Google Discover Is Now Surfacing Social Media Posts For Some Users

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Your Discover feed could soon be a melting pot of news and social media posts

Useful addition or just noise? You decide

Summary

Google is testing the integration of social media accounts and posts directly into the Discover feed.
This test includes content from platforms such as Instagram, X (Twitter), and YouTube Shorts.
The potential addition of social media could shift the Discover feed towards more real-time updates alongside news.

Google’s Discover feed is going through a phase of dynamic change. In the month of April alone, Google has been spotted working on a redesigned version of Discover Feed cards that forsakes the familiar curved-edge card-based layout in favor of a full-width one. This change has already rolled out, and it is live for me with Google app beta version 16.15.38.

Subsequently, the tech giant was spotted working on shortening links for articles shared from within the Discover and Google app feed. This change, too, is live now for most users.

Soon after, at a live event in Madrid, Spain, Google confirmed its official plans to expand Discover to the Google.com homepage on desktop. While the change has yet to roll out widely, users, at least those in the US, should expect the desktop feed to be available in the near future. Additionally, users can also expect to soon start seeing social media accounts and posts within their feeds.

While long-form YouTube videos have previously made their way to Discover, with what Google appears to be testing, users might also be able to scroll through YouTube Shorts, Instagram and X (Twitter) posts right within their feeds, as highlighted by the folks over at 9to5Google.

Useful addition or just noise? You decide

From the looks of it, the new social media integration will highlight posts and/or accounts that match your preference and search history. These could be YouTube Shorts regarding your favorite NBA team, the latest Instagram posts from artists that you like listening to, or X posts from key position holders, like Sundar Pichai.

Whether other social media platforms will be added to the list remains to be seen, though what is clear is that tapping any of the social media posts will open the respective app on your phone (if you have it installed). Alternatively, Discover might also redirect you to the mobile website for the app.

For what it’s worth, I’m not seeing the new social media integration on the latest Google app beta build, and the actual extent of this rollout is currently unclear. Google could be A/B testing the feature with a small subset of users before deciding if it wants to make social media integration available more widely.

Are you seeing this Discover feed change? Let us know what you think of it in the comments below.