Does Google want to be the new Digg?

Google has just added a feature to its News search engine called “Friends”. This tool lets you type your Twitter name in, and while you’re browsing the latest breaking news the side bar of the site will update you on what news links your friends have tweeted.

The tool is very easy to use and quite simple in its functionality. But can it help Google become a more efficient and relevant source for news?

Google launched its own URL shortener last week designed to help people make the most of their 140 characters on Twitter. This tool could act as another great advert for the service as they might change all the links, long or shortened, to Goo.gl URLs. But this isn’t the case at the moment.

Because of the limitations of Twitter’s API, this feature is only possible on Google’s search engine because it’s paying for the information.

I believe the service is an attempt to breathe new life into the News aggregation site. The site’s core functionality is still showing the day’s top stories from a selection of new sites, but this is a different kettle of fish.

This data is completely user generated, but from a different site. Google doesn’t host any of the data, it just shows you it; which raises the question: why can’t these people just check their Twitter feed?

It cuts out the irrelevant tweets, those without a link, but does this validate this feature? Google thinks so; but can’t Twitter just offer a similar tool that lets people search their followers’ tweets? For that matter, can we have a search for an individual user?

Getting back on topic, I think Twitter needs a new set of search tools to make it easier to find relevant information rather than the whole community’s conversations through Trendy Topics and hashtags.

With Digg’s traffic in major decline, this could be a step in right direction to help people discover news that could interest them.