Google has announced some key changes to the way in which its Google News service works, with the new additions US only for now, but likely to roll out globally.
Google News has become a popular way for people to keep in touch with all the latest headlines and a major traffic driver for countless news sites.
The changes are designed to bring greater story diversity with less clutter – but still allow you to dig deeper into topics that pique your interest.
Five key areas
That is achieved through five key areas: click-to-expand, labelled diversity, multimedia, personalised top news stories and, finally, a 'less is more' approach.
Each story will now be collapsed to one headline with the exception of the top story – clicking on a headline expands that thread.
Labeled diversity means that expanded stories will show 'genre labels' explaining how they are chosen and how they add value.
"Within each expanded story box, you'll find a sliding bar of videos and photos, links to related sections and easier-to-use sharing options, so you can quickly digest the sights and sounds of a news story, dig into different types of publications and share what you find interesting with one click," Google explains about its multimedia changes.
Personalistion means that the top six stories will include half chosen editorially and half based on your preferences, while the 'less is more' approach brings a single column rather than the current two column lay out.
