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Google News has finally added a new feature to their services that could give a major boost to trusted publishers. This feature is known as ‘Editor’s Picks’.

As the name suggests, Google News will provide highlights of news stories that the editors of various publications have selected as being the most newsworthy.

To begin with, this feature will only be available to users in the U.S. A new section in the right hand column of the Google News page will display content that editors have selected as being the most important or catchy.

Stories being highlighted may be of local, national or general interest. Some of the publications already involved with this feature are Reuters, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian and Market Watch.

Publishers can decide what stories, videos or audios they wish to display in his section of the feature. Each publisher has to send that information to Google through a special RSS feed.

In order to keep this feature fresh, Google requires feeds from publishers to be updated at least once in 48 hours. A minimum of three articles is also required. Advertisements of any form are not allowed in this section. Only news content is admissible.

Users can navigate to stories of their interest using the side-to-side arrows provided next to the publisher’s logo. A slider at the bottom of the articles, allows users to select their particular source preference.

Google News has been experimenting with this feature since about a year. While this feature allows users to get the news they are interested in from sources they trust, the publisher also get a lot more traffic to their website, thus making it a win-win situation for all three parties involved.