Secrets of the City

At this point, I’m most impressed with Outside.in’s aggregation of local news sources. For example, compare Google’s 55404 vs Outside.in’s version.

We don’t have Everyblock in MN yet, but that will be another impressive option some day.

I’ll have to dig a little deeper to see what Google captures locally. I have noted that this particular search engine almost never picks up on MPR stories, and its links to New Media (MinnPost and the like) are few and far between.

It always picks MPR stories for me and while it doesn’t get MinnPost I already have them in my RSS reader. What I have found is that the stories it gets are not of any real use and I end up having repeats with other feeds from the Pioneer Press, StarTribune and other local feeds I have either created using feed43.com or from the site directly.

Google Local News sucks. Boo!

It’s easy to turn up stuff on a big city. Less so for a suburb, much less so for anything outside the metro. I shouldn’t be getting results for Plymouth on the second page of my Eden Prairie search.

Maybe I’m remembering wrong, but didn’t Yahoo! have local news like 10 years ago?

I just want to point out that max pointed out that erica pointed out this story.

For big cities, they need to figure out a way to get more local than the metro level.

MinnPost probably doesn’t show up because nobody – probably – has submitted their site for inclusion. That’s not required, but sure speeds up the process.

Google can’t find MPR, but USA Today did, along with local political professor (and pundant) Lawrence Jacobs. I got a chuckle how Jacobs defends the poll he and MPR put out five days before the Minnesota caucuses, putting Obama at just 33% (and Clinton ahead with 40%!).

The final for the man from the Land of Lincoln: 66%.

Bonus: Cute picture of little kid and Obama.

Oh i’m loving this local news feature.
From the Fittest and fattest cities: one is Minneapolis article in the strib. One of the reasons why they think Mpls is in great shape:

“Mayor R.T. Rybak sets a positive example with a regular exercise regimen.”

Are you serious?! Who writes these things…

The Mouse blaims the Fitness Police. First they get you to stop smoking, via hectoring. Then they go after your cheesebuger. Than the Puritans shut down the theaters! The Mouse told you first…

I shouldn’t be getting results for Plymouth on the second page of my Eden Prairie search.

I assume you know how search engines work, e.g. keywords, meta-tags, etc.

Is it possible that somewhere in an article about Eden Prairie, or somewhere within that particular web page, there is also a reference (passing, meta, or otherwise) to Plymouth?

I <3 Belinda Jensen

Is it possible that somewhere in an article about Eden Prairie, or somewhere within that particular web page, there is also a reference (passing, meta, or otherwise) to Plymouth?

The stories I mentioned in the MB post had no mention of Eden Prairie. It’s possible EP may have been in a sidebar somewhere. I can kinda see it in the Strib where they divvy stuff up by metro regions, but not with KARE11.

But if Google News purports to analyze the text of the story to bring more relevant results, that shouldn’t even matter. Their local news search apparently isn’t doing anything differently except prompting you to search on a “local” topic.

…

Actually, I get better results just putting a zip or “eden prairie” into a regular Google News search.

Maybe it depends on what sort of results you’re expecting. In other words, you should have low expectations for Google Local News.

“so that “local” doesn’t necessarily mean “limited“.”
How true it turns out Malaysia is in My shorts

It’s nice to see D town make it as their example.
“You can see an example with the latest news from Duluth, Minnesota”