Google launches Australian news service

The Australian version, Google News Australia, is still in its beta stage. "We'll take feedback from the market, and make sure it's 100 percent up to scratch before we launch it properly," Kate Vale, the head of Google Sales for Australia and New Zealand told ZDNet Australia .

The Google News Service uses the same search algorithm as the Google search page, with local news sites and local stories prioritised for the individual markets. In a similar move to the launch of Google Australia last year, Google relied on a single hyperlink on its search page to publicise the new service.

The Google News sites are not designed to generate revenue, and currently contain no advertising, according to Vale, although she left the option open for the introduction of advertising at a later date.

"A lot of Australians are looking in the US version of [Google] News and they [now have] a more relevant service in Australia," said Vale, explaining Google's reason for launching the site. Vale emphatically denied Google was in competition with anyone, pointing out all the site does is direct traffic to news sites. She emphasised Google has no plans to become a portal or directory site.

Google Australia is currently evaluating other Google services available in the US, such as the shopping search engine, Froogle, and the fee-based answering service Google Answers but has no immediate plans to introduce them locally, according to Vale.

According to a Nielson Netratings March 03 Custom Report, 39.8 percent of the online Australian population uses Google each month.