Gizmodo: Google News

Google News Cushion is Enlightening, Embarrassing

Mark Wilson — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 15:10:25 EDT

The Google News Cushion is a standard couch pillow that's been printed with the top Google News stories of the year. It's a microcosm, in plush, pillow form, of the collective human experience on planet Earth. For instance, what news did we search most in 2003?

Kobe Bryant, Brittany Spears, Shakira, and 50 Cent. 2005 found itself riddled with trifles like "tsunami" and Hurricane Katrina, but it's promising to know that even in the face of such tragedies, Man still found time to search for Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie Britney Spears again...Needless to say, the pillow becomes a greatest hits list for everything that truly matters in the world.

2003 will run you a steep $250, with other years costing a slightly more reasonable $120. Each pillow is signed for authenticity that it's expensive. [product via bltd]

Google News Likes Our Antics

Adam Frucci — Tue, 29 May 2007 21:00:22 EDT

We know it's all automated, but we laughed anyway. – Jason Chen

Thanks Weston!

"Mad Dog" Murdoch to Teach a Generation How To Read The News

Wilson Rothman — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 10:11:50 EDT

Tickled with the fact that there are over 100 million users of his MySpace networking site, but irked that members of the Ritalin generation only spend like two seconds on their pages each day, Rupert Murdoch (or at least, his company News Corp.) is planning to launch MySpace News.

According to Reuters, the service will be a combination of Google News and Digg, both aggregating the most popular news stories around the Web and adding "a social element to traditional news consumption by giving readers the ability to determine what becomes the top news on MySpace." In other words, in spite of there being 25 categories and 300 subcategories, it still might end up "all K-Fed, all the time." If it does, you have only the kids to blame.

Something is definitely going on. Follow the jump to see what happened when visited news.myspace.com.

By a not terribly wild guess, we determined that the URL of the new site will be news.myspace.com. This morning, the following dialog box confirmed our guess:

Keep checking that URL, because the MySpace News beta may start today. Just remember, News Corp. didn't make its name by giving people the news; it made it by selling ads. The more you participate in MySpace, the more exciting you will be to advertisers. That, according to the story, is Murdoch's main motivation. If you don't think you're being targeted, pay attention to the word "target" in the following quote:

"Many advertisers have expressed interest in the service, which allows them to target the MySpace community in a more direct way," Brian Norgard, co-founder of Newroo, a company purchased by News Corp. last year, which created MySpace News' technology, said in an interview.

Go ahead, it's okay to sell your soul. All we ask is that you vote for a Gizmodo story or three each and every time you're on MySpace News. Thanks in advance. – Wilson Rothman

MySpace to test news service to boost ad revenue [Reuters]