Google News experiments with human control, promotes a new serendipity with Editors’ Picks
Late this afternoon, Google News rolled out a new experiment: Editors’ Picks. Starting today, a small percentage of Google News users will find a new box of content with that label, curated not by Google’s news algorithm, but by real live human news editors at partner news organizations. Here’s an example, curated by the editors of Slate:
Per Google’s official statement on the new feature:
At Google, we run anywhere from 50 to 200 experiments at any given time on our websites all over the world. Right now, we are running a very small experiment in Google News called Editors’ Picks. For this limited test, we’re allowing a small set of publishers to promote their original news articles through the Editors’ Picks section.
That by itself is a remarkable shift for a website that, at its launch in 2002, proudly included on every page: “This page was generated entirely by computer algorithms without human editors. No humans were harmed or even used in the creation of this page.”
But Google’s statement very much understates the feature’s (potential) significance. You know how Cass Sunstein wanted to build an “architecture of serendipity” that would give readers important but surprising information? And how, increasingly, many news thinkers have come to believe that systematizing serendipity is not so much a contradiction as a democratic necessity? Well, this is a step — small, but certain — in that direction. Think of Editors’ Picks as a Spotlight-like feature that, instead of highlighting “in-depth pieces of lasting value,” shines a light on what editors themselves have deemed valuable.
In that sense, Editors’ Picks — currently being run in partnership with less than a dozen news outlets, including The Washington Post, Newsday, Reuters, and Slate — could recreate the didn’t-know-you’d-love-it-til-you-loved-it experience of the bundled news product within the broader presentation of Google News’ algorithmically curated news items. Serendipity concerns exist even at Google (see Fast Flip, for example); this is one way of replicating the offline experience of serendipity-via-bundling within the sometimes scattered experience of online news consumption.
Editors’ Picks also does what its name suggests: it allows editors to choose which stories they introduce to the Google News audience. (Google confirmed to me that the links on display aren’t being paid for by the news publishers — that is, it’s not a sponsored section.) Publishers can choose to promote stories that have done well, traffic-wise, amplifying that success — or they can choose to promote stories that have gotten less traction. Or they can simply choose to promote stories that are funny or important or touching or all of the above — stories that are simply worth reading. The point is, they can choose.
Which is, of course, of a piece with Google’s renewed focus on the news side of its search functionalities — and its effort to reach out to news organizations. And it’s of a piece with other sites that have moved from automated news to automation-plus-human-editing.
Consumers, for their part, get some choice in the matter, as well: The Editors’ Picks experiment combines crowd-curated content with content selected by news organizations themselves — editorial authority and algorithmic — within the same news presentation.
In other words: serendipity, systematized.
Serendipity systematized but only American of course, showing Googles continuing contempt for the world outside the US borders
Interesting you’d say that, Patrick, since Google News’ creator actually formulated it expressly as an antidote to U.S.-centric news…!
Well, I think might be a good step toward countering the effects of SEO-driven “content mills” which are turning the writing profession into a virtual sweatshop.
How are editors picked, and who picks them? I have noticed that anything that has human interference on the web is open to corruption (e.g. editors selling their services to news companies to promote their articles).
Not a good idea, with the exception of non-English languages, Google news is actually pretty good in selecting the best articles and the main topics on the web.
As a former editor-in-chief of an international edition of the Reader’s Digest, I’ve long believed in “serendipity,systemized.”
Hence, my curated comment site, Commentopia
http://www.commentopia.com/
I look with awe at the mostly young geniuses who drive the Internet, but I don’t forget where I came from, especially the Reader’s Digest in its great days.
No machine on earth could replace the flesh and blood editors who ‘curated’ thousands of articles a month to find just thirty items of “enduring interest and lasting value” to millions of readers worldwide.
The second idea inspiring Commentopia comes from listening to tech-savvy baby-boomers. They love the Internet and see it playing an ever-greater role in their lives, but find the info-tsunami deluging them overwhelming. They welcome a free service like Commentopia where the media stream is quieted, the voice of the people heard above the roar of the crowd.
I cannot find the original source for the quote stated above “At Google, we run anywhere from 50 to 200 experiments”…
(that is, I can only find the first part, but not the second half).
On which Google blog/forum can I find this statement?
[Radicke: That was a statement Google gave to us. I don't believe it's been posted on any of their blogs. —Josh]