Update: Google News Malayalam is indexing Manorama online now.
Google India has launched a Malayalam language channel for Google News, writes BG Mahesh, CEO of Grenynium on his blog. OneIndia’s content is being indexed by Google News, along-with content from Yahoo, Webdunia, Sify, Madhyamam, Veekshanam, Deshabhimani, Mangalam, Deepika, Aswamedham.
Strangely enough, though, Google News doesn’t appear to be indexing Malayala Manorama, believed to be the most widely read Malayalam news portal.
This might be because of a font issue - (see update above) Malayala Manorama uses their own font called Manorama (font-file, TTF), instead of the recommended Unicode fonts. I also came across a post listing tools for blogging in Malayalam, and suggestions regarding fonts, as well as links to Malayalam blog lists and aggregators. These posts are over a year old, though.
Mahesh writes that they’re expecting Google to launch Telugu and Kannada versions of Google News next. This follows the launch of Google News in Tamil and Hindi, and search in Gujarati, Marathi and Bengali earlier this year.
Update: We’ve been told by sources in the know, that this isn’t due to a font issue. Switching to unicode fonts, however, is important. Manorama doesn’t work properly on Firefox unless the specific font is installed.
From our Indic Languages section:
– Google News And Indic Language Initiatives; Launches News In Tamil
– OnMobile Global Inks Exclusive Mobile Music Deals With Around 40 South Indian Labels
– Chandamama Launches Hindi, Tamil And Telugu Portals; Archives Inaccessible
– Google Rolls Out Search In 3 Indian Languages - Gujarati, Marathi and Bengali; Rediff Language Search In Beta
– The Economic Times Launches Hindi Site; Business Standard Gujarati; Jagran.com?
– Bilingual Site Patrika.com To Cover 50 Cities
Google, Indic Languages
Tags:
Aswamedham,
Deepika,
Deshabhimani,
Google India,
Google News,
Indic Languages,
Madhyamam,
Malayala Manorama,
Malayalam,
Mangalam,
Sify,
Veekshanam,
Webdunia,
Yahoo
