4.2. Google News

At the time of this writing, Google News (http://news.google.com) culls around 4,500 news sources—from The Scotsman to The China Daily, The New York Times to The Minneapolis Star Tribune.

The front page, shown in Figure 4-1, is updated algorithmically without any involvement by puny humans—aside, of course, from those writing the news in the first place—several times a day. The "most relevant news" rises to the top.

Figure 4-1. The Google News front page

Stories are organized into clusters, drawing together coverage and photographs from various news sources around the Web. Click the "all n related" link for a list of all stories falling within that cluster. Click "sort by date" to see how the story unfolded across sources over time.

All of this doesn't apply just to the front page, but to all of the newspaper-like sections within: World, U.S., Business, Sci/Tech, Sports, Entertainment, and Health.

For a text-only and PDA/smartphone-friendlier version of Google News, click the Text Version link in the left column or point your browser at http://news.google.com/news?ned=tus. You may notice that it takes a little longer to load; this is because it combines all sections, from Top Stories to Health, into one text-only page.