Did you know that you can search Google for the most recent news stories on some 4500 news sources? (Just click on the News tab above the regular Google search bar.) Google continuously updates its news and it's not unusual to see a posting that's only 30 minutes old. And Google archives its entries for the past 30 days.
Some of the newspaper sources might surprise you. For instance, I checked and discovered that our local New Orleans newspaper, the Times-Picayune, is one of the 4500 sources. And so was the Baton Rouge daily, the Advocate. So, check to see if your own local paper is included.
You can click on About Google News and discover some interesting information about the service. For instance, Google doesn't use human editors. The headlines are generated with computer algorithms. As Google describes it, "The headlines that appear on Google news are selected entirely by computer algorithms, based on how and where the stories appear elsewhere on the web. There are no human editors at Google selecting or grouping the headlines and no individual decides which stories get top placement."
Google is not just limited to U.S. sources but includes sources from around the world. If you're particularly interested in recent or even late-breaking news regarding a particular country, Google has different versions for Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, New Zealand, Spain, the U.K., and, of course, the U.S.
Additionally, the news sources are not limited to just newspapers. For instance, two of the news sources are the B.B.C. and even Voice of America. You can also check the latest from Playbill. And there are even some TV sources, so you can check the latest on what MTV has to say on Janet Jackson. (To get the most recent stories first, click on "sort by date.")
Google News also allows you to search by categories such as business, health, and sci-tech.
With the news, you can keep up to date about whether your clients, your opponents, and maybe the experts in your cases are being discussed.
There is a caveat, however. Google does not include the full text from all its news sources. For instance, I searched Google using the name of a local columnist and did not find his weekly column. So, just because your search does not find an entry in a news source does not necessarily mean that nothing is there. But you can't beat the price and what you do find may be invaluable.
As you may know, you can also search other online sources such as CNN and Yahoo. (Yahoo says it has 7000 sources in 35 languages. I couldn't find the number of sources for CNN.) I haven't checked what the overlapping is among the three, and what each has that the others don't. When you search, you might try all three to see which gives the best results.
You can also – for free – sign up on Google for a daily alert on up to five different searches. CNN and Yahoo also provide alerts. But, more on the alerts in another posting.
Posted by ajlevy at February 18, 2004 2:17 PM