News, in that order, but don't be put off. If you do any simple search you will find lots of British stuff, and from unexpected sources too. I just looked up Estelle Morris and found, aside from the usual big names, reporting and commentary from local papers all across the country.
As usual from Google, it's very quick and uncluttered, and you can use the normal Google search techniques. Weirdly, it wouldn't let me look just in 'gov.uk' sites for dear Estelle, although I could do the same trick with 'bbc.co.uk' sites.
Also, there is no cache, so if the site is not working properly you're out of luck. Nonetheless, it's another Google winner. If I was, say, NewsNow, I would be slightly alarmed.
Posted by: John Morrish on October 1, 2002 09:01 AM
The most comprehensive set of transport timetable links yet, from UKPTI - The U.K. Public Transportation Site.
The site even has live links to the departure board at your local station, so you can discover how late the trains are before you even set out from home. Coaches, buses, ferries and planes are also covered. And no irritating nonsense about registering and logging in. Good work.
Or almost as it happens... Some of my Advanced Reporting trainees wanted to know how to search only things that have just appeared in Google's index.
Well, there's an extremely complicated way, and there's a sensible way, which is to go straight to Tara Calishain's brilliant GooFresh -- Fresh Google Results! page. There she has a search box that lets you find Google pages that were indexed today, yesterday, within seven days and within 30 days. It almost turns Google into a news search engine, and extends its usefulness no end.
Well done Tara (again). While you're there, do sign up for her ResearchBuzz email newsletter. It's very informative, but entertaining with it.
A nice little article in SearchDay about how to deal with Information Overload. It's something we are all suffering from these days, although it's not quite so bad as misinformation overload (see below).
Conspiracies R UsShould you feel you've missed out on the conspiracy theories swirling around the terrible events of last September, you could take a look at Where is the Plane, Flight 77?, which appears to prove that whatever blew a hole in the front of the Pentagon on 11/09/01 was not an airliner. As they say, where is the plane? Where are bits of engine? Where's the crater? Where are the bodies? Compare these pictures to those of, say Lockerbie, and you will certainly have questions of your own.
That's not to say anyone should accept this site's interpretations of events. Its owners also appear to believe that the UN, EU and Pentagon are part of a global Jewish conspiracy to enslave US Christians, among other things. Fans of Jon Ronson will have heard this stuff before.
Look, ponder, but follow the links and find the grim places they end up. Personally, it all makes me glad to be British, European and broadly rational.
Those who thought the word 'portal' had died with the dotcom boom had better take a look at Journalist Express, which describes itself as a 'News and research portal for reporters'. Mainly I see lots of links to other sites, very compactly packaged. It's US-based, inevitably, but has a real depth to it and seems well organised.
Now that NewsNow has redesigned, it would seem to have made matters worse for itself. The main text is now unreadably small in Mac/IE, and a search box that allows you to enter only one word for a headline-only search is almost useless. But as with Moreover, I suspect that people like us are no longer the target market.