Google News Launches Facebook Application

NewsCloud writes "Eight days after Google CEO Eric Schmidt told Zeitgeist conference attendees that social networks account for an 'enormous proportion [of Internet usage]...it's a very real phenomenon,' Google News has launched its own Facebook application. Says Google News: 'This experimental application enables users to create custom sections or select from a set of pre-defined topics, then browse and share stories with their friends on Facebook. We are trying a couple things differently with this application, and it is still in beta, but we think that it adds value to the Facebook experience and to users' overall news experience.' Check out Google News on Facebook (requires registration) — or view screenshots."

Still in beta

We are trying a couple things differently with this application, and it is still in beta, but...

What of Google's isn't in beta?

Re:Depends

Search and advertising ;)

Re:Still in beta

Would you rather have Excel 2007 ?

Re:Still in beta

> We are trying a couple things differently with this application, and it is still in beta, but...

What of Google's isn't in beta?

They lack direction. Their direction used to be better search, now it's just "more ad clicks in more places". The rest of their portfolio appears truly random to me, which it may very well be, as it consists mostly of "20% off time" projects left in the labs, or as early beta, or late beta.

Looks like the 20% time has side effects. Microsoft has been bashed here regularly for its strategy of entering in all markets it possibly can and observing "what sticks", but now Google is in the same situation, even more so.

Some random Google projects, which were abandoned while stuck in perpetual beta status:

Google Gears (the page say "early beta")
Google Video (looks like they recycled some of the tech in YouTube and left the rest stagnate)
Google Talk (what happened to this thing? They virtually abandoned it, and there are some known issues still not fixed in it)
Google Pack (they did an update some time ago, that rips off the look of Vista gadgets, and seems it staled)
Google Accelerator (the ill-received internet accelerator that will cache your password protected pages and share them out).
Google Product Search (former Froogle, now seems quite downplayed, and no development is happening in it. Of course, it's "beta")
Orkut, Picassa, Blogger, SketchUp: what's going on with those, they just bought them /except Orkut/ and sit on them, no development or updates.

Also I always wondered why they work on various improvements in the Labs, like Google Suggest, only to then never push them on the main site (oddly enough the Google search field in Firefox uses Google Suggest).

Re:Still in beta

Talk is abandoned? News to many people I am sure that use it constantly.

Re:Still in beta

Talk is abandoned? News to many people I am sure that use it constantly.

Right, many people. Approximately 44 thousand. That's less than 1% of the market compared to ICQ/MSN/Yahoo/AIM.
There are over 14 million people that use Windows 98 constantly as of yet too, do you take this as a sign MS is very enthusiastic about their Win98 support?

Google Talk still has audio issue on certain machines (confirmed on two of my machines, where Skype worked great), and a bunch of other bugs, like "100% CPU stalling" bug during long conversations. Guess if Google cared, they'd smooth those up by now.

Look at what Google Talk users do:

Google Talk also has several "hacks" or things you can use to enhance your communicational experience. They include making your words italic and bold. Also, many users have found out a way to log in with multiple logins by changing the target of the shortcut.

Huh? Why should people hack Talk to emulate text formatting and multiple profiles.

Re:Still in beta

Google Talk isn't ready yet. And it won't be ready until it has a list of useless tabs on the side of the contact list, print ads at the bottom of the contact list and chats, and the ability to both violently shake the chat window and fill the chat with just the most obnoxious emoticons.

Re:Still in beta

I am in grad school, and at least at my school, gtalk is the chat client; it's what AIM was in undergrad a few years ago. Everyone uses it because everyone has a gmail account - if you can check your email somewhere, you can send someone an instant message - no additional browser windows, no proxy issues.

Just my experience, but it has almost entirely replaced AIM for me. Google was smart to build chat into gmail.

Re:Still in beta

Orkut is actually quite popular with people overseas taking the place of MySpace and Facebook. It's got a huge Brazillian and Indian userbase. In the US it's way behind it's competetors.

Re:Still in beta

Yeah, Orkut is now a big success. There are about a Brazilian people using it

Orkut?

Will this application be compatable with Orkut [orkut.com]? Google's own social networking/Facebook site?

Again FUNWALL! Vampires!`

Boy, I am pissed. I have submitted Funwall [facebook.com] as a Slashdot story FIVE times, and Vampires [facebook.com] SIX times, and have been rejected every time. Who do you have to sleep with around here to get Facebook apps posted as stories??

Epic 2015

... following the path predicted by many, and nicely depicted in this short flash movie called "Epic 2015" [albinoblacksheep.com]. We're indeed seeing the death of news as we know it. How does it feel to become a tiny part of the global consciousness?

