How big is Google’s news net?
: Vin Crosbie looked at GoogleNews’ usage of sources and found that though they monitor 7,000 sites, only a few are used often (in the display, I assume, as opposed to the news search). That’s not wildly surprising. But what is surprising is the use of a few oddball sources: It’s why you keep seeing AP stories via China. Vin’s calculations of top sites used include:
Reuters 175 stories 18% of all
New York Times 80 stories 8% of all
Voice of America 67 stories 7% of all
Xinhua 67 stories 7% of all
Bloomberg 61 stories 6% of all
Washington Post 61 stories 6% of all
ABC News 49 stories 5% of all
Boston Globe 26 stories 2% of all
CNN 22 stories 2% of all
San Francisco Chronicle 17 stories 1% of all
CNN International 17 stories 1% of all
Christian Science Monitor 15 stories 1% of all
Toronto Star 13 stories 1% of all
Seattle Post Intelligencer 13 stories 1% of all
United Press International 12 stories 1% of all
By the way, when my son had to find UPI stories for some (very outdated) assignment at school, I sent searching and the only paper in which I could find them anymore was the Washington Times.
What Vin’s numbers also don’t reveal is the use of some really crackpot sources (while ignoring much larger weblogs and other sources).
This is a good subject for more study.
