Flipping Google

Fast Flip service for reading articles 'magazine style'

Google reckons it has come up with an answer for the ailing news industry as it unveils its latest service known as Fast Flip designed to replicate the way readers flick through magazines and newspapers.

After a consultation with many news providers such as the BBC, the search giant aims to provide what it calls a new reading experience; sharing spoils with news agencies where Google have previously been branded a parasite for making more money than content producers from news they did not create.

The Fast Flip service imitates a standard print publication by offering screenshots of web pages containing relevant and newsworthy articles to interest the reader at a glance.

It offers readers the chance to set personal preferences, receive recommendations and flags up the most-read stories.
The process makes money from advertising in the conventional manner and the reader can choose to read a story of interest at length by the usual means of clicking on the page through to the publishers website.

Publishers such as Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Elle, Popular Mechanics, Slate, Salon, the New York Times, the Washington Post and ProPublica have been involved in the scheme and the gravitas of such publications is proof that Google was keen to help the industry at a time when it was clearly struggling according to Google’s vice-president of search, Marissa Mayer.