Google News continues to become a much more personalized experience for users. In November, the company launched the Custom Sections Directory feature that will let users set up sections on topics of interest, which users can share with others.
Google has added the ability to star story clusters that interests each user. Use this feature, just like you would star message in Gmail or stories in Google reader.
“When you star a story in Google News, it’s one way to let us know that you’re interested in that subject,” says Google News software engineer Jude Brito. “When there are significant updates, we will alert you by putting the headline in bold so you can get more information. You can also follow your 20 most recent starred stories in the ‘Starred’ section of Google News.”
Users must be signed in to star a story cluster or access their list of starred stories. This is an interesting aspect of this feature.
Google News has been a site people could enjoy no whether or not they had a Google account. Now Google has another way to get the average non-Google-account-having user to sign up to Google, which will give them access to many other Google products. Once you get a Google account, it will make using Gmail, Google Dogs, Google Calendar, etc. more worthwhile.