Google News Allowing Story Participants To Comment

Jamie found this analysis of Google News's foray into community commentary. They are starting it off by only allowing people involved with the story to comment — and participants must first be authenticated by email. The article rounds up other bloggers' views on the game-changing nature, and the possible dangers to Google, of this new feature. Here is a sample of comments to a Google News story.

I'd like to comment

[niceone (992278)]

But I'm not involved in the story. So I won't.

Copying this policy could really work for Slashdot I think.

It's not news.

[mcmonkey (96054)]

It's Google.com.

Re:

[Vexorian (959249)]

hmmm I would personally love to mod Steve Ballmer a flamebait, or perhaps I did already?

Atypical

[illegalcortex (1007791)]

So you get two comments - a response from the company and a decent response (except for weird ED/abstinence bit) by someone who claims to be a professor of pediatrics. While I think the first may be typical, I think you should look more to slashdot and digg for what the comments will look like. Registering by email in an age of free and plentiful anonymous email addresses is hardly a filter.

Re:

[illegalcortex (1007791)]

Oh, and just to head off a couple of the replies saying things like "well, they also filter based on who you are and if you're involved." What's keeping anyone from saying they are "Professor of X", where X is whatever they claim. Unless they are sending in more credentials than their email address, it's rife for abuse. And as you see from this page, both responses are opinion. I'd say a good portion of stories on Google News "involve" just about everyone (otherwise, they wouldn't be on there) in some w

Re:Atypical

[TubeSteak (669689)]

Oh, and just to head off a couple of the replies saying things like "well, they also filter based on who you are and if you're involved." What's keeping anyone from saying they are "Professor of X", where X is whatever they claim. Unless they are sending in more credentials than their email address, it's rife for abuse.

Next time, RTFA.
Not only does it specifically state that an e-mail address needs to be verified, TFA links to the Google Help page which states their policy.

http://www.google.com/support/news/bin/answer.py?a nswer=74123&topic=12285 [google.com]

The email should contain:

Your comment
A link to the story you are commenting on
Your contact details: your name, title, and organization
How we can verify your email address.
For example, if the Tooth Fairy wanted to comment on a recent story about dental hygiene, she might sign her comment:

"Sincerely, Tooth Fairy.
Verify my identity by losing a tooth and placing it under your pillow. I will leave you a business card along with a small payment for your tooth. Alternately you can call 1-800-TEETH-4-ME and speak to my assistant, The Tooth Mouse, who can confirm my email address and comment."

Yes, that really is the example Google uses.

Re:

[Shotgun (30919)]

So right you are. In the case of the example article, I'm involved. I'm a parent who is responsible for teaching my two boys not to be suckers for Madison Avenue*.

*Madison Avenue...a street in New York, renowned for the number of marketing firms located there.

Re:

[porcupine8 (816071)]

In the case of professors, at least, their email addresses are usually publicly available on the school's website, so Google could at least check that it's coming from the right account. Of course, most other professionals that might be interviewed in an article, not so much; no clue how they would verify those.

Email addresses have domains, too...

[Etherwalk (681268)]

It's not exactly high-security, but they might, for example, filter people who say they're a professor at Columbia according to whether they have an @columbia.edu email address. Similarly, a supposedly corporate official from macdonalds.com might have more say than [e-mail]

Re:Email addresses have domains, too...

[illegalcortex (1007791)]

No, it's not high-security. It's just giving you a false sense of confidence. Every Tom, Dick and Harry at Columbia could claim to be a professor there. And for big companies, we already have press releases and responses to the story right there in the article. For smaller or mid-size companies, plenty are using services like hotmail or gmail instead of their own hosted email. On top of all that, you also get people who work at companies who could fake up an "official" company response. Imagine a disgruntled employee from a @macdonalds.com commenting in a hilariously embarrassing way. Or, more likely, just someone at the company responding before it was cleared through their communications department.

Re:Email addresses have domains, too...

