“A new online tool that, well, isn’t exactly going to revolutionize journalism,”  is how a Washington Post article described it.

“It’s called a living story page, and Google executives are touting it as their contribution to the beleaguered newspaper business,” it went on to say.

New York Times, the other participant in the experiment, had this to say. “Living stories is a much-enhanced version of what some newspaper Web sites already do by grouping material by subject matter. In the case of The Times, the paper’s Web site has thousands of “topic pages.” But those efforts have not yielded heavy reader traffic or much advertising.” Read on, if you are hooked.

A Google News blog post on the topic was predictably, more effervescent. “We’re providing the technology platform, the Times and Post’s journalists are writing and editing the stories, and we’re continuously collaborating to make the user interface fit with their editorial vision.”

Theme or topic-based coverage on a “single, dynamic page with a consistent URL” focusing on the latest news developments with multiple options or filtering and accessing the related material is largely what this experiment is all about. Let’s wait and watch to see what comes of it.

“I really like this NEW Google feature. Let’s you drill down details. Especially helpful for research,” commented a reader Precisely. I don’t how many readers are looking to delve that deep into stories.