One year old, Google News attracts attention and speculation from the media, which eye it warily and longingly: competition or traffic source or both? Here is a long interview of Krishna Bharat, creator of Google News at USC’s Online Journalism Review. Like others in the media business, I’ve paid attention, but I don’t use it all that often (no RSS feeds… or not so that I’ve noticed). Two small points caught my eye.
- Size of Google News is actually smaller than I thought… although it is certainly nothing to sneeze at. “Google News had 2.24 million unique visitors in August, making it the 17th most popular general news site, according to comScore’s Media Metrix.” is the quote in this article, but there is also a link to a separate OJR article from September 3, 2003 where Greg Bloom, senior Internet analyst at NielsenNetRatings, is quoted as saying “We have Google News with 3.4 million unique users in July.” Two different services, in the same ballpark.
- When asked about the ‘beta’ label which still stands, even one year later, and whether the service would retain that label forever, Bharat answers: “No. Beta certainly means something. It basically means that our design is in flux, that we are evaluating the design and we are trying to make the engineering work. Before long we will have enough stability in engineering and we will have defined the pattern to the extent that we can take it out of beta.”
I know I’ve been wondering about that label… just a smokescreen? In any event, they’ve done a good job and forced media of all sorts to stay on its toes. Further reminder that competition is only a click away.