When Michelle and I decided to start a gardening & greenhouse business, I felt completely overwhelmed by my lack of knowledge. Some of the topics I knew I needed to study-up on included: USDA Organic Certification, current events involving the EPA, anything to do with Monsanto, news about the South Dakota Legislature, Permaculture Design Courses, anything about Honey Bees, and any news about Joel Salatin. Regardless of starting a business, there are some topics that I like to keep up with, such as: local news about Sturgis, any news about specific politicians, and anything that pops-up on the internet with my last name "Grosek" or our business name of "Bear Butte Gardens". I could sit at the computer every day and execute a series of Google searches... and try to sort out what is new and what is old, and try to sort out where the information came from... Or, I could let Google news do it for me. :o)
What is Google News?
This description is from the "About Google News" page:
Google News is a computer-generated news site that aggregates headlines from news sources worldwide, groups similar stories together and displays them according to each reader's personalized interests.
Traditionally, news readers first pick a publication and then look for headlines that interest them. We do things a little differently, with the goal of offering our readers more personalized options and a wider variety of perspectives from which to choose. On Google News we offer links to several articles on every story, so you can first decide what subject interests you and then select which publishers’ accounts of each story you’d like to read. Click on the headline that interests you and you'll go directly to the site which published that story.
Our articles are selected and ranked by computers that evaluate, among other things, how often and on what sites a story appears online. We also rank based on certain characteristics of news content such as freshness, location, relevance and diversity. As a result, stories are sorted without regard to political viewpoint or ideology and you can choose from a wide variety of perspectives on any given story.
How to get started using Google News:
Step 1
First of all, you will need a Google account. Creating a Google account is easy and free. If you don't already have a Google account, click here to create one.
Step 2
Sign in to Google with your Google account by going to www.Google.com, and clicking on the "Sign in" button in the upper right.
Step 3
Now that you are signed-in, you can click on the Google "Apps" icon in the upper right. This will pop-up the Google Apps menu. From this menu, you can navigate to a variety of Google applications. The application we want is "News".
Step 4
The first time you go to Google News, you will see current news stories based on the default categories that Google recommends. This is kinda interesting already, but the real power of Google News is in personalizing the news stories to include topics that you are interested in. To personalize YOUR news topics, click on the icon of a gear in the upper right.
Step 5
This opens the "Personalize Google News" panel. From this panel, you can enter news topics that you are interested in, and remove any topics you are not interested in. This is what my "Personalize Google News" panel looks like:
To add topics, find the text input box labeled "Add any news topic" near the bottom, and then click on the "+" button to the right. What you enter here functions very similar to what you might enter when executing a Google Internet Search -- except that the Google News application will remember your entries. From my example above, you can see what search terms I used. The search convention is similar to a regular Google Internet search in that you can use quotes to search on multiple-word phrases, etc.
To remove topics, hover over the term until the trash can icon appears, and then trash it!
You can also customize the "frequency" of how news topics appear by using the slider control. This can help cut down on some of the static. Cool huh?
If you need to create a very customized topic, then click on the "Advanced" link.
In addition to all that, you can "Adjust Sources" of your personalized news topics. From here, you can increase or decrease the importance of specific news "sources". For example, I don't like Fox News, so I decreased that one. I also entered some news sources (e.g. Mead County Times Tribune) that Google didn't have by default.
When you are done with your personalizations, be sure to save your preferences by clicking on the "Save" button.
Also, remember that you can continue to "tweak" your personalizations until you get them just right!
Step 6
Enjoy reading the news! Now, when you log-in to Google and go to the News app, you will see recent news stories that are important to you, and from sources that you like. The appearance of your screen can be customized even further, but this is what my News looks like today:
On the left is a list of topics. I can click on any of these to jump down to that topic. I like the default topic of "Top Stories" to be at the top of the list. After that you can see my custom topics listed below.
In the center is the main list of news stories, grouped and sorted by my personalized topics. There are lots of links to click on to get more details from the original web source.
Every day I try to go into Google News and at least scan through the news stories. If something catches my eye, I can easily get more details. It works for me, and I hope it might save you a little time and help you be more productive!
Cheers!
Rick Grosek
Bear Butte Gardens
Sturgis, South Dakota
www.BearButteGardens.com
Rick@BearButteGardens.com
Sign in to Google with your Google account by going to www.Google.com, and clicking on the "Sign in" button in the upper right.
Now that you are signed-in, you can click on the Google "Apps" icon in the upper right. This will pop-up the Google Apps menu. From this menu, you can navigate to a variety of Google applications. The application we want is "News".
Step 4
The first time you go to Google News, you will see current news stories based on the default categories that Google recommends. This is kinda interesting already, but the real power of Google News is in personalizing the news stories to include topics that you are interested in. To personalize YOUR news topics, click on the icon of a gear in the upper right.
Step 5
This opens the "Personalize Google News" panel. From this panel, you can enter news topics that you are interested in, and remove any topics you are not interested in. This is what my "Personalize Google News" panel looks like:
To add topics, find the text input box labeled "Add any news topic" near the bottom, and then click on the "+" button to the right. What you enter here functions very similar to what you might enter when executing a Google Internet Search -- except that the Google News application will remember your entries. From my example above, you can see what search terms I used. The search convention is similar to a regular Google Internet search in that you can use quotes to search on multiple-word phrases, etc.
To remove topics, hover over the term until the trash can icon appears, and then trash it!
You can also customize the "frequency" of how news topics appear by using the slider control. This can help cut down on some of the static. Cool huh?
If you need to create a very customized topic, then click on the "Advanced" link.
In addition to all that, you can "Adjust Sources" of your personalized news topics. From here, you can increase or decrease the importance of specific news "sources". For example, I don't like Fox News, so I decreased that one. I also entered some news sources (e.g. Mead County Times Tribune) that Google didn't have by default.
When you are done with your personalizations, be sure to save your preferences by clicking on the "Save" button.
Also, remember that you can continue to "tweak" your personalizations until you get them just right!
Step 6
Enjoy reading the news! Now, when you log-in to Google and go to the News app, you will see recent news stories that are important to you, and from sources that you like. The appearance of your screen can be customized even further, but this is what my News looks like today:
On the left is a list of topics. I can click on any of these to jump down to that topic. I like the default topic of "Top Stories" to be at the top of the list. After that you can see my custom topics listed below.
In the center is the main list of news stories, grouped and sorted by my personalized topics. There are lots of links to click on to get more details from the original web source.
Please note: Google News lists "recent" content found on various web sites. When you execute a Google Internet search, you will get "all" content, ranked and prioritized, regardless of the content's age.On the right is a list of recent topics, and other tools.
Every day I try to go into Google News and at least scan through the news stories. If something catches my eye, I can easily get more details. It works for me, and I hope it might save you a little time and help you be more productive!
Cheers!
Rick Grosek
Bear Butte Gardens
Sturgis, South Dakota
www.BearButteGardens.com
Rick@BearButteGardens.com
