Google's popular news aggregation service, Google News, has been taken out of beta and has entered full service, writes PC Pro, pointing out that the move seems to be a trend of sorts, with Google Earth also having left beta this month, as had Google Desktop at the end of last year. Moreover, two new features have been added. First is "personalized news headlines," which integrates Personalized Search into Google News so that users receive recommended news stories according to their news searches. Second, a new section in the left-hand column, "Most Popular," shows the most popular recent stories in the Google News edition being viewed.

In the three years and three months of its existence, Google News has grown into 22 regional editions and 10 languages.

AdJab points to speculation on the part of paidContent that now would be a perfect time for Google to begin monetizing Google News by integrating ads - adding that competitors have long done so, with no ill effect.

Google News has become the preferred news search engine for journalists and news junkies, accounting for more than 40.2 percent of news searches conducted in August 2005, according to comScore, followed closely by Yahoo News with 39.4 percent, reports Search Engine Watch. However, Yahoo News far surpasses it in the number of unique visitors - 25.4 million, compared with 7.1 million for Google, in October 2005.