[MorpheousMarty (1094907)]

It is not that hard to get reasonable confirmation of this kind of thing, or quoting people would be nigh impossible. Can anyone who actually works in a news room say how they verify things normally? I'll bet a simple phone call is all most major newspapers require and it won't kill Google to have a dozen people on the phone. Personally I can't wait until someone comments something really dumb, and then claims it wasn't them. Google may become my only source of news at this point.

Re:

[illegalcortex (1007791)]

As I've said above, I think it highly unlikely google will do all this confirmation for everyone who applies to comment. We're talking about a worldwide service. They post a lot of articles each and every day. Can you imagine if everyone who signed on to slashdot had to be "verified" in this method? And you might suggest that they'd only try to "verify" someone after they submitted a good comment. Well, then they'd have to read all the comments.

I very much expect the "verification" step will only happe

Re:Atypical

[russ1337 (938915)]

>>> I think you should look more to slashdot and digg for what the comments will look like.

Good call, And I think the webcomic XKCD summed it up with this post [xkcd.com]

My name is Carl Rove

[bigattichouse (527527)]

Yep, its me alright.. promise. See the email address [e-mail] - how could it not be me. They'd have to employ a large number of, oh, say journalists to verify each and every participant.

Re:My name is Carl Rove

[eln (21727)]

I think your inability to spell your own first name correctly might give you away.

Neat idea

[Cleon (471197)]

This is kind of a cool idea; it's a way for direct commentary from the people involved without a journalist's filter.

Plus, it'll get really entertaining when they apply it to political campaigns and the press secretaries get into flame wars. :D

Re:

[Notquitecajun (1073646)]

Filter=bias here. This is a good thing...it may help show all sides of a story and cover those points which reporters leave out, and hopefully provide context to news stories.

Not quite

[brian0918 (638904)]

"This is kind of a cool idea; it's a way for direct commentary from the people involved without a journalist's filter."

Yes, rather than journalists filtering, it's Google doing the filtering. We only know what they post, not what they don't.

Re:

[FleaPlus (6935)]

> In other words, even if someone can prove their identity as the subject of a story, it doesn't necessarily mean they'll feel compelled to tell the truth in their comments.

That's what other commenters are for. If someone is bullshitting, somebody else can call them on it and make them look like a fool.

Google News Comments+

[eboluuuh (1139173)]

This is a lot better than simply thinking they're silent until they're quoted in a future article.

Good idea

[bcmm (768152)]

I've been to demonstrations which have been seriously misreported by mainstream media. I'm thinking of this not so much as a way to get extra eyewitness accounts of big events as as a way of correcting media which parrots government and police press releases.

Re:Good idea

[eln (21727)]

That's a very optimistic view. The people that have the time and the resources to monitor this stuff are the big corporations though, so I think you're most likely to see comments made by a company spokesman trying to spin articles that are unfavorable to that company. The first comment on the sample article seems to be bear that out.

So, instead of the article followed by a separate press release spinning that article, you get the spin on the same page as the article itself. I'm not sure what's really gained in that case.

I don't think so

[Kadin2048 (468275)]

The people that have the time and the resources to monitor this stuff are the big corporations

Never doubt the spare time available to college students and the unemployed.

The big corporations have to pay big bucks to their PR firms to keep tabs on this sort of stuff. Average technologically-literate people, which is heavy on students, probably make up the bulk of Google News' audience.

Re:

[Chyeld (713439)]

And exactly how would they verify by email address that you were at the demonstration? Oh yeah, you registered an email address at anarchist.org before you went....

This might be useful for 'human intrest' stories, and company/stock news stories, but I fail to see it being even doable for large scale stories like a demonstration, natural disaster, or etc.

Re:

[Bender0x7D1 (536254)]

The address itself might not help but, if they contact you at that address, you could attach a picture to the response showing that you were actually there.

Re:

[Wordsmith (183749)]

And what makes you think sources involved in an incident are any less prone to bias and misreporting than the media? The media gets its accounts from involved sources, and most media really does make the effort to portray those accounts fairly; but when there's room for debate in an issue or even an observation, each side is prone to thinking of the other as slanted, and blames the media for acknowledging that account.

Targetting Slashdot user base?

