Google has been integrating a number of social features into its mainstay service offerings in recent weeks, and the latest service to get the treatment is Google News: the company has unveiled an early (“bronze”) release of Google News Badges, enabling users to see (and share) how much news they follow on particular topics. Google has put together more than 500 news badges. Google is pitching the badges as a way for readers to keep better track of what they read on Google news and more easily find articles that are interesting to them—and while the badges are private by default, Google does encourage users to share them with others. And as users “level-up” their badges, competition will no doubt ensue.
“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,” Google’s Natasha Mohanty wrote on the Google News Blog.
Google says it plans to take the feature “to the next level” once they see how Google News viewers use and share badges. Some industry reports speculate Google is eyeing rolling out badges and other virtual rewards for online products other than Google News.
Of course, adding gaming elements to Google News may help to make the Google News site stickier, encouraging people to use the service more deeply in order to accumulate more badges and level them up. Google News users will also have to be logged in to their Google Accounts for badges to accumulate—and that translates directly into providing Google with deeper insight into its users’ interests and activities. That information about its users is, of course, the goldmine Google sells to advertisers.
It may be a gimmick but it is what they call a lucrative gimmick. Many of us techies and marketers may not really like it, but it's about what the people who use Google most think. The ordinary Mom's and Dad's and younger generations… if they like it, then it will be a winner and it will gather a lot of data and generate a lot of revenue via advertising.
Dumb. The problem with badge systems is that people will simply like things to get more points and a better badge. It turns reading content into a game. Total gimmick and a desperate move to get more pageviews by Google.
Surprise: I read about tech a lot. Don't really need a badge to prove it. This is just another silly social gimmick, but I guess I don't blame Google for playing into it now that it has Google+ to worry about.