Google News gets a spotlight box showcasing news stories +1 by your social contacts

Google seems to be close to offering more features already offered by Facebook related to social connections.

Google News for example now features a spotlight box that highlight stories that have been +1 by your social connections.

Google News gets a spotlight box showcasing news stories +1 by your social contacts

Facebook has offered a similar box for a long time now for web publishers. We assume that Google too would soon offer their own edition powered by the Google +1 platform.

Google spoke about the new spotlight feature:

Starting today, the Spotlight section will sometimes include articles that your Gmail contacts and people in your Google+ circles have publicly +1’d. You can see their profile pictures and click through to their Google+ profiles, just like on Social Search. And of course you can +1 the stories too, expressing your opinion and optionally sharing with your circles.