Maybe the single most useful feature of Gmail for me is how you can “star” items to highlight them to come back to later. In Google Reader, this starring feature also exists and is hands-down the best feature of the service. Today, Google News added the same feature, and it’s also awesome.
Now, I’ve never been a big fan of Google News. In fact, I think it’s pretty awful in many ways. But this is a great addition. Much like with Google Reader, I can now scan through Google News and pick out the stories I want to save to read later simply by clicking on the empty star icon to the left of the headline. Even better, by using these stars, Google News is actually able to better tailor its news surfacing experience for you. When there is new news about a headline you previously starred, Google News will bold it for you, making it easier for you to find on a quick scan.
There are a couple of downsides to this feature. Sadly, you can only star the story that Google News deems to be the most important in the cluster (that it places first). Clicking on a more detailed view removes the option to star any articles. Also, they say that you can only keep track of your last 20 starred items in the new Starred area — that seems pretty low. Also odd is that if the cluster changes after you star it (meaning a different story rises to the top), it appears to also change in your starred items area.
Still, this makes Google News much more interesting to me already.
[image: MGM]
@MG There is a big(small?) bug in Google news home page .Can you find it out it what it is?
Umm… I have a question, why does it show that Google News launched in December 2008? When Google’s own corporate site shows September 2002?
http://www.google.com/corporate/history.html
How about tying all these stars to a single location on their bookmarking product?
http://www.google.com/bookmarks/
It’s like someone at Google is forgetting to connect important arteries between all of their products to make the site a huge social networking juggernaut. Google has gone from being in a garage, to a complex, now it needs to go to the moonbase!
that would be really great.
I have to agree as well! I would like to see the “Starred” items all congregate in some sort of reader style page where I can go when I have more time to actually read the full content. Then I can decide with whom I want to share and how I want to share it.
You don’t suppose this will become a function of Google Reader any time soon…do you?
Using stars has changed how I used Google Reader, and now I can get through my feeds easily. Not sure how it’ll be with News, but looking forward to giving it a try.
Personally I still find Fastflip far better in terms of news, and it has full “star” functionality in the like feature as long as you log in.
you don’t star the story that google chooses, you star the topic.
“Clicking on a more detailed view removes the option to star any articles.”
clicking on a more detailed view of what? i feel like i’ve clicked everywhere and i haven’t found an option to turn off the starring feature. please clarify?
they should have an “alternative view” that uses this environment through all google products/services including youtube!
I love the space odyssey picture. I came across this recently http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXN9r6tPgHU the perfect mashup between a messed up film and a bugged out beat.
I heartily agree…if you were a student in my class, you’d get bonus points for a GREAT connection to classic sci fi!
the stars are ridiculous clutter. google, stick to the basics that you’re excellent at.
I’ve created a Greasemonkey script to hide the stars:
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/67968
Google!
Right with ya up until the last one.