Oh My My! Google News To Post Comments By People related To News Report

Google News blog announced a new experimental feature where stories in Google News USA will also feature comments by participants. Know that these comments are not anonymous comments by browsers like you and me but people associated to the subject. “Google only publishes comments from participants in stories. Participants are people who are mentioned in the story or are related to organizations in the story.”

About the new feature, Google News blog says:

“We'll be trying out a mechanism for publishing comments from a special subset of readers: those people or organizations who were actual participants in the story in question. Our long-term vision is that any participant will be able to send in their comments, and we'll show them next to the articles about the story. Comments will be published in full, without any edits, but marked as "comments" so readers know it's the individual's perspective, rather than part of a journalist's report.

As always, Google News will direct readers to the professionally-written articles and news sources our algorithms have determined are relevant for a topic. From bloggers to mainstream journalists, the journalists who help create the news we read every day occupy a critical place in the information age. But we're hoping that by adding this feature, we can help enhance the news experience for readers, testing the hypothesis that — whether they're penguin researchers or presidential candidates– a personal view can sometimes add a whole new dimension to the story.”

On whether Google would change the comments, Google says not much about the comment you leave will be edited comments are “not reviewed by any editors, and Google isn't going to change the content of comments, including misspellings or grammatical errors. In addition, we will publish any comments we solicit unless the response is "no comment" or if the comment is a previously published statement that we have already have indexed in Google News.”

On a contrasting tone, Google goes on to say that there are a few extreme cases where Google will not publish a comment:

1. If your response is no comment.
2. If your comment is a previously published statement that we have already indexed.
3. If your comment includes hate speech, calls to violence, or other offensive comments.

Many people like Tony Hung have received this new feature with open arms even calling it 'pivotal' saying, “Google News is going to be a place not only where it aggregates headlines, but it actually provides a place where people who were involved *with* the news can tell it their way. It will actually be getting principals involved with the story to create The News.”

Industry experts like Frank Shaw say 'it never makes it out of test/beta phase.'

Silicon Valley.com writes, "the people who will really make an effort to attach some counterpoint to every public mention are those paid to do it — the PR people and marketing folks who will diligently hunt down every mention of their client, especially the negative ones, and spin, spin, spin. If that’s how it goes (and I hope it doesn’t), I can’t say the reportage will be the richer for it."

To understand this feature better, go to Browse Google News Help.

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