Google Rebrands Feed as ‘Discover,’ Adds It to Google Mobile Homepage
A year ago, Google rebranded Google Now to the Google Feed. The new name recognized the renewed focus on news rather than predictive search. Now, Google is changing the name once again and adding some more features. The Google Feed is becoming “Discover,” and it’ll start popping up in more places.
The change from Feed to Discover isn’t as drastic as the move from Now to Feed. You’ll still get a list of news and other content chosen for you based on your browsing habits. Things will look a little different with a new asterisk icon in the trademark Google colors to signify the Discover tab in the Google mobile app. Each story or set of stories has a header so you know why Google thinks you’ll be interested. You can also tap the header to get more links about that topic. Some users have been seeing the updated Discover UI for several weeks as Google tested it. So, don’t be surprised if this seems a little familiar.
While Discover will continue to focus on news, Google also says it will also surface content that might not be recent. These “evergreen” pages and videos should still be relevant to you, based on Google’s AI-powered algorithms. If you come across something in Discover that you particularly like or dislike, you can now express that sentiment with a toggle in the corner of the card. Just tell Google you want “More” or “Less” like that post to tune the algorithm. You can still block sites you don’t want to see.
Discover is available to the left of the first home screen on many Android phones, but some large OEMs like Samsung and LG replace Discover with something of their own design that’s less useful. You can always access the feed in your Google app on any Android or iOS device. That’s all the same as the Feed. However, Discover is going to make an appearance someplace else: in your browser.
Google plans to put Discover on its mobile homepage for all browsers. So, you’ll be able to scroll down past the search box to get into the same list that shows up in the Google app. This is coming in the next few weeks and will apply to all mobile browsers like Chrome, Safari, and Firefox. That’s sure to increase engagement with Discover, especially on devices that don’t have the Google panel on the home screen.
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