Google News News

I remember going down to see Eric early in the process of reporting the book, when Google News was just starting. He asked me how I liked the new service, and I said it was cool, but my chief complaint was that it had no memory – it was all about the present, and you could not slice the news by date.

Looks like Google is finally addressing that issue with the release today of an archive version of Google News, created in cooperation with major news outlets like the Post and Times, and folks like Lexis Nexis. This announcement strikes me as consistent with a new tone at Google with regard to media companies – “we’re your partner, we’ll help you make money.”

I’m looking forward to using this. WSJ has a public story on this. From it:

Google News Archive Search includes articles that have been difficult or impossible for users to find through search engines. Google’s regular news service, for example, includes content only from the previous 30 days. Consumers can access some archival news databases free online through libraries, but not everyone is aware of how to do that.

Google declined to say how many content owners were included or exactly how many articles would be available.

I still wish for a real archive of Google News as it stands today, but this is a start.