Google enhanced its Google News article search service overnight by adding content syndication.
The new feature allows Google News users to set up RSS (Really Simple Syndication) or Atom content syndication feeds for specific Google News sections, such as entertainment, business or world news, and for specific terms users search for on Google News, such as "George Bush", "diabetes" or "space shuttle".
Users will also be able to set up RSS or Atom feeds for customised sections they create on Google News.
"This is another way of allowing users to access Google News information," says Debbie Jaffe, Google's senior product marketing manager for consumer products.
This is the single most requested feature by Google News users, says Nathan Stoll, Google News product manager.
The Google news feeds can be delivered to any RSS or Atom news reader service, including the personalised home page that Google offers users, which contains such a service, Jaffe says.
The new feature works only for Google News editions in English, which include sites for the US, the UK, Australia, New Zealand and several other countries, Stoll says.
Google is not announcing any plans to extend the content syndication feature to Google News editions in other languages, he says, adding that Google has 22 localised editions of Google News in nine different languages.