Google+ is now coming to Google News

Google is bringing its Plus social tools into Google News, one of the company’s more popular web search tools.

Previously, Google News had been showing users the unobtrusive +1 button next to articles to let users upvote or recommend particular items.

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With the addition of today’s features, signed-in Google+ users will easily be able to see the articles their friends have been reading and sharing, as well.

In the Google News Spotlight section, users will now sometimes see articles their Gmail contacts and Google+ friends have publicly chosen to +1. Each user’s profile picture is visible next to the headline in question.

Also, you can choose to +1 the stories yourself as well as sharing and commenting on the articles with your Google+ circles.

“We hope this change helps you find more great articles to enjoy, and gives more power to your +1s,” wrote Google software engineer Erich Schmidt on the compay’s official blog.

Google has for some time had a plan to slowly incorporate its Google+ social features into all the company’s web applications. The general rollout of Plus features across Google-powered web properties started last month with Google Reader, a somewhat maligned and questionable relevant RSS reader.

Next, the company pulled Plus integrations into Blogger, its widely used CMS and blogging platform. Soon, you will be seeing more Google+ integrations in heavily used sites such as YouTube.

Since it’s eventually going to be part of everything Google does on the web, some have determined Google+ usage to be practically unavoidable, or at least inevitable.

“We think of Google+ as a mode of usage of Google,” said Google executive Bradley Horowitz in a recent interview with VentureBeat.

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He went on to say that the Google+ features around other Google products will serve as “a way of lighting up your Google experience as opposed to a new product. It’s something that takes time to appreciate, even internally. It’s easy to think of Google+ as something other than just Google, and I think it’ll take more launches before the world catches up with this understanding.”

Image courtesy of seng1011.