Google experiments in local news with an app called Bulletin | Hacker News Reader

Google experiments in local news with an app called Bulletin

techcrunch.com

103 pointsfarnsworthy57 comments

I think Techcrunch misses the point here. Twitter has failed in providing access to this content - when was the last time Twitter ever told you about something local?

What Google has - with Google Now/Feed and their various news efforts - is distribution, and you bet they know where you live and care about local stories for.

An anecdote: a coworker who lives nearby got a local story recommended to them about part of my building facade falling off.

I don't think Google cares about how to monetise this, it benefits from this content being on the web, rather than locked in Facebook groups.

As much as anyone here might hate Google, they are one of the few entities with deep pockets who have a real stake in the open web.

AMP seems to contradict the idea that Google is invested in supporting the open web. And Google is a business, not a charity, they're not going to invest in something they can't monetize.

I don't think AMP contradicts supporting the open web. Could you share your argument for that?

Here are mine:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13467736

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14636939

Google is not a charity, but their core business - Search - depends on the web having content they can index. This is a play to defend their existing business, not a revenue opportunity.

I think AMP is a good thing for the mobile web. It makes web pages actually usable. People get a bit wound up about the fact that Google hosts the content on their CDN, but there is always a real URL backing it, the content isn't locked into Google's platform.

> It makes web pages actually usable.

Overriding the default scroll behavior, so as to make the user have to scroll to the very top of the page to display the browser address bar is really annoying though.

Besides that, I often do prefer AMP pages due to them loading faster and wasting less data.

>I don't think Google cares about how to monetise this, it benefits from this content being on the web

If that was true, there are so many properties that Google would still have running. Instead they shut them down because they couldn't be monetized.

They don't even try to monetize certain things. Google Reader should have been a goldmine of data to throw at some evil AI dedicated to figuring out what I'm likely to buy based on what RSS feeds I read.

I think it's as simple as internal politics being shitty, and certain projects having managers who don't win the battle to keep their project going.

Trying to figure out what will or won't stay is as lucrative as reading tea leaves.

> Google Reader should have been a goldmine of data to throw at some evil AI dedicated to figuring out what I'm likely to buy based on what RSS feeds I read

I don't know. Maybe they tried and figured the GR adoption wasn't widespread enough[0] and hence the possible monetisation exercise wouldn't have been worth a business division or a separate department and maybe GR as an experiment failed right then. What say?

[0] This comment is anecdotal I would say. I know a lot of people who were/are not on HN, Reddit, Tw etc and definitely were not on GR. So maybe it's just me.

> As much as anyone here might hate Google, they are one of the few entities with deep pockets who have a real stake in the open web.

Is that why they killed Google Reader, and tried to build their own walled Facebook equivalent and forced every Google user to partake in?

Why hasn't anyone made a real Google Reader replacement? Google Reader seemed so simple. Maybe it wasn't?

They did: theoldreader.com

Digg Reader works pretty well for me. It's bare-bones, but that's all I really need.

They have. Two other commenters have weighed in, but neither mentioned the replacement I prefer - newsblur.com, good enough that I'm a paid subscriber.

I liked NewsBlur but for some reason switched over to InoReader. I wish I could remember why though, but I haven't been using feed readers for quite a while... Either way, both are good services but somehow I always wished I could GReader back.

> when was the last time Twitter ever told you about something local?

Wednesday, when I saw a plume of smoke on the horizon and then the local police department tweeted to avoid a certain intersection and a local journalist tweeted about the apartment that was on fire.

Granted, I had to find and follow those accounts- but I’m pretty sure that twitter suggested them to me.

> when was the last time Twitter ever told you about something local?

Quite often here, as I follow the @ChapelHillFD account[1] and frequently see updates about local incidents there.

[1]: https://twitter.com/chapelhillfd

Almost everyday. I don't think Twitter can't, or doesn't want to. It's how much hyperlocal Twitter is for most parts of this world than Google.

