Why is everything about gamification nowadays? Do I really care about some badge telling me or others how "well versed" or "well read" I am about a particular topic? Shouldn't that knowledge be attained through conversation, instead?
Google likes to encourage people to do all navigation through the Googles, not through the navigation bar, because this gives them more product (i.e. you) to sell to their customers. It also makes the rest of the world even more dependent on the good graces of Google, which is an unalloyed Good Thing for them.
I don't see much utility in reading the news though. I'd much rather see this on a video lecture site.
That there is the reason why I'm happy about it. At least it's for a good cause. Making reading news more fun for a large fraction of people isn't a bad idea...
You can sometimes obtain very unexpected results if you provide an incentive for something which is almost (but not quite) the thing that you want to favor.
While it is an interesting idea, it seems more likely that the badges will just encourage people to click on random links in order to game the system and level up, rather than actually spending time and reading. Google needs to find a way to encourage depth and not breadth.
Chore Wars was funny and original, but foursquare et al. just treat their customers like a bunch of five year-olds earning gold stars for being a good boy.
And you don't even get chocolate once you get ten of them.
It works better in things like Chore Wars where you get the sense of "DONE" and "WIN" when you get the chore done AND when you get the positive reinforcement.
For FourSquare, it just doesn't give you the same dopamine release. In fact, the concept of 4Square works more because it lets you see who else also checked in. They didnt have to do the badges concept.. could've saved it for others. greedy bastards