NEWS ONLINE

CONTENTS:

• MSN Search Beta - the News
• The Newsroom
• Topix.net

MSN SEARCH BETA - THE NEWS

Microsoft has launched its new beta version of its search engine MSN. One of its features is a News search.

A simple phrase search on a breaking news story took .07 seconds and returned pertinent hits with my search phrase in bold in each summary. But, why is ABCNEWS.com always the first hit on the list and not MSNBC? Hmm.

Opt for Search Builder for more advanced search options. Select Settings to change your options for search results, pick the language displayed, group your results and more. One option that I liked is the ability to set your default location (for now, U.S. locales only) for more relevant hits. Also, you will see Near Me to run your search locally.

Also, find a hot link to Read the News -- which does produce MSNBC News for the reader at http://newsbot.msnbc.msn.com/

or

test the MSN beta at

http://beta.search.msn.com/ news/results.aspx?FORM=NRHP&q

THE NEWSROOM

The Newsroom is an aggregator that provides the reader with one-stop shopping for U.S. and World news resources. With up-to-the-minute news stories, The Newsroom is a good choice for the news.

Drop-down menus allow the user to select news for a specific state or nation. Buttons for News, Current, Features, Money and Resources allow the reader to navigate sections of the site. Also, there are links to the big names in news like Reuters, the Associated Press Wire Search, CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times and others. Also found in these hot links are resources like Lycos Top News, NPR Hourly News (using Windows Media or Real players), Top 25 Newspapers in the World, News Magazines, The Newsroom Morgue and much more.

Many a researcher may find that The Newsroom is a site worthy of exploring.

http://eclecticesoterica.com/news.html

TOPIX.NET

Topix.net is another prospect for daily use by the researcher. Founded in 2002, some of its creators worked hard on bringing to light the Open Directory. Their goal is to offer "targeted news that is relevant to you." How do they propose to reach that goal? The designers developed their own artificial intelligence algorithms to monitor, read and index news stories from more than 9,000 sources and place them into one or more of its 150,000 categories.

"Currently, the Topix.net web page inventory consists of separate pages for the 30,000 U.S. cities and towns, 5,500 public company and industry verticals, 48,000 celebrities and musicians, 1,500 sports teams and personalities, and many, many more."

Besides the common topic headings, it is searchable by zip, city or news search. Of course, it offers an Advanced search to limit queries by topic, source, zip code or city, category, country and publication time frame.

Test-driving Topix.net will be time well-spent.

http://www.topix.net/world/

Pamela J. Smith

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