Section 5.1. News Sites
5.1. News SitesIn recent years , Web portals like Google and Yahoo have entered the news biz. Their sites let you peruse headlines from hundreds of news organizations at once. Broadcasters like the BBC and CNN have also created Web sites, making text versions of their storiesalong with photos, audio, and videoavail-able online. This section takes you on a tour of the major news Web sites so you'll know where to go for that blast of fresh news. 5.1.1. Google NewsGoogle News (http://news.google.com) is a computer-generated page of news headlines culled from over 4,500 English-language news sites. It tracks the latest developments in world and national affairs, business, sports, science and technology, entertainment, and health. The page automatically updates itself every 15 minutes, so you see new headlines every time you go back. Unlike Google's minimalist home page, Google News is positively bustling with headline links, story summaries, and pictures. The page is laid out on a two-column grid for easy reading, like a newspaper page. When you see a story you want to read in full, click the link to go to the full article. As shown in Figure 5-1, a vertical navigation bar along the left side lets you jump to a page with all the top stories for each Google News category, which can be convenient if you want to skip the world-in-crisis stuff in the international section and go straight to Sports to check who went where on NFL Draft Day. Links at the bottom of each category's page let you show more or fewer articles in that area. Figure 5-1. The Google News page brings the world to your screen in tiny bite- size chunks . There's a search box at the top the page so you can hunt for stories on topics you don't see on the main page. Just click the Search News button instead of "Search the Web." You can also edit the categories even further, make and add your own areas, and arrange the page to suit your fancy. To do so, click the "Personalize this page" link, which you can see at right in Figure 5-1. To save your customized version and see it on any computer you use, you must create a free Google Account. (Look for a sign-in link at the very top of the page.) You can take Google News with you in other ways, too. You can sign up for any of these services from links on the main Google News page:
Tip: The other hardcore newsie sites described on the following pages offer similar features. Look for links to mobile, alerts, or feed features usually at the page's top, bottom, or left column. 5.1.2. Yahoo NewsYahoo News (http://news.yahoo.com) is like a coffee table full of newspapers from around the world that you can browse at your leisureand you don't even have to recycle them when you're finished. Neatly laid out in tabbed sections are links to comics (Figure 5-2), weather, and photos of the day. Tabs at the top let you browse the latest developments in international, national, and local news. Yahoo News lets you view audio and video clips of newsworthy events from sources like the Associated Press, ABC News, and CNN. Figure 5-2. You don't need a newspaper subscription to keep up with the daily doings of Dilbert and the gang. Yahoo News has dozens of comics to choose from. Another popular section of the site is the Odd News area, which collects stories of bizarre events from around the globe. Yahoo News is loaded with features that help you find your way around. For example, some stories contain highlighted words or names . Click once to open a floating window containing the top search results for the highlighted word. You don't even need to click the main page's headlines to learn more about a story. In most browsers, you can simply point to the link without clicking to see background information in a floating box. Like Google News, discussed earlier, if you sign up for a free account, Yahoo News lets you personalize the page and offers email alerts and news feeds. The site can even send the alerts to your cellphone or ping you with an instant message from Yahoo Messenger. (Chapter 15 discusses instant messaging.) 5.1.3. BBC NewsThe British Broadcasting Corporation has been in the news business since 1922, back when wireless meant the radio. Commonly known as the BBCor if you happen to be English, the Beeb it has one of the Web's best sites for pure, high-quality news. Check it out at http://news.bbc.co.uk. Note: That URL may look a bit odd if you're used to .com or .org . Being British and all, the BBC is in the United Kingdom, where most sites have domain names ending in . co.uk to specify the country of origin. As you can tell from a glance at the main page (Figure 5-3), the BBC News site takes a truly global view of the day's news. Under the main section of breaking news, the site carves up its subsections not by topic like Business or Entertainment, but by geographic region like Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe. You can even choose to read the site in one of several different languages on the Languages page. Figure 5-3. The BBC News site is densely packed with information from around the world. The site also taps into the BBC's extensive multimedia resources, with links to streaming audio and video clips from its farflung correspondents. Tip: If you have a dial-up connection, you may prefer the Low Graphics edition of the BBC News site. It lightens the load by shrinking images to postage -stamp size and displaying the stories as simple bits of text. Clickable tabs at the top of the BBC News page take you to other sections of the BBC's Web site, including its TV and radio programs in the UK. Its Sport section has thorough coverage of cricket, squash, rugby, and football (that's the British translation of what Americans call soccer ). As with the other major news sites, you can sign up for email news alerts and BBC News on your cellphone or wireless handheld organizer if you just can't bear to be away from this steady information pipeline pumping world events into your Web browser. 5.1.4. CNN.comThe companion Web site to the Cable News Network, CNN.com, keeps you in the loop when you can't be glued to the TV set. At www.cnn.com, the latest headlines span the top of the page, along with links to free CNN video clips and streaming radio news. For the CNN groupie, there are also links to of the channel's current programming. The site encourages viewer feedback on CNN's television shows with links to its message boards . The site isn't a complete mirror of the TV version, though. There's original content like technology columns and health news. CNN is part of the Time Warner media conglomerate, so it links to stories on the company's other sites ( Sports Illustrated, Time , and Money ). If you want a different perspective on the news, click the World link to see CNN.com's International edition with its overview of the world at large. Tip: As with the Google and Yahoo news sites, you can sign up for email news alerts and newsletters. You can also subscribe to news feeds (Section 5.5) and podcasts (Section 11.6.1) of CNN material. |
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