Google News as a measure of importance
I often use Google News as a starting point when searching world-wide news (in English). I assume they have the broadest selection of news sources and that you can, simply because of that quantity, actually tell something about trends and the subjective importance of the news by looking at the number of articles discussing any given subject.
Case in point: The Apple new iPods introduction.
Take a look at the Sci/Tech News and you'll see that the iPod announcement is being mentioned in, currently, 522 articles (and rising). That's significantly more than any other sci-tech news recently as far as I can tell. And gives a hint about just how important the iPod has become - maybe even more important than we can imagine right now.
So, what's your take on using google as a "stastistics tool" in this way?
Case in point: The Apple new iPods introduction.
Take a look at the Sci/Tech News and you'll see that the iPod announcement is being mentioned in, currently, 522 articles (and rising). That's significantly more than any other sci-tech news recently as far as I can tell. And gives a hint about just how important the iPod has become - maybe even more important than we can imagine right now.
So, what's your take on using google as a "stastistics tool" in this way?
Comments
Originally posted by Power Apple
I often use Google News as a starting point when searching world-wide news (in English). I assume they have the broadest selection of news sources and that you can, simply because of that quantity, actually tell something about trends and the subjective importance of the news by looking at the number of articles discussing any given subject.
Case in point: The Apple new iPods introduction.
Take a look at the Sci/Tech News and you'll see that the iPod announcement is being mentioned in, currently, 522 articles (and rising). That's significantly more than any other sci-tech news recently as far as I can tell. And gives a hint about just how important the iPod has become - maybe even more important than we can imagine right now.
So, what's your take on using google as a "stastistics tool" in this way?
I'm glad this was brought up because I use it in the same was, that is to say I base the importance or relivance of news stories to their rating on the google news tab. I think (not sure) that it also has a lot to do with what articles are receiving the most web traffic, which would further reinforce this theory.