Google announces a personalised news section to Podcasts

Podcast users can discover and listen to short stories, which will be selected based on their interests, location, user history and preferences.

A news section on Google Podcasts offering personalised news stories.

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Google has announced a news section on Google Podcasts offering personalised news stories in an audible format to users in the U.S.

“Podcasting is more popular than ever, and news is the fastest-growing category in podcasts,” Liz Gannes, Product Manager, News at Google, said.

Your News Update under the Explore tab.

 

Your News Update is the new audio news playlist on Google Podcasts, users can navigate to the Explore tab and subscribe to it. Podcast users can discover and listen to short stories, which will be selected based on their interests, location, user history and preferences.

Since, Your News Update is already available on Google Assistant, users can just ask “Hey Google, play local news” or “Hey Google, play news about (city),” to listen to personalised news.

Google says new natural sounding text-to-speech voices will be available when listening to news using Google Podcasts, and Google Assistant, to make the listening experience more enjoyable. Also, it is using machine learning techniques to deliver a tailored experience.