“Google News Gets Comments- With a Big Twist”

08Aug07

clipped from mashable.com If we said Google News has added comments, you’d probably say “finally”. In fact they are adding comments, but with a twist: the US version is letting people or organizations who are part of a news story add comments to it. Here’s how it works: if you search for your company or name and find stories, you can send an email to news-comments@google.com. Include your comment and contact details, plus a way to verify that you’re from that company – owning the email address me@relevantcompany.com may be enough (you need to reply to a mail sent there, not just spoof it – see the help section for more info). If approved by Google, your comment will appear beneath the story like this. I suspect this could put Google in the dangerous role of being a human editor: who decides what comments get published? Are ill-informed rants acceptable? What about propaganda? Could be very tricky indeed.

I am surprised that a company leading in the Web 2.0 world would set up a system of commenting on the news that really lacks openness and direct interaction among readers.I clipped this from one of my favorite blogs, Mashable, that invites readers to instantly express their views on every story. Some of the most engaging interaction happens as a result and some of the most interesting insights and perspective comes from this open editorial style.

As a news reader on Google, this system makes the price of engagement pretty high; I would have consider whether going through the motions of sending an email and going through an editorial review is worth the time and energy.

I would much rather head to my favorite blogs that have picked up the story and comment directly on the post. What are your thoughts?

Filed under: Comments, Mashable, amanda mooney, google, news, online news   |  9 Comments