Unfortunately, I have been noticing that Google News has been more and more, of late, Google Olds. I will read an item, only to realise that it is five days old already (and yes, each item did say when it was published, but in tiny grey writing that I often missed). Further, last year Google decided to make the format of - what was a very simple layout - much more whizzy-do. They up-marketed it.
When first offered the option to upgrade last year, I checked it out. And immediately searched how to turn the new version back off as the simple format was now three columns wide, fussy, and hard to read... as per the image accompanying this post. I was thinking that this format was irritating as all get out to read on a PC screen, and would be impossible to read on a phone. I had to keep reading across in these little blobs instead of just simply following my feed down the page until I got to something I wanted to read. It took a bit of searching to find out how to get the classic view back, but I did, and everything went along, ticketty-boo, until March this year.
Sigh.
And then the big switcheroo happened, and the NEW Google News arrived whether we wanted it or not. There was no opt-out option. There appears to no way to revert to the classic layout. Google didn't ask, and we had no way to tell them. Many people have grumped online about it, but we all know how far that will get us with Google: nowhere. So, goodbye Google News. It was jolly nice knowing you, but you are now consigned to the dust bin of technology, along with telegrams and reel to reel tapes.
But it does make me wonder why Google News would want to brass off their users. Perhaps this is the first curtain call for axing the news service altogether, as news organisations are looking to make Google pay for content rather than simply being able to scrape it for free. Possibly.
Only time will tell.
Sam
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