I am from a city in India where Twitter adoption is probably the highest in India and I guess at a decent ranking on Global level - at least by sheer numbers if nothing else :). But when I go to my village or those small towns nearby - there are no Twitter users but almost everyone who has a mobile phone and an Internet connection and wants to use it, they start with these places and usually stick: WhatsApp, Google, Facebook. Not necessarily in the same order.

It's not like Google wants an open web, Google doesn't want anyone else to have their own closed web. I will start with as petty (if you call it so) as closing Google Chat to external XMPP and making it an intense pain to use a Google Service w/o a Gmail a/c.

Until very recently I didn't know https://accounts.google.com/SignUpWithoutGmail existed. Tying everything to a Gmail, Plus, or that X service (which might as well be deprioritized or shut down in a year or so) account is not really going for an open web.

Sometimes I hate on Google, but I really appreciate them doing this (please don’t kill this product 3 years from now though).

I know National news stories are always more sexy and exciting, but local news stories bind you to the place and community you live in. National news stories form a kind of “pseudo-society”. What goes on locally forms real society.

I think the lesson of the last 70 or 80 years and the communication revolution is that instantaneous information, transmissions that binds everyone together in time, but not in place, is very destructive and for some reason does not work with the human mind.

This is somewhat similar to Robert Putnam’s “Bowling Alone” argument from the mid-1990s, but now the effects are much more severe and I think that’s sensed across the world now.

We have only had a couple of generations of exposure to timely worldwide information. Less than one generation of access to nearly instant information. I think we just haven't developed the mechanisms for processing information outside of our immediate vicinity because we've never been presented with that problem.

This is actually something I've been thinking about lately. I'm nearing the end of reading The Information Diet (which is just OK IMHO) but that one thing that stuck is that he mentions getting more information about your local news so that you can get involved in your community.

I can't stand the local newspapers because they are very regularly inaccurate. But there really isn't much else in the form of good local news source.

Only problem is, I fell out of love with Google awhile ago. I don't really want to use their products due to how much data they gather and also fear of them killing the product within 5 years.

You can request early access here: https://posts.google.com/bulletin/share

I think the potential for this is huge. Though it's a bit different, I've been using the Citizen[1] app for a few months now, and it changed how I look at my neighborhood.

Not too long ago I was walking around and Citizen told me a pharmacy had been robbed a couple blocks away. After waiting a while to be sure it was safe, I walked over, hoping I could say hello and offer some support to the owner. I like making friends with local businesses.

Alas, it turned out to be a Rite Aid, so I didn't go in.

But still, it's amazing that my phone connects me to so many things--Donald Trump, Meltdown and Spectre, popular movies, my upcoming flights--and so rarely connects me to my own neighborhood.

I think I'll love this, if they do it right.

[1] https://medium.com/@Citizen_App/introducing-citizen-a8d2f3fa...

> Bulletin makes it effortless to put a spotlight on inspiring stories that aren’t being told.

Bulletin will never take off with this as a core objective. Consuming stories and producing ever increasing click bait material is what drove society to social media addiction.

People escape this when it comes to local community. People care about action and real world interactions. A generic feed of user content that happened to be published by someone near you is not a very strong signal, and more importantly, does nothing to push you towards action.

Many comments here lean towards Bulletin having potential to be useful if Google gets this right. Well, I'm not convinced it is off on the right start. We should focus on specific niches, and build software to help them connect. In the process, shape an underlying platform that supports communication for all these niche groups, but without a one-size-fits-all user experience. Bulletins can be spawned for city council, schools, professional associations, family activities, or any topic where people share a common interest and attend events. This has been churning on my mind for some time now, and I hope to pave some way on this in 2018. It is interesting to see Facebook and Google declare local communities and groups as a priority. They almost look incompetent on how to actually serve these needs. They have all the money and resources imaginable to throw at it, but I think orchestrating these products simply run counter to their DNA.

Hopefully it will help drive discovery (and ad funding) of local news, an extremely important part of democracy that has been neglected by users.

The users of democracy?

