News Browser's Paradise: NewsNow
Jinfo Blog

26th February 2009

By Gary Price

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Let's face it, we live in a search world. We're always searching for something. However, this doesn't mean that serendipity browsing rather than searching is not of value anymore. Many of us remember the day when you would head to the stacks looking for one book, but the one on the next shelf turned out to be of greater value. If browsing news and information might be of value to you, I suggest taking a look at NewsNow at http://www.newsnow.co.uk/ - this London-based service is a true treasure chest for the browser. Let's take a look at what the free NewsNow has to offer its users. * A constant update from thousands, over 35 thousand to be exact, sources from both mainstream press and blogs. Blogs are marked as such * 'Pre-built' categories that allow you to browse the news by topic. There are a couple hundred available. Often during a breaking news situation NewsNow will create a new category for the news event and place it in the 'Hot Topics' section. Spend some time browsing the categories to find the ones that are most useful to you. I am always reviewing the 'Search Engine' and 'Social Media' categories * Category pages automatically refresh/update every five minutes * A simple search box that allows basic searches of words in the headlines. (Full-Text searching is not available with this free version of the service.) * Quick and easy identification of a source’s home country by the use of flags. For example, next to a headline from an Australian source you’ll see the Australian flag * The options to quickly return to categories you’ve already visited. Look for the 'My Most Viewed' link near the top of the left-side of the page * A 'see also' box (lower left-side of page) that suggests other categories that might be of value to you * An option to review headlines for the past month * A new mobile site version of the service. It’s important to note that NewsNow also offers a fee-based service with more robust features including full-text fielded searching of articles. I'll be following up in a future post with highlights from the fee-based service.

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