14 DAY TRIAL // Google News, one of the company's most “feared” products, is about to get even more powerful with a new customization option. Plainly labeled “Custom sections,” the feature does exactly what you'd expect, it allows you to create your own news section based on any topic you want. What's more, you can even share it with your friends if you think it could be useful.
“One of the great things about online news is the ability to filter by topics. Google News has long recognized this so we've allowed users to track articles based on keywords of their choice. But it has been a little tricky at times. For example, to follow news about topics related to outer space, you would have to create a pretty complex filter,” Sharad Jain and Nilesh Agrawal, Google News software engineers, wrote about the new feature.
“Now, if you're using Google News and can't find the perfect section, just create your own! You can do that by adding the relevant keywords. Then, if you are happy with the resulting section, you can publish it to a directory so others can benefit,” they added.
There was a similar feature available before for Google News, but it was much more limited. Users could enter a search term and then create a custom section based on that search. This was somewhat useful, but it was too rigid in most cases. Now, though, users can click on “Add a section” and then proceed to create their own section or look through the ones already available to see if there isn't a similar one.
If you don't find what you're looking for and decide to create your own, you'll find that the options are still somewhat lacking, though much better than those previously available. You can enter multiple separate keywords and choose from the edition of Google News that interests you. You can also select a location to further filter the results. Google says that the feature is only available for its English-speaking users, meaning for the Google News editions in Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. However, if you use the English interface and are able to access the feature, you can then choose to restrict the news to any of the editions available around the world.
