What do you get when you take the power of Google search and limit it to a few dozen publishers? Google Fast Flip is a new experiment from Google labs that aims to make browsing news stories easier. To create the service Google partnered with select publishers to share ad revenue from relevant ads.
I planned to write a full review of the service, but it is so fatally flawed that I want to focus on its shortcomings. We love Google search because it crawls all corners of the web and gives us access to unlimited sources. I read Google News almost daily after I realized the American main stream media was dead in 2008.
Why would I want to use a service that restricts my sources?
I understand Fast Flip is still a Labs product, but the idea is so un-Google I have a hard time understanding the whole project. Maybe I am just missing the point, but I do not see any way I will ever be using this service.
If you have had a chance to play with Fast Flip, let us know what you think.
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- The Fast Flip home page.
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- Default view for browsing stories.
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- Click a story to bring up more options like full article or zoom.
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- Associated Press appears a lot.
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- Fast Flip allows you to easily email stories to friends.
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- Sources for Fast Flip.
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- Hot topics for Fast Flip.
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- The service is brand new so I’m not surprised to run into errors.
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- A search for “Android” returned some results, but nothing that compares with Google News.
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- Fast Flip allows you to search by author.
