New visual version of Google News

Posted by Martin Stabe on 27 June 2007 at 08:34
Tags: Google, Google News, design, video

Google has unveiled a new, graphical view for Google News.

Confronted with row upon row of (credited but uncaptioned) images, a user has to hover over them with the mouse and wait for the headline associated with that image to appear on a scrolling list of stories in a right-hand column.

It’s also possible to restrict the images to only those showing faces, something which has been possible on the old Google News site since late May. Google syas this is one of the first results of its acquisition of object recognition company Neven Vision.

The reminder that Google is working on recognising and rendering searchable the content of images is probably the most significant implication of this strange new feature in Google News.

It looks interesting, but isn’t the most user-friendly way to navigate a news site. As Doug Caverly of WebProNews points out, “learning about 25 stories may take as many as 25 mouse movements“.

Google Blogoscoped has an interesting theory about what it all means. The Google-watching blog says it “feels a bit more like zapping news channels than with the old, more text-oriented Google News frontpage” and points to comments suggesting it might be the first step towards a video version of Google News.

Tags: Google, Google News, design, video