Google News Testing Twitter Integration With “Friends”

By Barry Schwartz

Published: October 7, 2010 at 12:44 pm

Google is testing a new feature that lets you connect your Twitter account to Google News. Some people are seeing a “Friends” box on the right hand side of Google News inviting them to do this.

The friends box asks you to enter your Twitter username and click “Save.” When you click save, Google News will refresh, and you will see a list of updates containing news articles shared by the people you follow. Google even has a help document on this feature.

@jblukin spotted this and posted a picture of the sign-up box:

And @dacort posted a picture showing the Friends box in action:

Google’s help page on the feature clarifies that the Friends box only shows you links to news content that can also be found in Google News. Other links they share, if they aren’t Google News-worthy, so to speak, won’t be shown.

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About the author

Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz is a technologist and a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics.

In 2019, Barry was awarded the Outstanding Community Services Award from Search Engine Land, in 2018 he was awarded the US Search Awards the "US Search Personality Of The Year," you can learn more over here and in 2023 he was listed as a top 50 most influential PPCer by Marketing O'Clock.

Barry can be followed on X here and you can learn more about Barry Schwartz over here or on his personal site.