Google Adds Customization to News

Although it remains in beta, Google News has received its first major facelift since launching in 2002 and now enables readers to fully customize their headlines. Along with rearranging categories, news from different languages can be combined and custom sections created based on specific keywords.

"We've made a number of improvements to Google News that allow you to customize your News front page by creating sections that focus on topics you care about, for instance, your favorite sports team, technology, or celebrity," Google says on its Web site.

Google News visitors can also custom tailor the number of headlines to view per section, or read a slimmed-down version of the site with only headlines and no additional text or images.

To bring in more visitors, Google encourages users to share their unique news layouts with friends. A special URL is created for each customized page, which can be passed on via e-mail or IM.

"We're excited about the opportunity to be able to offer the customized
Google News feature in 9 languages, and we're exploring opportunities to
make the Google News service available in more languages and more countries," a Google spokesperson told BetaNews.