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Google Irish news

  • 28-01-2006 1:48pm
    #1
    luckat
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,366 ✭✭✭


    What do people think of the new Google News site with the Irish news?

    I like it - except that it's dominated by Northern politics, generally of little interest to most people in the Republic (in fact, stunningly boring and repetitive).


Comments

  • #2
    monument
    Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators Posts: 14,090 Mod ✭✭✭✭monument


    http://news.google.com/news?ned=en_ie&topic=n

    ..."dominated by Northern politics"???

    At the time of posting, two stories about NI or linked in any real way to "Northern politics" - "Governments consider IMC report" from newspapers etc, and "1916: commemorations north and south" vie Slugger O'Toole.


  • #3
    aidan_walsh
    Closed Accounts Posts: 17,208 ✭✭✭✭aidan_walsh


    luckat wrote:
    What do people think of the new Google News site with the Irish news?

    I like it - except that it's dominated by Northern politics, generally of little interest to most people in the Republic (in fact, stunningly boring and repetitive).
    Are you on UTV? Because that could be causing a bias on the story weighting.


  • #4
    luckat
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,366 ✭✭✭luckat


    No, on Irish Broadband at home and a big dedicated server located in Dublin at work.

    Today for the first time it seems to have balanced out - maybe they were watching Irish users sample the non-North stories then exit to RTE, IOL Breaking News and breakingnews.ie and changed the balance.


  • #5
    MrJones
    Closed Accounts Posts: 468 ✭✭MrJones


    luckat wrote:
    What do people think of the new Google News site with the Irish news?

    I like it - except that it's dominated by Northern politics, generally of little interest to most people in the Republic (in fact, stunningly boring and repetitive).

    i think google should stick to what they know.-search engines.
    Looks like they want to get a hand in everything which as
    far as im concerned is a very bad thing-look at microsoft.


  • #6
    Slice
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,133 ✭✭✭Slice


    I find the Irish news completely lacking to be honest.


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  • #7
    flogen
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 10,247 Mod ✭✭✭✭flogen


    Slice wrote:
    I find the Irish news completely lacking to be honest.

    Lacking what?
    In fairness it's just an aggregator of the bigger (and even smaller) news outlets so the content isn't decided by google, it's decided by RTE, The Indo, TCM etc.


  • #8
    Eoin
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 21,257 ✭✭✭✭Eoin


    I like the concept, but the standard google bare bones interface doesn't work for me - it's just too ugly to look at! Much prefer the presentation of the eircom.net news aggregator.


  • #9
    philologos
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,479 ✭✭✭✭philologos


    you can't really blame google for the news thats on it because it takes it from different news sources "Ireland Online, Bray People, Irish Health, Belfast Telegraph, BBC News Northern Ireland,Irish Independent, Irish Times" etc. they don't actually write the news on it.


  • #10
    monument
    Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators Posts: 14,090 Mod ✭✭✭✭monument


    eoin_s wrote:
    I like the concept, but the standard google bare bones interface doesn't work for me - it's just too ugly to look at! Much prefer the presentation of the eircom.net news aggregator.

    The problem is Eircom.net is not a real news aggregator (not like other web news aggregators, anyway). More like just a provider of syndicated news.


  • #11
    luckat
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,366 ✭✭✭luckat


    How mechanical is Google's newsgathering?

    If the "Irish news" section was based on the stories being read by the people in all of Ireland, obviously the news about the North would sink back under the other stuff, because the population is four times the size in the Republic.

    It *reads* as if it's being gathered by humans - by people who believe they know what the big Irish stories are, but are not in touch with their market.

    (By the way, I have to ask - I'm not being rude or anything, but is that "wierd" in your sig deliberately spelled like that, Flogen? Makes me flinch every time I see it, so if it's deliberate, it's doing its job!)


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  • #12
    flogen
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 10,247 Mod ✭✭✭✭flogen


    luckat wrote:
    How mechanical is Google's newsgathering?

    If the "Irish news" section was based on the stories being read by the people in all of Ireland, obviously the news about the North would sink back under the other stuff, because the population is four times the size in the Republic.

    It *reads* as if it's being gathered by humans - by people who believe they know what the big Irish stories are, but are not in touch with their market.

    From my non-techie guessing it gathers the stories from Irish news outlets depending on words used etc. and I think the story sequence is chosen by the amount of stories a subject has; so if a story about Gerry Adams is coming in from 20 different outlets, and another about Bertie Ahern is coming in from 14, the Gerry Adams story gets a higher 'rank'.
    So, in a way it is picking the stories that people think is more important, because it's the stories that are written about more.


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