Google starts pilot with app to show and create regional news stories

Google has started a limited pilot with the smartphone app Bulletin in two American places. Basically, this is a digital bulletin board like Twitter, where users can upload and view news stories, photos and videos from their own region.

It is not yet clear how long the pilot will last in the United States and whether it will be expanded in the future. Also, in the announcement, Google did not say anything about any rules that apply when users want to upload something.

The image published by Google shows the beginning of a story about flooding of the Nelson River. The title, author, location and subject are shown in a separate window at the top of the message, with the actual news story below. There is also a photo in the background, which may have been uploaded by the author. There is also a like button.

According to Google, the regional stories will be readable by everyone around the world. It is unclear whether there are also possibilities for users to communicate with each other or, for example, to place comments under posted content.