Sneak Peek at a New Google News?

GOOGLE -- May 6, 2011 at 6:58 PM EDT

Sneak Peek at a New Google News?

Google is constantly experimenting, and this morning I happened to be one of the lucky random people included in what looks to be an experiment for a potential redesign to the front door of Google News.

The lede story cluster includes a carousel of thumbnails to videos and images, and even links to Wikipedia entries. On a different story, there was even a link clearly labeled "opinion."

The editing options for how a user would like to view his or her page seem a bit different as well. When I selected the two-column option, the story clusters remained. But under the single-column option, all clusters were reduced to one source per story. This could be a tremendous boon to that one source in terms of page views from referrals considering Google News says they send over a billion clicks a month to publishers.

Finally, there seems to be a redesign to the most-shared section similar to what is on most major news sites. But sharing is not new for Google. Our friends at Search Engine Land spotted sharing features as early as June 2010.

While there were no mentions of this experiment on the Google News Blog, a spokesperson only said that they are constantly conducting experiments but do welcome feedback, so please leave yours in the comments.

(Disclosure: occasionally, the NewsHour collaborates on projects with Google and YouTube.)

Art by Vaness Dennis. Follow Hari on Twitter or give him a Like on Facebook.

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Google is constantly [experimenting](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/04/this-is-test-this-is-only-test.html), and this morning I happened to be one of the lucky random people included in what looks to be an experiment for a potential redesign to the front door of Google News. The lede story cluster includes a carousel of thumbnails to videos and images, and even links to Wikipedia entries. On a different story, there was even a link clearly labeled "opinion." [

](http://to.pbs.org/gnewsredesign) The editing options for how a user would like to view his or her page seem a bit different as well. When I selected the two-column option, the story clusters remained. But under the single-column option, all clusters were reduced to one source per story. This could be a tremendous boon to that one source in terms of page views from referrals considering Google News says [they send over a billion clicks a month to publishers](http://www.poynter.org/how-tos/digital-strategies/e-media-tidbits/101394/googles-cohen-make-sure-user-experience-comes-first-not-search-engine-visibility/). Finally, there seems to be a redesign to the most-shared section similar to what is on most major news sites. But sharing is not new for Google. Our friends at Search Engine Land spotted sharing features as early as [June 2010](http://searchengineland.com/google-testing-new-google-news-home-page-with-sharing-options-44109). While there were no mentions of this experiment on the [Google News Blog](http://googlenewsblog.blogspot.com/), a spokesperson only said that they are constantly conducting experiments but do welcome feedback, so please leave yours in the comments. (Disclosure: [occasionally](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/aboutus/press_releases/2010/0527_OilWidgetSuccess.html), [the](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/aboutus/press_releases/2010/06302010_AmericaSpeaks.html) [NewsHour](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/aboutus/press_releases/2011/Talk2Endeavour.html) collaborates on projects with Google and YouTube.) *Art by Vaness Dennis. Follow Hari on [Twitter](http://twitter.com/hari) or give him a Like on [Facebook](http://bit.ly/HariFB).*