Google Labs Fast Flip now live
Google Labs Fast Flip is now live. The service aims to streamline the process of viewing online news by presenting overviews of the headline stories from a selection of leading newspaper publishers. Currently 36 publishers are providing content to the service, with plans to add more in the future.
The idea is to provide users with a news browsing experience akin to flipping through a physical newspaper or magazine, but with a greater variety of sources instantly available. Google hopes to encourage people to spend more time reading online through the service, as well as provide publishers with a new means to generate traffic.
The service appears to work by taking a snapshot of the webpage carrying a news article, and uploading it to the Fast Flip user interface (UI) as an image. This eliminates the loading times of web pages with multiple elements. Should a reader wish to view the article in depth, they click on the image and are redirected to the source page.
Fast Flip divides the news into a number of categories such as recent, recommended, most viewed, and headlines. The news is also divided by popularity and source. Being a Google Labs experiment, it is likely that the UI will be constantly refined.
Users can also sign in with a Google account. By tagging articles they particularly liked, Fastflip will begin to generate recommendations. Users can provide feedback on their experience of the service and suggest improvements at the Google Labs page.
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