Google announced [1] today that they’re introducing reading lists from major politicians like Barack Obama and John McClain along with reading lists from political commentators like Ariana Huffington [2] and Mark Halperin [3]. Google promoted the new service today on their homepage by touting the ability to read what Obama and McCain are reading, with a link line just below the search form:
The Google Reader blog states that you’ll now be able to “read what they read” and here their commentary as they share and discuss news.
If this gains sufficient adoption, I could easily see Google adding reading lists from many other influential people. It’s very interesting to see Google sort of promoting the blogging and commentary from a small set of users. It raises questions about who gets to be one of the lucky few — what about third parties and other commentators? Perhaps this is just the introduction of a service of this sort, and many more “read what they read” authors will be represented later on down the line as well…