Google is attempting to personalise its news service with a revamped Google News homepage and a number of tweaks that include apparently making it easy for social networkers to share stories via services like Twitter.

The service, which is rolling out in the US (everyone else will just have to wait), allows people to customise the way in which they source and view news – for instance, enabling users to select specific media sources,  as well as select news categories.

People can also share “story clusters” with other people via Twitter, Facebook, Buzz and Reader by selecting from a drop-down menu.

Underpinning the overhaul is a service Google has dubbed ‘News for you’, a series of headlines tailored to people’s interests. In the ‘Edit personalization’ box, users can change their preferences, such as whether they’re interested in business, health, entertainment, sports, etc. They can also add their own categories (for instance “New Google News launches in UK”)

Once stories have been collated, users can view them by section view or list view and if someone hovers their mouse cursor over a headline, an expanded list of headlines will appear.

Google has written extensively about the service on its official blog: which kicks off with these words:

“There’s an old saying that all news is local. But all news is personal too—we connect with it in different ways depending on our interests, where we live, what we do and a lot of other factors.”

Factors include a function enabling people to rank their preferred news sources, so that they will receive stories from favourite titles higher up than those from their least favourite.

Over to the blurb: “We’re also more prominently displaying the Spotlight section, which features stories of more lasting interest than breaking news and has been one of our most popular sections since we introduced it last fall.

“And then there’s local news; we’re now highlighting weather and headlines about your city or neighborhood in their own section, which you can edit with whichever location you want to follow.”

Google said that while the service is only currently available in the US, it will be expanding it to all editions in the “coming months”.

Without being in a position to test if for myself, I’m going to sign off. So if anyone out there has tried it, your comments would be much appreciated.