[sufijazz (889247)]

If they allowed every John, Rick and Larry to post comments on links to news stories, would that be like..oh I don't know...Gdot.org?

insightful?

[hey (83763)]

How insightful is this?

Evil Corp: we aren't evil, you are mistaken

Expert: oh yes you are, but i love those fries

Re:

[Hijacked Public (999535)]

I feel the same way about the entire news story. How it constitutes news that presentation impacts a person's enjoyment of food is beyond me.

I expect Iron Chef Sakai to issue a blanket apology to to the millions he has hoodwinked with his fancy knifework and flower littered platings.

Re:

[illegalcortex (1007791)]

Except it's not presentation. It's name recognition, driven by ads. It's like if you said "this meal was made by Iron Chef Sakai" to someone, simply to make them think the food tasted (and looked) better.

Re:

[l0rd (52169)]

And of course the inevitable "wasn't me". I can see problems where people will use your comments online in court against you, especially as google has "verified" that you are who you say you are.

This works as long as BOTH sides may comment

[Opportunist (166417)]

But what if one side can't? Not everyone has net access. Not everyone actually knows about it being on the Google news page when he is involved, even if he has access.

Of course, large businesses, governments and the like who can employ someone to monitor such activities will benefit from it. But you and me? Imagine you're getting into a legal battle with a large company. You have your hands full, meeting with lawyers and trying to keep from going under, do you have time to react to Google News? Hardly. Does the company you're suing (or that's suing you), on the other hand? With a few 100 to a few 1000 people working for them, most likely.

Google news will take more time

[icepick72 (834363)]

All of a sudden everybody involved in a news article is responsible for controlling their own public face through comments on the article. Some of the more newsworthy Tom Dick and Harrys will be vehemently defending themselves online all day. And I thought Facebook was bad.

I Love this!

[djrogers (153854)]

This is great - we will not longer have to rely on the mass media journalists to decide what comments make it in a story, and in what context. I'm sick of seeing stories that ignore or downplay one side or the other by skewing the comments of the person that doesn't meet their agenda.

Re:

[BlackCobra43 (596714)]

I think your reasoning is fallacious; the story is no more informative if it includes bullshit from both sides than it as with only bullshit from one side. What ever happened to just reporting the facts?

Re:

[Wordsmith (183749)]

And from whence do these facts come, if not from the involved parties - who, like all human beings, are potentially prone to bias? Certain things are directly observable by a reporter, and certain aren't. But the very fact that those on various sides of an issue can come to radically different conclusions, and even make radically different observations, suggests the "facts" of a given issue aren't as simple to decipher as one would hope. Very few things in this world can boil down to inarguable, objective t

Re:

[rhakka (224319)]

even choosing which facts to report is a form of subjective slant in reporting.

there is no such thing as objective reporting. this allows for more discussion. good stuff.

Need this for Google Scholar

[FleaPlus (6935)]

For a while I've been hoping that they would do something similar and allow comments (and maybe blog references) through Google Scholar [google.com], their search engine for academic publications. It would be great to have a way for the research community to publically share thoughts on a publication besides the high-latency/low-throughout channel of the actual journal. PLoS One [plosone.org] and Nature Precedings [nature.com] are starting to do this for work published by them, but having a commenting function built into Google Scholar would allo

Pointless

[snowwrestler (896305)]

Everyone knows that comments on news stories are either trolls, flamebait, or offtopic. Just look at the moderation on this for proof.

Re:

[Kelbear (870538)]

Not true, you can also score sweet deals on C1A L IS to enlarge your pe n15!

Google Grid anyone?

[cxreg (44671)]

Sure seems to me like Epic 2014 [robinsloan.com] is slowly coming to fruition

Raffle?

[Quiet_Desperation (858215)]

A raffle on how long before some is called a Nazi?

I take 2 to 3 milliseconds.

Google News creating a minefield for itself

[HooliganIntellectual (856868)]

I run a news site that is indexed by Google News. As much as I'm anti-copyright and for open access to information, this move by Google really bothers me. This commenting feature really crosses the line. If Google is going to allow people to comment on stories from our service outside of our service, I want a cut of the money that Google makes off of using our content for free. This is only fair if Google is allowing people to comment on stories in a way that is outside the control of our website.

