Why did Google create News Timeline and not newspapers?

I have to say that my initial reaction to Google Labs News Timeline feature was meh. I don't think it's as elegant as Marcos Weskamp and Dan Albritton's newsmap, which has been around since 2004.

However, as Edward N. Albro points out at PCWorld, there are some useful features such as the ability to see the news by decade. It really shows how news goes from being the first draft of history to become history. Make sure to click the rather subtle Add More Queries link right above the Go button to add more sources. That's where it gets really interesting. One thing that I think is very clever is that it easily adds time to the concept of search. One can enter a date or year and see relevant articles, although the further back in time you go, the thinner the information gets and the percentage of content from Wikipedia increases.

I would be curious to see whether Time magazine sees a spike in traffic to their archives because of this. In the decade view, a Time cover sits at the top of the column. This is a brilliant way to navigate archived content, and I could lose hours going back through history. Publications looking to leverage their archives should take note.