Google News vs Newsblur

2022. Google News redesigned with a cleaner look, more customization options



Google has recently unveiled a revamped version of its service. The updated Google News boasts a streamlined, two-column layout, with a significant enhancement in usability. The navigation elements are predominantly positioned at the top of the page, offering a user-friendly experience. Notably, customization and personalization have been given prime importance. At the top of the page, Google presents "top stories" and "picks for you," while scrolling down reveals a more comprehensive breakdown of the topics tailored to your interests. By clicking on the "customize" button, you have the freedom to modify these preferences. Furthermore, Google has made local news more accessible by incorporating it into the top menu alongside other news categories.


2018. Google News gets AI-redesign



Google has introduced a new and improved version of Google News that combines the functionalities of Google Play Newsstand and incorporates artificial intelligence (AI). This redesigned service merges elements from Google's digital magazine app, Newsstand, and YouTube, offering users features like "newscasts" and "full coverage" to provide both concise summaries and comprehensive perspectives on news stories. The updated version presents a briefing section at the top of the page, highlighting the five most important stories at the moment, along with additional stories tailored to the user's interests. Leveraging AI technology, the feature analyzes web news content to gather the key information you need to know, including local news and events specific to your area. As you continue to use this personalized version of Google News, its performance will improve over time, thanks to the underlying "reinforcement learning" technology.


2014. News reader Google Currents rebranded to Google Play Newsstand



Google's magazine-like news reading iOS app, Google Currents, is undergoing a redesign and introducing several new features to compete with platforms like Flipboard. One notable addition is the ability to subscribe to specific topics of interest, in addition to subscribing to publishers, blogs, and RSS feeds. Alongside these updates, the app is being rebranded as Google Play Newsstand, aligning with the name change on Android devices. The redesigned iOS Newsstand app includes a revamped top-level navigation system, offering various categories to facilitate managing subscriptions and accessing preferred news content. These categories include a "Read Now" section, guiding users to articles and editions from their current subscriptions, a "My Library" section listing their Newsstand subscriptions, and a "Topics" feature that enables subscriptions to specific areas of interest.


2013. Today Google Reader will be closed. Top 4 alternatives



Despite the fact that many competitors (including Facebook, AOL and LinkedIn) decided to take advantage of the Google Reader closure and started building their own news readers, Google was confident in its decision and today will close the Reader. The second sad news - is that for now there is no decent replacement to Google Reader. So for while RSS users will have to survive somehow and watch the progress of the new RSS services. Perhaps the best replacement to Google Reader right now is Feedly. Three months ago Feedly worked only as a browser plug-in and used Google Reader to pull news. Recently they have launched the full-fledged online service with its own backend. ***


2013. F*ck Google Glass! Top 3 Google Reader alternatives



So, Google is closing Google Reader in order to focus on more important projects, such as Google Glass. If you want to know what Hitler thinks about it - watch the video. May be the numerous petitions will make Google change its mind, but in any case, now it's appropriate to talk about alternative solutions. There are a lot of alternative RSS readers, but basically, these are very weak solutions. It's logical, because there was no sense to seriously develop RSS service, having the free Google Reader as rival. Hopefully, the best alternative to Google Reader will appear in the next 3 months. In the meantime, we suggest three options that look decent right now: ***


2013. Google discontinues Google Reader. RSS - only for smart people.



Today Google has announced that on July 1 it will close its service for reading RSS - Google Reader. We will not discuss the logic of this decision (or lack of it), but the fact is that in recent years Google virtually monopolized the RSS market and now it can simply kill this technology. But may be, on the contrary, this event will attract more smart users to RSS. After all, RSS - is only for smart people. For those who can think, process information and use it for their business, but not just consume what is given. Google says that Google Reader - was not popular enough. May be. But this is right. Only small percent of people wants to own information, do business, change the world. Others - just follow the crowd. ***