Re:Epic 2015

"The death of X as we know it" isn't always a bad thing. Here's a few things that had that happen:

Entertainment
Construction
Travel
Communication
Mathemetics
Geography

All of these things are done -way- different than 100 years ago. Very few aspects of any of them could be considered worse off. Why is 'news' not the same? We used to be restricted to gossip, then the reach of the local printed paper, then the reach of the radio and television... Now the internet lets everyone communicate with everyone and self-style journalists (bloggers) can disseminate information with little or no cost to themselves. China has proven how hard it is to censor the internet and exactly how free information really is.

Makes my eyes hurt

[rant]

As a new Facebook user, I'm surprised by the mess and disorganization that applications on Facebook cause. Reading other peoples' profiles is like participating in psychological experiments with lots of graphics and widgets competing for your attention. And don't get me started on regurgitated content such as "Only great minds can read this This is weird, but interesting!", vampire fights, yes or no apps, etc.

Here's hoping that Google application implementation won't suck.

[/rant]

Zeitgiest

Google seriously needs to get some SEO help... [google.com]

What about this isn't like AOL?

Back in 1995 AOL hit the net... it was an internally connected set of pages that covered everything you might want...with buddies, chat rooms, 'social networking', exclusive content (not public on the 'internet') and more.... I just don't see the difference between that experience and Facebook or MySpace or what have you. Their system is proprietary, your 'networks' only apply while on the site, logged in, consuming their advertising selection, logging your interests to their tracking systems and any content YOU create, actually belongs to them.

Tell me again why the public and the corporations didn't learn from the beast called AOL which has been dying a slow death for the last 10 years? Why aren't the press, the blogs and what have you calling them what they are... AOL 2.0 or Closed networks after AOL...

I don't get it. As far as I can tell it's just a big reservoir of virtual Kool Aid... it's not even real Kool Aid... just a big waste of time and energy that all goes to pay a few people mega salaries and a bunch of other people mediocre salaries. It also accomplishes nothing for the greater good, it's worse than a sitcom or American Idol.

Well hopefully

"but we think that it adds value to the Facebook experience and to users' overall news experience.'"

Something needs to add value. The S/N ratio on Facebook is pretty horrible. At least none of my friends, or groups I've joined, etc. are doing anything beyond tinkering with it.

If they want to get serious about being a useful TOOL rather than TOY, I'd say the first step would be to give every Facebook user an e-mail address that can be used to communicate with the outside world (both ways). While I might not be interested in using this as yet another e-mail address, if it had forwarding capabilities I could direct such messages as "someone has thrown a food item at you" to the appropriate bin, while at the same time get actual content containing messages from friends who are insisting on using it as a replacement for e-mail. I could also respond to such messages using my e-mail method of choice.

fmail

There's a facebook app called fmail that let you access your gmail inside facebook - makes NO sense to me
but its seems to have lots of users.

Can I toss in a plug for my facebook app ... http://apps.facebook.com/mycliques [facebook.com]
Automatically groups your friends.

Applications ruined Facebook

Facebook used to be interesting because it was semi-useful. Then suddenly the option to add applications appeared and now whenever I look at someone's profile, I get bombarded with all manner of stupid crap ("Adopt a pet!" "Pirates vs. Ninjas!" "Superpoke!"). Facebook profiles aren't quite the eyesore that their Myspace equivalents are (yet), but they've become so filled with stupid garbage that I don't want to look at them. So yeah, thanks Google for doing your part to help destroy what was once a fairly good website.

News??

How is this listed as news?

When Yahoo! released a wiki-like facebook app (mash.yahoo.com), it wasn't listed here as story. It launched with all kinds of rss feed modules that can be drag and dropped around the profile.

By the way, there are 28 yahoo rss applications [facebook.com] on facebook, including news, weather, messenger plugin, and music player. I know I'll be crucified for saying it, but I think that slashdot staff are google whores.

Re:Why?

Most people who use facebook are relatively intelligent. some people like to look at the news...
Facebook clientel definitely have a higher ~IQ than those of Bebo or myspace.

Re:Can someone explain

As you add friends, you get to see your friend's lists of friends. It's all about the e-stalking.

Re:Why?

Really, it's pretty difficult to explain anything in the world of self-involved, attention-whoring, navel-gazing, self-congratulatory social networks.

Re:Can someone explain

There's a very easy way to find out...

Re:Can someone explain

At its core, Facebook is primarily a system for establishing relationships between accounts. You can sign up and set all sorts of properties on your profile - what school you went to, year you graduated, area you live, places you've worked etc. You can then search in those areas and find other people who match - old schoolmates, old colleagues, old neighbours, that sort of thing. Because it's gotten so big, it works fairly well - I signed up, and almost straight away found a bunch of old school mates I hadn't seen for years, and was able to catch up with.

It's sort of grown from there - now people can write "applications" that you can add to your profile page that can do all sorts of things, from playing games, to building a personality profile, match-making, whatever.