Moving forward into greater interactivity, Google introduced a feature on its News Web site allowing anyone who is mentioned in a news report linked on Google News to submit a written response.
In other words if Google links to a story about us they also give us the right to join the conversation about the story. That's novel.
Google says
Our long-term vision is that any participant will be able to send in their comments, and we'll show them next to the articles about the story. Comments will be published in full, without any edits, but marked as "comments" so readers know it's the individual's perspective, rather than part of a journalist's report.
A Google employee will check that the response is genuine; independently searching for authentic contact information for the submitter of the comment. Google staff would then place a phone call or cross-check the e-mail address and phone number against information on a company or organization site.
If all checks out, the response will be posted on the same page as the story search results.
"Weird. That's the only way I can describe it" Danny Sullivan from Search Engine Land wrote, making the point that
Comments also give Google its own news content. Some news stories will now be "anchors" for user generated content, somewhat similar to how a site like Digg operates. Of course, by trying to only get the "newsmakers" involved, Google may be hoping to eliminate much of the noise you can get in a place like Digg.
Is the Google move perhaps almost diametrically opposite to the Jason Calcanis' reaction in shutting down comments in his blog or Dave Winer's philosophy expressed in Joel Spolsky's blog?
Is Google taking one giant step beyond encouraging reader feedback in online media or playing a risky game?
Pete Cashmore on Mashable says
I suspect this could put Google in the dangerous role of being a human editor: who decides what comments get published? Are ill-informed rants acceptable? What about propaganda? Could be very tricky indeed.
An interesting move, though. Now to find a news article about us linked from Google news. I wish! That could be enough, even without the opportunity to make our own case on the story.
