Jul 15, 2011 at 9:23am ET by Barry Schwartz

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Google News announced you can now earn badges for reading news on Google News. The badges are awarded by topic, such as stock market, Apple, Harry Potter, U.S. Politics and so on. The more you read about a specific topic through Google News, the higher the badge reaches. It starts at Bronze and goes to Silver, Gold, Platinum and then Ultimate.

Here is a video demoing the feature:

I personally was granted the achievement of the Apple badge:

Your badges are private by default, you however share your badges with your friends. You can also add custom sections by hovering on a badge and clicking “add section”. To get started with badges, visit Google News from a signed-in account with web history enabled and then visit this page the instructions page for more details.

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http://www.hamishnivenphotography.co.za/ Hamish

What do points mean?
Points mean prizes!

What a fab way to find out more about the user base, find out what people like, want, think, read about, and google then knows even more about you.

Its just in case you forget what you are interested in.
Race you to get a gold badge as a reward

And all under a banner of fluffy music to hide the intent of giving you presents for giving your soul away…

Great marketing though, even more kudos there.

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