I got an odd email a few hours ago. It was from Google News! They are introducing a new idea called News Commentary, allowing people who are in the news to make comments on the actual news articles Google displays.
They saw my name pop up in a news article about Mercury, and asked me to leave a comment… so I did.
How cool is that?
I wonder where this will go? Most ideas those Google folks come up with tend to take off, you may have noticed. I’m not sure where they’re headed here, but I’ve learned that when it comes to Google, I’ll at least hitch a ride for a while.
For those keeping track at home, the article that mentions me is from National Geographic, written by Victoria Jaggard, a woman I met at the AAS meeting last week. Pretty nifty.
January 17th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
And an excellent comment it was, BA. I especially liked the “We look out to look in” line you used – brilliant!
January 17th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
I’d say Google has the idea that the Internet invests a lot of power in the individual. Traditionally news stories have been heavily edited for a lot of reasons (both good and bad) and so sometimes a lot of what people say in those articles comes out skewed in the wrong direction. This is a great opportunity for those who are actually involved in the story to provide details that the article did not mention and correct any misconceptions that may have come about due to editing. I think it’s a great idea.
I also loved your comment on the article.
January 17th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
They’ve been working on this for a while. See this Guardian article here. I think it’s a good thing in itself, and it might encourage news services to be more diligent, but like the Guardian I think it’s a dangerous business move for Google. They’ve always said they don’t produce content, just help people find it. They’ve used that line to ward off lawsuits over Google News and Google Books. This seems to be a move toward becoming a content provider.
January 17th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Most of them tend to rot quietly in beta forever before people forget they ever existed, actually, if the general public even finds out about them at all. Google produces a lot of new projects as a result of its 20% policy, and very nearly none of them succeed.
When they do succeed, though, they tend to hit big.
January 17th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Very nice. I have always hated lousy journalist that misquote, misinterpret or that use people words and morph them into something more of a headliner (alien signal story). However, how would they identify the person? How can they know it’s actually Phil and not some other person sending them comments and “corrections”? I ask this because they say the people involved can contact them and not the other way around.
January 17th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
(Also, I notice your CAPTCHA page still has those PHP errors on it. If it’s too complicated to fix, you could always just prefix the problematic functions with a @ to suppress the errors.)
January 17th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
Google folks are such visionaries. They’re really revolutionizing the interweb.
January 17th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
Leave aside the Google issue; Mercury looks exactly like the planet of the Clangers – an early BBC childrens show:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=HArUmqqiL0s
Check them out on YouTube to see for yourself.
They know a lot, those BBC boffins.
January 17th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Too bad, that comment link leads me to the frontpage of Google News Germany. Even when I look up the News on Google News US and follow the link from there. There I go: Google News Germany…
January 17th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
@Laguna2: The same thing happened to me (Mexico). All you have to do is go to Google’s main page and switch to US English version. Then comeback here and click on the link again. Once you do this you will no longer be tied to your local google news and can see the article Phil is talking about.
January 17th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Let’s see, ,,looking out to see in,,,looking in to see out,,,belly button inverted,,,head exploding,,,I think I’ll just look side wise and see,,,
GAry 7
January 17th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Thanks Shifty. I have to remember that workaround…
January 17th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
It seems like an excellent idea. I’ve had friends in family in the media off and on growing up and went through that normal phase of “Every article I know anything much about I can spot tons of mistakes in – they’re miscovering everything I know about” and then on to “Hey, why am I thinking the stuff I *don’t* know about is covered better?”. I’m not saying “better” as in matching my opinion, but things that are plain fact, like saying “Phil can bench press 300 lbs” when we know good and well he doesn’t (ok, so perhaps he can – but I’m guessing no). Letting those involved correct mistakes and keeping everyone honest seems like a good, if controversial, move. Open season for everyones comment is good too, but I think there’s lot to be said for a “people who actually know this” area beside the news. It could be killed of easily by, say, the agencies actually calling up those that might be invited to comment and taking their opinions to heart, but I’m not holding my breath so inviting those ref:ed or mentioned to comment seems like a fine solution.
January 17th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
It is simply refreshing to get astronomy “news” of interest from a qualified, uncensored source. A very sincere thanks for taking the time keeping some of us amateurs well informed with your excellent insights and efforts. Cheers!
January 17th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
I must be missing something. (This is about the Google feature, not anything the BA is doing.) If I follow the BA’s “so I did” link, I see his comment on a Google page below a link to the article. However, I have not discovered a way to find Phil’s comment without the link he provided. E.g., if I load the article page itself, there is no indication there that the BA has responded. (Not too surprising, since it is National Geo’s page.) The Google page with the BA’s comment is titled “Comments by People in the News”. I don’t see a way of getting there from either the article or a Google News search that actually finds the article. (E.g., search on “Mercury” and “Plait”.) So how does one get there? Is there a script that I need in a bookmark or something like that?
January 18th, 2008 at 2:22 am
hmm – seems that I am not able to read this comment. I am online from germany – and every time I hit the link “Comment from Dr. Phil Plait” I get redirected to the “Google News Deutschland” site…
January 18th, 2008 at 8:37 am
Florian, try what I told Laguna2 a few comments up:
Here
January 18th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Your “We look out to look in” sounded sooo familiar, so I thought I’d try to find out if those words were used before. On the Quotations Book website I found these:
“Our roots are in the dark; the earth is our country. Why did we look up for blessing — instead of around, and down? What hope we have lies there. Not in the sky full of orbiting spy-eyes and weaponry, but in the earth we have looked down upon. Not from above, but from below. Not in the light that blinds, but in the dark that nourishes, where human beings grow human souls.”
Ursula K. Le Guin
“Look up, and not down; Out and not in; Forward and not back; And lend a hand.” Edw. Everett Hale
“The world looks at preachers out of church to know what they mean in it.” Richard Cecil
And, “Things are as they are. Looking out into the universe at night we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations.” Alan Watts
I think any idea – google, wikipedia, etc. – will stand or fail on its own merits; on whether folks find it useful or not, and for how long.