Google News Fast Flip: Possible Use for Newspapers? September 15, 2009
Search Engine Roundtable posted a demo of a new Google News feature called “Fast Flip“. In a nutshell, Fast Flip allows users to scroll through screengrabs of news headlines from various websites.
Aside from being visually grabbing, I really don’t see a huge benefit to Fast Flip vs. traditional RSS feeds or aggregated content (Google News). As a reader, my interest is in the content itself, not the aesthetics – however pleasant they may be – of the website on which the story has been posted.
Where I do see some use coming through, however, is in Fast Flip folding into a Google offering for traditional print publications.
Flipping through pages of a magazine or newspaper is status quo, and until now, that experience really hasn’t been successfully mimicked online (in my opinion, anyway). Fast Flip could be a step forward for transitioning newspapers – and other print publications – into the digital medium.
Update: Time for me to declare ignorance! The obvious tie-in between publishers and the web was the entire purpose of Fast Flip, as pointed out in the official Google blog post. This is what happens when you don’t catch up on your RSS feeds – you read a single blog post and start thinking you’ve thought of something original. Oh well.
Posted in Google