Google's Big Moments feature will make news search output look like Twitter

Social media plays a huge role in where and how we consume news. Currently, Google News can be very inefficient when it comes to current, breaking news events. Instead, we get the latest news from social media sites like Twitter, where someone can just pull out their phone and tell the world what's going on in a matter of seconds. Google clearly wants to catch up, so the company is reportedly preparing something called "Big Moments," which is meant to maybe change the way we get news in search results or through the Google News app.

What's the problem

In order to understand what Google wants to do, you first need to understand the problem it wants to solve. If you clicked on this article from your Google News feed, it's probably because it's not a breaking news event. Most likely, this article has been posted next to other news stories from other publications that have probably been published within the last few hours. In cases where you will see a really relevant article, it is unlikely to stand out from the mass of older articles, unless several major publications are writing about it.

What's the solution

Big Moments will try to provide insight into current events by providing more relevant context, highlighting in real time the most authoritative details about a particular incident, such as death and injury statistics (of course, what else?), and updating them as new information becomes available.

Unlike the current Google News service, which is fully automated, the decision as to which "moment" should be considered "big" is expected to be made by live editors. It's not certain that being able to judge the importance or unimportance of some events is to the benefit, not the detriment, of the situation as a whole. The chances of being held hostage to a particular editor's worldview are certainly not zero.

Source: bloomberg, androidpolice

Illustrations: androidpolice