While none of us here at ReadWriteWeb have yet to see it in our Google News, a tip this morning from blogger Joe Hobot tells us that trending topics may be coming to the search engine's news aggregator.
We got in touch with Google this morning and a spokesman confirmed that the feature is indeed part of a series of experiments the company has been running since early this month.
Image thanks to Joe Hobot.
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According to Chris Gaither, a spokesperson for Google, Search Engine Rountable first reported the potential feature's appearence last Friday. Gaither said that trending topics are one of many experiments Google is conducting in their redesign of the news homepage.
At Google, we run anywhere from 50 to 200 experiments at any given time on our websites all over the world. Right now, we are running a small test of a new Google News homepage design. More information about how Google runs experiments can be found [here].
Google last redesigned its news page last May, adding more visual content to the layout. This time around, we expect to see more in the way of real-time content, including features such as the trending topics seen here.
If you keep a close watch, it is possible you will see other new features that Google is testing, but as the company's blog post points out, often these features will show up and go completely unnoticed. In Hobot's case, the trending topics showed up for a brief period before disappearing again.
We asked about the specifics of the new feature, but Gaither said that statement included above is all the company is saying about it at this time.
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