Google's New Custom News Feature is Awful

Alice's Rant of the Day: I get so used to posting exciting new things about Google that I almost forgot that it could turn out a real blooper. Case in point: today's new customizable Google News.

For starters, the new UI changes are horrible. Google, known for elegant design simplicity has now added two side by side search buttons to the search box, one for the Web and one for news - a major UI "don't." There are weird text links that toggle between the standard, customized, and text-only version of news, and then annoying boxes to customize the content right in the middle of the page. The very structure of the page means tweaking the number of stories creates gaps of white space in the adjoining table cells.

But the worst thing was the section where you could customize your own news feed. Instead of letting me add my RSS links, I can only enter and save a search term, so that if I am obsessed with Microsoft news, then that's what I'll get. Yawn...

For a look at who is dong this right - check out Yahoo's still-venerable MyYahoo and the ease in which you can add blog and other RSS feeds, edit the page, search for news "clipping" by topic, and change the number of headlines while still keeping the interface clean and customized. And don't tell me this is just a beta. Please.

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