It's only a matter of time before its gamed and half the stories are even faker than fake news. And without the oversight of real editors, this could harm people.

It depends how much grassrooting it's going to leverage. My local community facebook group doesn't have fake news and keep me informed of what's going on in my very small and specific village.

> ...without the oversight of real editors... @thrillgore

> ... local community facebook group doesn't have fake news... @johnchristopher

Moderators. Yup. As for the gamed system...yup.

hi, I just started a fake local news service

sigh, everything is gamed

I could be wrong but didn't Google News have some kind of detrimental effect on online readership of major news? In that case what will happen to local news when this app hits.

In case you're not aware, local news has been on a pretty steep downward trajectory for awhile now[0]. I doubt this app will have a significant impact, and it seems more geared towards so-called "citizen journalism".

[0]: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/06/01/circulation-...

As long as Google dose not regulate it for the interest of its stakeholders. There is always a lot of corruption happening at city and county levels that goes unheard because it does not pick national level momentum. Nor do I have time neither do I appreciate my "local" news channels and local newspapers. Most of the time they are writing/producing fluff pieces (kids stuck in an arcade claw machine or local dog gave birth to 60 puppies etc) to fill their news quotas. Having such service around would help me skim through important news at a quick glance.

Looks like NextDoor was getting too popular.

I don't understand why hyperlocal news hasn't succeeded yet, after 8 years of it being talked about. I'm VERY interested in what's happening in my neighborhood, if my neighbor's house was vandalised, or there was a violent dispute or something else. Same thing happened in some other city? Less interested. Some other country? Not interested.

Is Nextdoor an option for you? Between that and Ring's neighborhood alerts with video/photos, I find it much easier to stay current on neighborhood news than I did before.

No, Nextdoor is available only in some developed countries. What's Ring? Google searches didn't work.

Ring is a digital doorbell. Looks like they also have a "neighborhood watch" app: https://ring.com/neighborhoods

Local news is a tough problem. I mean this is kind of handy for things anyone can see, but you need someone to go sit through massive city council meetings each week, and write it up. What they decide is often more important to your day to day life than something in Washington DC.

Isn't "local news, the web-app" the impossible dream? So many have tried, and so many have failed. Google is building a business on a graveyard there, but I guess they've got the money to prop it up for awhile.

Pretty sure, now that Facebooglezon is considered hostis humani generis, that it won't gain traction as a reputable source for solid news.

Bulletin sounds like Google might be considering competing with Craigslist?

This reminds me of a post the other day where an ex-Googler said that Big G has stopped innovating, and instead is just copying other products. He then gave a list.

Google Bulletin = Nextdoor, and probably a dozen other platforms that do the same thing.

We will probably see less acquisitions of product-oriented startups (e.g. Nextdoor) from Google unless the startup has some core tech/market Google needs.

I was thinking that this sounds something like Twitter and the very last sentence in the article seems to agree:

"But if Google wants a piece of this kind of action, it should have just bought Twitter years ago."

Twitter is pretty noisy. An app more focused on local news sounds interesting, if they are able to jump start it.

Twitter is b2b, this google experiment soon to be launched then slashed is likely more b2c/b2b2c.

Isn't it c2c?

Have you tried using twitter to get local information?

I have tried many times (is the internet down for me or everyone? where is the smoke I'm smelling coming from? etc...), and twitter search is just useless.

Google should be banned from doing this.

My god, it’s not enough to try to have everyone’s thoughts monetized and leveraging that to spam their consistently shitty products let’s take over local news too!

I really do hope google doesn't abandon this project

I wouldn't get your hopes up too high.

leave us alone google

Then chose to not use them.

Steve Yegge wasn't wrong

Once again Google is showing that you should not rely on any of their apps or services for long term needs.

Here is a list of existing Google apps/services that Bulletin would/will compete with:

News https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_News

News and Weather https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_News_%26_Weather

Play Newsstand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Play_Newsstand

and the discontinued ones:

Fast Flip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Fast_Flip