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Florida weather story tops news agenda
Google News is usually very good at sorting the most important news from all over the world, but last week it appeared as if there was nothing that readers wanted to know about more than the "partly cloudy" weather in Florida.On a day when 56 people were feared dead in a plane crash in Turkey, Google News' top story was about "Some fog, some clouds today" in America's Sunshine State, the Times reports.
Other news on the agenda that day was a New Zealand teenager arrested over involvement in a huge hacking ring, and a British teacher facing lashes for naming a teddy bear Mohammed.
However, it was the clouds in Florida, where there was "Spring-like weather ahead", that featured at the top of the pile.
A spokesman for Google explained that sometimes the news feed ranked stories according to a "critical mass" of similar stories, deeming the story more relevant if many similar stories are posted near each other.
However, he conceded that "there do seem to have been more important stories around" at the time.
The Florida weather story was only at the top for a short time, and in general Google News does a good job of ranking stories.
The company's search engine is the most popular in the world and offers the chance for businesses to reach an audience of millions online.
Google News posted on 07 December 2007
