Google News Gets More Social

Google announced the launch of a new social element to Google News, involving the spotlight section. On the Google News Blog, software engineer Erich Schmidt (yep, that’s what it says) writes:

Over the past few months, myriad sites across the web (including Google News) have adopted the +1 button to help start conversations. But there hasn’t been an easy way for signed-in users to see what news articles your friends are enjoying — until now.

Starting today, the Spotlight section will sometimes include articles that your Gmail contacts and people in your Google+ circles have publicly +1’d. You can see their profile pictures and click through to their Google+ profiles, just like on Social Search. And of course you can +1 the stories too, expressing your opinion and optionally sharing with your circles.

Here’s what it looks like:

It’s interesting just how big a role social media, and Google+ in particular is starting to play in Google search. That said, it’s a little surprising that it’s taken this long to see this kind of thing come to Google News. I’d expect greater integration in the future.

Google has been abundantly clear from the start that Google+ will be heavily integrated across its products. It’s that very fact that gives Google+ a legitimate shot at taking on Facebook for social identity.

There are 8 Comments. Add Yours.

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Matt Cassem
November 23, 2011 at 11:23 am

Now if we could just get the +1 button to stop sending the links we +1 to that lil boneyard on the web on our profile. Some articles don’t need to “live forever.”

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jaw crusher and ball mill
November 23, 2011 at 9:37 pm

It’s interesting just how big a role social media, and Google+ in particular is starting to play in Google search.

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fine crusher
November 24, 2011 at 9:07 pm

It’s interesting just how big a role social media,

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ball mill
November 25, 2011 at 3:32 am

it’s a little surprising that it’s taken this long to see this kind of thing come to Google News. I’d expect greater integration in the future

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Andrew from Social Web Q and A
November 25, 2011 at 7:06 pm

I’m still not convinced that they’ll be able to come anywhere near the popularity of the “like” button anytime soon. But I know Google is looking to seamlessly integrate their main properties in the coming months, so it will be interesting to see what they come up with.

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Kids bedding
November 27, 2011 at 9:34 am

Nice article.
Will you please let me know how optimize to Google panda and Google+ .
My site won’t be getting SERP listing,while making valuable back links.

Please teach me.

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bill
November 27, 2011 at 11:14 am

All social media is garbage. People unwittingly give their life profiles, likes, dislikes, associations with others, and behavior profiles to strangers in corporations who compile and massage that data to use against them whenever they please. The value of a warm fuzzy feeling you may get from facebook, twitter, google+, and others is not worth the sacrifice in personal and emotional privacy and you surrender.

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Simon Webb
November 27, 2011 at 3:34 pm

Interesting article. I’m still not sure if Google+ has missed the boat in the social friends space. I wonder what other people think ? thanks Simon