The Good News About News Bots 
Introduction

"All news, all the time" may be the mantra of radio news stations, but most of us need to be selective in the news we want. 

News bots can help you be selective.  They search the websites of newspapers, magazines, and e-zines to find articles that are of specific interest to you.  We evaluated six news bots to find which was the most effective.

To be included in this roundup, a bot had to offer free information, search through multiple publications (the more, the better) and offer true search capabilities, not just the ability to create customized newspapers. We examined search options to help us narrow searches using tools such as Boolean logic to make queries as specific as possible. Also, the bots had to search for general news, and not limit itself to a specific type of news such as business, sports, or health.

To test the timeliness of the information, the quality of the sources, and the ability to locate pertinent articles, we searched each site to search for stories on three topics. The first was for "Al Gore."  This search was revealing not because of any particular support for Gore's presidential candidacy, but because it indicates how many stories each site provides on big current events stories.

Our second search was for articles on "recycling."  This search was designed to examine the depth of each site since recycling is a topic that is constantly in the news but rarely at the forefront.  Finally, we searched for stories about "Charles M. Schulz" looking for stories about the Peanuts creator's retirement from the comics.  This search was designed to examine the longevity of stories at each site since, at the time this was written, the story was a couple of months old.

Note, we didn't try all news bots, but rather tried to cover a broad spectrum.  After our bout with bots, here's the good news.