The Google News Following tab redesign looks and acts suspiciously like Chrome’s follow feed

Remember when Google Reader was a thing? It was the go-to hub for all our RSS reading needs until it got axed in 2013. Since then, Google has made a few moves to reinvent that wheel, and lately, the wheel’s looking suspiciously familiar.

Google News on Android just redesigned its “Following” feed, and let me tell you, it’s got me raising my eyebrows. Not in a bad way, mind you, but I’m excited for the implications. You see, it acts and looks just like Chrome’s follow feed. I mean, if you squint a little, you could easily mistake one for the other.

In version 5.86 of the app on Android, the redesigned tab does more than show you a list of topics and sources you’re following – it shows you a few articles from each in a dedicated feed! Now, in order to follow and unfollow sources and topics, you’ll need to tap the ‘Add interest’ source type or the ‘Library’ icon as shown above. Stuffing these two important features into sub sections allowed the company to use this ‘Following’ tab to directly show you more dedicated and specific content than the ‘For you’ tab.

But back to the elephant in the room. This whole redesign is eerily reminiscent of how Chrome serves up content when you pop open a new tab after following a website. Check out the side-by-side I placed below. Coincidence? Maybe, but I think it’s a sign of bigger things to come.

The similarities between the redesigned Google News Following feed look and functionality and Chrome’s follow feed are, frankly, too close to ignore. Is Google laying the groundwork to merge the two? Sure, this is all just a bit of fun speculation for now, but mark my words, something is going on here.

My hope is that the ‘Saved’ stories in Google News somehow tie into Google Collections in the near future, and both somehow merge with Google Discover. I understand that Discover and News have vastly different purposes, but I would love some better cross-pollination for each, especially when it comes to storing content for later. Let me know in the comments if you’ve already got this Google News update, and if you agree that it’s hinting at some similarities with Chrome Follow Feed.