14 DAY TRIAL // Google News is not exactly the go to site to get the latest scoops and important articles on the things that interest you. It's used by millions of people, yes, but anyone needing real-time info looks elsewhere, mostly to Twitter. But Google is bent on changing that and it's come up with a killer feature, badges.
Yes, the same thing that made Foursquare the hugely popular service that it is today is now coming to Google News.
"Starting today, in the U.S. edition of Google News, you can see how voracious a news reader you are by earning Google News badges as you read articles about your favorite topics," Natasha Mohanty, engineer Google News, wrote.
"The more you read, the higher level badge you’ll receive, starting with Bronze, then moving up the ladder to Silver, Gold, Platinum and finally, Ultimate," she listed all of the different badge levels.
Why badges, you may ask. It's simple, with badges you'll be able to know just how many Obama articles you've read, if you really are such a big basketball buff as you think and so on.
You may have had an idea of how well you're doing, but you now have hard, measurable, colorful proof of your dedication. This way, the next time you'll stumble upon yet another boring article on how the world's economy is crumbling, you may actually read it because you'll want your badges to level up.
And if the world's economy is not really your favorite topic, fret not, there are over 500 badges available, ensuring that no topic, however niche, is left out.
But what good are platinum badges on Harry Potter if only you can see them. The badges are private by default, but you can boast about them to the world, perhaps post something about it on Google+.
And if all of this sounds good, you'll be glad to know that it's just the first step, Google will continue to work on this until it achieves perfection.
This is not all, the team also had time to make some more trivial changes to the service, the Sci/Tech section will now finally be split into two sections, after plenty of user requests.