Google Tests a News-Filled Homepage 38
Google is still wondering if it should make major changes to its homepage. The last experiment we saw filled the usually stark white page with info cards showing things like the weather and stocks, but this new experiment has a much bigger focus on news. From a report: Instead of a homepage featuring only the Google logo, a search box, and a few buttons, this latest experiment looks a lot more like the "Google Discover" newsfeed you get on the Google mobile app. That means rows of news articles that Google has algorithmically detected will interest you, often with wild month-to-month quality swings in the sites it promotes. To the right of the newsfeed is a stack of "at a glance" cards featuring sports scores, stocks, and the weather. The change makes Google look a lot busier -- and a lot more like Bing and Yahoo.
lol (Score:2, Offtopic)
Any Canadian news?
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I've watched Corner Gas and Letterkenny, which I assume are accurate documentaries, and there isn't much news to report in Canada except the weather.
Ask Microsoft about their homepage (Score:4)
I avoid the thing like the plague. The plain search page is a significant draw, otherwise we'd put more effort into going elsewhere.
Re:Ask Microsoft about their homepage (Score:5, Insightful)
yahoo from 2000 is calling.
Exactly My Thought (Score:3)
yahoo from 2000 is calling.
I wonder how many current Google decision-makers have seen (and remember) the image on this page:
https://blog.codinghorror.com/... [codinghorror.com]
This ironic snippet caught my eye (and raised a chuckle):
According to Marissa Meyer at Google, "Every time he writes, the e-mail contains only a two-digit number. It took us a while to figure out what he was doing. He's counting the number of words on the home page. When the number goes up, he gets irritated, and e-mails us the new word count. As crazy as it sounds, his emails are helpful, because they put an interesting discipline on the UI team not to introduce too many links. It's like a scale that tells you that you've gained two pounds."
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So is netvibes. Remember them?
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Exactly. The simple home/search Google page is one of the things I greatly prefer over those for Bing and Yahoo, etc. I don't want to see background images and/or crap I'm going to simply ignore while searching for something else... If Google goes this route, I hope it can be disabled, turned off or zapped using uBO.
I got turned off to these cluttered home pages in the way back days of dial-up when they (unnecessarily) ate up a lot of bandwidth it's stuck with me. Simple is often better.
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The only way I hear about the latest tabloid news is when I have to open Edge on a newly installed PC and it shows me MSN or "Microsoft Start" or whatever it's called now.
Google Tests a News Filled Homepage* (Score:2)
* Not available in Canada.
The most successful page in the history of the net (Score:5, Insightful)
and they want to screw it up?
Re:The most successful page in the history of the (Score:5, Insightful)
Some MBA convinced they can utilize all that wasted space for instant quarterly profits.
Of course they never consider the next quarter.
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Yes, look at all that wasted space - it could be filled with ads that generate money, not wasted blank space
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Remember Lycos? If not, that's because nobody does.
Interestingly, though, I find it amusing that Google was one of the big pouters who said they were going to take their toys and go home when Canada said they were going to make news aggregators pay the news providers. I believe they said, among other things, there just wasn't enough money in news links to justify it. And now they want to put news front and center?
This may be a response to activist countries like Canada and Australia who want to make them
That's Great News! (Score:2)
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Both of those had relatively sparse pages. At least compared to Yahoo.
Yahoo as a model? (Score:1)
The change makes Google look a lot busier -- and a lot more like Bing and Yahoo.
No. Just no. I don't want Google telling me what news they want me to read. And I certainly don't want anything like Bing or Yahoo home pages on my screen.
Care about your search (Score:1)
I gave up on Google searches LONG ago
https://duckduckgo.com/ [duckduckgo.com]
https://startpage.com/ [startpage.com]
https://search.brave.com/ [brave.com]
The above three will care a lot more about your privacy and a lot less about biasing the results. Also have the bonus of no annoying/animated, politicized logo stuff.
Will that really detect my interests? (Score:3)
"That means rows of news articles that Google has algorithmically detected will interest you"
This looks like the obnoxious "news and interests" in Windows Shell. When I thought that Windows would finally get a weather widget, came this bastardised thing that never asks you what your interests are, and lets you *include* more "interests" but not *exclude* them, nor lets you choose your own sources.
What about instead of using an algorithm to detect user interests, letting users say what interests them, perhaps letting them choose sources of news through some kind of syndication from the sites they visit?
That sucks (Score:2)
I use Firefox, and I hate searching from the URL bar. I've gone out of my way to turn it off as far as possible. But if Google's main page is going to look as described, then I'll end up using the URL bar for search anyway.
On the other hand, Google's search results have gotten so bad that DDG is now almost as good. I may end up using DDG more and eliminating Google altogether. I keep looking for ways to lessen my reliance on Google, and they keep handing me reasons to ditch them. Good job there Evil!
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I use Firefox, and I hate searching from the URL bar. I've gone out of my way to turn it off as far as possible.
Why? I changed my default from Google to DuckDuckGo and search from the URL bar all the time. I also use Firefox.
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Me too. I've been using DDG and searching from the URL bar for a very long time. It's quicker and you never see the dreaded "start page". It's a lovely feature!
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Google has a homepage? (Score:1)
Just bring back iGoogle (Score:2)
I loved iGoogle. They have the code in the google3 code base, just relaunch.
From Wikipedia:
iGoogle (formerly Google Personalized Homepage) was a customizable Ajax-based start page or personal web portal launched by Google in May 2005. It was discontinued on November 1, 2013, because the company believed the need for it had eroded over time.
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This! Just bring back what was already working before you desecrate the most popular website in the history of websites.
Cycles of fashion (Score:3)
(Ha ha ha, it seems my browser's spell checker knows "Google" but not "googol"!)
"News" (Score:2)
"News", meaning echo chamber pabulum from NYT, WAPO and Guardian.
are they dumb? (Score:2)
This must astonish Google, but I never use Google to look for news. To search news. To find out what news is.. news.
I use Google to look for everything but news Primarily tech documentation
If I want news, it go to a news site!
And if someone wants news, they have Google News, yes?! This will drove me full arms to kaji 100% of the time.
Oh, dandy (Score:2)
Not only is this not what anybody wants, but the inherent bias in news selection will turn off half their audience.
If we want Google News, maybe we'll just go to Google News, eh?
I have the best homepage (Score:2)
I have the best homepage EVER set in my browsers!
It's this amazingly great site called about:blank! Set your homepage to that, and your homepage will never annoy you again!
Prime advertising real estate (Score:2)
iGoogle FTW!! (Score:1)