Do no evil? Google is really turning out to be the next Microsoft. Greedy and determined to control everything at any cost.

This will probably create a flurry of new lawsuits by larger news services.

Re:

[illegalcortex (1007791)]

Errr... if this was supposed to be satirical, I think you need to rework it a bit.

Because you do realize that this is what slashdot, digg, reddit and untold how many other sites are, right? And yes, they run ads, too. The only real difference is that google indexes things with robots, and the other sites use slightly less intelligent methods.

How to search for comments?

[FleaPlus (6935)]

Has anybody found a way yet to actually search for the comments which have been posted so far?

This is a good thing!

[fox1324 (1039892)]

I know its unpopular to fellate google as much as I'm about to, but a lot of /.ers seem to be missing the mark. This is an interesting move by google, and I predict it will add a lot of value to their news page. Think about the tremendous public service news.google provides; A quick-loading, easy-to-find, free-as-in-beer virtual newspaper...it attempts to neutralize political spin/bias by linking to multiple sources for each story, and by using the web it is capable of pulling from tons of lesser known, local newspapers that you would not otherwise know about/hear from (more sources also helps remove bias). This new addition is a step forward because it attempts to get information straight from the source (those involved in the story), removing the middlemen (remember the 'whipser down the lane' effect?). At the end of the day, all of google's actions seems to be aimed squarely at improving the quality of information available to the public, and making available to them as quickly and easily as possible... and did I mention, for free? This is a huuuggee asset for keeping the general public informed about the state of the nation/world/etc. I know a lot of people think google is the next m$, but google has done nothing to break my trust so far.
happy 4:20!

Re:

[BobMcD (601576)]

Agreed. 12 billion per year for 3000 smoking kids a day is what, $11,000 each? That doesn't sound too profitable to me, especially since the government will stick it to 'Big Tobacco' later for these kid's (admittedly poor) decisions.

Could it be that their advertising targets more than just children?

In the context of the linked comment, no. All that 12 bil is aimed squarely at your babies!!! RUN!!! AAAARRRRRGG!

Re:Doctor Troll

[BalanceOfJudgement (962905)]

Agreed. 12 billion per year for 3000 smoking kids a day is what, $11,000 each? That doesn t sound too profitable to me, especially since the government will stick it to Big Tobacco later for these kid s admittedly poor decisions.

The $11,000 spent in one year for that one smoker can parlay into much, much more money for the tobacco company. The average smoker spends approximately $1600 per year on cigarettes directly [msn.com]. This means they'd only have to be a smoker for 6.5 years for the company to make a profit off of them, and most smokers smoke for much longer than that.

Multiply that over 1.1 million new smokers each year and you can see how profitable it really is. They wouldn't spend that much money if it weren't really so profitable.

But yes, I agree their advertising targets more than just children.

Re:Doctor Troll

[BobMcD (601576)]

Okay, but what's the adoption rate? And is that 3000 unique kids per day, or can kids try/begin smoking multiple times throughout the year?

$11,000 each assumes 100% of them. If you discount those that never turn into buying customers, that figure would go way up.

Looking at $1,600 per year, and assuming (what, 12-to-70?) something like 58 smoking years for these kids, that's almost $93,000 per kid. And please note that we're ignoring any costs of any kind...

It would take one in ten for that to work, and those would have to be LIFETIME smokers. Optimistic at best. Closer to delusional...

Re:

[FleaPlus (6935)]

This smacks to me of Google trying to figure out a way to appear journalistic without actually having to engage in journalism.

What are you considering journalism? Google is collecting facts... is that journalism?

If they feel it so necessary to invite commentary from those actually involved in a story, then why do they not simply hire journalists to interact with such people?

Why would they need a journalist, when all they want is volunteered verbatim quotes from the people involved?

If their goal is simply to invite public commentary on news items, why do they not simply build a Slashcode server, or some other group discussion system that can achieve the same end?

Well, because they're not interested in public commentary (at the moment), they're interested in responses from people involved in the news itself.