Google Fast Flip

Google Fast Flip

Screenshot of the Fast Flip homepage
Web address http://fastflip.googlelabs.com
Commercial? Yes
Type of site
 News
Registration Not required
Available in English
Owner Google
Created by Google
Launched 14 September 2009[1]
Current status Discontinued

Google Fast Flip was an online news aggregator from Google Inc. that mimicked the experience of flicking through a newspaper or magazine, allowing visual search of stories in manner similar to microfiche.[2][3][4] It was launched in beta by Google Labs at the TechCrunch 50 conference in September 2009.[5][6][7]

The site presented images of stories from Google's news partners, which could be clicked on to navigate to the story on the news provider's own website.[7] Stories could be scrolled between using the mouse or cursor keys. The presentation of stories used a similar algorithm to Google News, but stories could be ordered by publication as well as by subject.[6] Krishna Bharat of Google News has said that "Fast Flip is mostly for longer shelf-life content, the kind of content you want to recommend to other people."[8] Fast Flip was created after Larry Page "asked why the web was not more like a magazine, allowing users to flip from screen to screen seamlessly."[4] Fast Flip was available as well on iPhone and Android mobile devices.[9]

Users of Fast Flip were able to follow friends and topics, find new content, and to create their own customized magazines around their searches.[10]

At launch, there were 39 mainly US-based news partners. Google said that it would share the majority of revenue from contextual adverts with its news partners.[7][8][11]

Fast Flip has been praised for allowing visual,[12] fast[13] and serendipitous[14] browsing of news stories, but it has been criticized as being a novelty,[15] anachronistic, as it emulates print media,[16] limits navigation and presents few news sources,[17] and as being more focused on the needs of publishers than of readers.[18][19][20] Its visual search has been compared to the beta visual search of Microsoft Bing[2][16][21] and to The Onion's microfiche iPhone app.[22] Fast Flip has also been cited as a demonstration of Google's power in the news marketplace; by setting up another news interface that uses publishers' content without returning much value.[23]

In September 2011, Google announced it would discontinue a number of its products, including Google Fast Flip.[24]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Bharat, Krishna (14 September 2009). "Read news fast with Google Fast Flip". The Official Google Blog (Google). Retrieved 21 September 2009.
  2. 1 2 "Bing and Google launch visual search". Daily Mirror (Mirror Group). 15 September 2009. Retrieved 21 September 2009.
  3. ↑ Boulton, Clint (15 September 2009). "Google Fast Flip is Geared to Generate More Ad Dollars". eWeek. Retrieved 21 September 2009.
  4. 1 2 Shiels, Maggie (15 September 2009). "Google turns page on news content". BBC News. Retrieved 21 September 2009.
  5. ↑ Krazit, Tom (14 September 2009). "Google testing Fast Flip for Google News". CNet. Retrieved 21 September 2009.
  6. 1 2 Bunz, Mercedes (15 September 2009). "Google's Fast Flip is for publishers". The Guardian. PDA: The Digital Content Blog. Retrieved 21 September 2009.
  7. 1 2 3 Allen, Katie (21 September 2009). "Google's mission to drive up newspaper revenue". The Guardian. Retrieved 21 September 2009.
  8. 1 2 Johnson, Steve (14 September 2009). "Google news feature mimics print sources, lets people browse stories". San Jose Mercury News. Retrieved 21 September 2009.
  9. ↑ "Mobile Preview". Google Fast Flip. Retrieved 21 September 2009.
  10. ↑ "Google's Fast Flip Is Pretty Slick" (25 September 2009). PCMike.com.
  11. ↑ "All Sources". Google Fast Flip. Retrieved 21 September 2009.
  12. ↑ Sherman, Erik (15 September 2009). "Google Fast Flip Becomes the News Stand, Pressure on Publishers". BNet. Retrieved 21 September 2009.
  13. ↑ Smith, Stevie (16 September 2009). "Google offers swift page perusal with Fast Flip". The Tech Herald. Retrieved 21 September 2009.
  14. ↑ Taylor, Catharine P (16 September 2009). "Google's Fast Flip and the Return of Serendipitous Surfing". BNet. Retrieved 21 September 2009.
  15. ↑ Cheng, Jacqui (15 September 2009). "Hands on: limitations of Google Fast Flip make it a novelty". Ars Technica. Retrieved 21 September 2009.
  16. 1 2 Bradley, Tony (15 September 2009). "Google Fast Flip Bridges Digital and Print Media". PC World. Retrieved 21 September 2009.
  17. ↑ Merritt, Nick (21 September 2009). "Why Google's Fast Flip misses the point". TechRadar. Retrieved 21 September 2009.
  18. ↑ Hickins, Michael (16 September 2009). "New Google Service Nothing To Flip Over". InformationWeek. Retrieved 21 September 2009.
  19. ↑ Mick, Jason (16 September 2009). "Is Google's Fast Flip News Service a Stud or a Dud?". DailyTech. Retrieved 21 September 2009.
  20. ↑ Coursey, David (15 September 2009). "Is Google "Fast Flip" Really Just A Slow Slider?". Tech Inciter (PC World). Retrieved 21 September 2009.
  21. ↑ Beaumont, Claudine (17 September 2009). "Microsoft Bing visual search takes fight to Google". Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 21 September 2009.
  22. ↑ Arthur, Charles (16 September 2009). "The Onion Microfiche: all the satire that's fit to fit on your iPhone". The Guardian. Technology Blog. Retrieved 21 September 2009.
  23. ↑ "Google Fast Flip". idiomag. 27 October 2009. Retrieved 28 October 2009.
  24. ↑ Alan Eustace (2 September 2011). "A fall spring-clean". Google. Retrieved 2 September 2011.
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