Barry Eitel
SAN FRANCISCO
Browsing the Google mobile app Thursday, users will notice the company has recalibrated its search engine app to quickly bring up the latest content from news sources relevant to a search.
With its self-driving cars and virtual reality headsets, it is easier to forget that Google also runs a search engine. Attempting to innovate on that very Web 1.0 feature is difficult, but the California company seems to be focused on bringing up answers sooner so that searchers don’t have to dig through links.
Google’s latest innovation brings up a “carousel” of news from outlets based on either a search for a topic or the outlet. This carousel displays a quick list of headlines to flip through – essentially taking the place of the outlet’s homepage.
“It can be hard to sift through all the great videos, articles and more out there to find what interests you,” wrote Ardan Arac, Google’s product manager of Search, in a blog post published Thursday. “Now, if you search on Google on your mobile, you’ll see the freshest, most relevant content from within a single website grouped together in one easy-to-scan place.”
Searching for “The Guardian” or “NPR,” for example, brings up a carousel of those sites latest headlines and videos, easily clickable straight from the app. Searching for a topic, like the “Academy Awards” or “Greece,” brings up a carousel of content all related to those subjects.
Right now, it appears the feature displays only news and videos from one outlet at a time – searching for “startups,” for example, brings up a carousel of stories, but the results might be all from TechCrunch.
Arac points out that the feature is still rolling out, so not every news outlet is represented, but the plan is to expand as soon as possible.
