Although Google localized its search for the German-speaking part of Belgium, Google News is only available in French and Dutch. So I sent this message to the Google News Team…
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Hi there!
I noticed that you also have localized versions of Google News. Usually I use the English version of Google, although I’m located in the German-speaking part of Belgium.
There are 2 localized version of Google News for Belgium: French and Dutch. However the third official language is German. We are close to the borders of Germany, Holland, Luxembourg and also next to the French speaking part of Belgium.
Maybe there could also be a Google News in German for us German-speaking Belgians. We’re the only real Belgians left as we don’t argue over separatism… ;-)
Given that there are only 68000 people living in our region, there are only a few news sources such as BRF (the public radio), Grenz-Echo (newspaper).
However being so close to many border, maybe the “Google News Belgien” could include news sources from the local press as well as from the adjacent regions and cities: Luxembourg, Liege, Verviers, Aachen, Maastricht, Cologne, Bitburg…
If you need any help to identify any news sources for such a small specialized version of Google News, please let me know and I’ll use Google (and my other sources) to find those sites and newsfeeds.
Thanks for listening!
Joe.
Here’s the answer I received from Google:
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Hi Joe,
Thank you for your note about Google News. We currently don’t have a
localized version of Google News for Belgium in German. We’re considering
a number of improvements based on feedback from our users. Given that
we’re still fine-tuning this service, it’s too early for us to know which
of the many great ideas we’ve received will be implemented.
We do however offer other localized versions of Google News in German. You
could visit Google News Germany at http://news.google.com/news?ned=de.
This German version also includes the sites you recommended. You can find
articles from Grenz-Echo by clicking on the following link:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=de&ned=de&ie=UTF-8&scoring=d&q=site%3Anetecho.info
As well as articles from BRF Hauptportal at:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=de&ned=de&q=site:brf.be&ie=UTF-8&scoring=d
You can also specify a location for your customized section in a German
edition of Google News by entering your search terms into the search box
on your custom front page, followed by this phrase:
“location:countryname”.
For example: here are the search terms you could use to find the latest
news on lemurs in Madagascar: [lemurs location:madagascar]
Thank you for using Google News.
Regards,
The Google Team
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