Google is working on a new feature for Chrome which sounds a lot like the “Discover” feed on your Android phone. This new feature will be called “Web Feed.”
Web Feed
We spotted an upcoming experimental flag on the Chromium Gerrit website. The related bug is marked private, so we don’t have a lot of details at this moment.
The flag name and the description reveal some information:
“Web Feed: Allows users to keep up with and consume web content.”
To me, it sounds a lot like the Discover feed that you find on your Android phone.
The Discover feed is available on Google Chrome’s new tab page (NTP) on Android as well.
Is Web Feed the “Discover” feed for the web?
Here is my theory on this while we wait for more information. Discover is an Android and Chrome feature. If you can make this part of Chromium, we will eventually see this working on other Chromium-based browsers including Edge.
Now, think about Stories. You have seen them on Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter and even Spotify.
Google is pushing Web Stories, a version of stories for the open web. Google needs a place where users can discover and consume these stories. Web Feed could be a place where Google can do this, across browsers.
These are, of course, my speculations for now. It might take a while before we can test this feature and see what Web Feed does. I shall update this article as soon as this becomes functional on the Canary channel.
Source: Chromium Gerrit.
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