Google Announces Experimental Fast Flip News Reader

Google, as well as others, considers today's news sites as turning off users because they are slow to load. While that could be addressed in the U.S. by addressing the abysmal (ahem) broadband speeds compared to the rest of the world, that's really a bandaid. Google sees that a different paradigm for news viewing needs to be developed, and that's where Fast Flip from Google comes in.

The Fast Flip name implies that you can flip through pages, and you sort of can, but only by using the arrows at either side of the screen. Perhaps I'm spoiled by both the iPhone and webOS, but I expected flipping to be more like "grabbing part of the 'news row' and flipping it to the left or right." That doesn't work. Bleh.

Or at least, it doesn't work on the desktop. According to Google, Fast Flip Mobile supports that sort of flipping, at least on Android and the iPhone (no mention of webOS). The mobile version of Fast Flip is available at the same URL.

Of course, this is still pretty new stuff. I'd guess that it will be added in the future (hopefully, anyway).

Google partnered with three dozen publishers, they say, on Fast Flip. The list includes, among others, the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Salon, Fast Company, ProPublica, and Newsweek. These partners will share the revenue earned from contextual ads (no!).

While you can scroll when the news reader is maximized, as shown, you can also scroll between stories on the same "news row" if you click into a story for details. The navigation arrows appear in the detailed view as well. However, it takes two clicks to reach the full story, first into details, and then into the full story.

Obviously, there's the potential that Google Fast Flip could actually hurt the already embattled news industry. That question was addressed by none other than the New York Times itself, which has joined the coalition of publishers. Martin A. Nisenholtz, senior vice president for digital operations for The New York Times Company, said:

“Of course there is a concern. That doesn’t mean you don’t participate.”

Numerous attempts have been made to increase viewership on news web sites, including RSS readers and other sorts of news aggregators. None of this, really, is going to help out newspapers, however, as the key thing for them, monetization, continues to be an issue as ad revenues drop or remain stagnant.

That said, more and more people want to have access to news on mobile devices. Google Fast Flip on mobile devices could really have an impact there. Time will tell, and Google needs to get it on other platforms besides Android and iPhone, as well.