Another social layer to news
Since the launch of the +1 button from Google, thousands of sites now offer the ability to +1 any article (as you see at the end of this story) which shares the story with your Google+ network in your stream, but Google says, “there hasn’t been an easy way for signed-in users to see what news articles your friends are enjoying — until now.”
Google has just introduced the “Spotlight” section in the lower right sidebar of the Google News landing page to show what your Gmail contacts and people in your Google+ circles have publicly +1’d, and just like on Google’s existing Social Search in search results or in Facebook shares on a website, you can see the person’s profile picture and a link to their profile when they’ve shared an interesting news story. Google encourages users to click through to the stories and +1 them too.
Erich Schmidt, Google Software Engineer said in a statement, “We hope this change helps you find more great articles to enjoy, and gives more power to your +1s.”
The caveat to the Spotlight section, however, is that it only features news stories, not blog content, but there is a way for you to not have to rely exclusively on CNN or Yahoo to add your face to your connections’ Spotlight section. AGBeat has been syndicated as news by Google for many years, so we encourage you to share our stories through Google+ by pushing the +1 button, which will put your face next to our stories for your connections to see in their Spotlight section.
