Google News launched a local news feature late last night. Simply enter the city and state or the zip code in the local news section and Google will populate it with news pertaining to that locality. I took a look at it and so far I like what I see. I have used Google News for quite a few years and it is one of my go to destinations for news stories. It’s great having a local section right there in the mix, so that I can quickly see what’s going on without having to go to individual local sites.
The Google News blog post briefly (and generally) describes how their local feature works and how it’s different from other local news aggregating sites.
While we’re not the first news site to aggregate local news, we’re doing it a bit differently — we’re able to create a local section for any city, state or country in the world and include thousands of sources. We’re not simply looking at the byline or the source, but instead we analyze every word in every story to understand what location the news is about and where the source is located.
Below is a screen shot of the local news section for Miami Beach. (click to enlarge)
As you can see…it’s a pretty slow day in Miami Beach today. But the weather is nice. 😉