Google Fast Flip was an online

news aggregator In computing, a news aggregator, also termed a feed aggregator, content aggregator, feed reader, news reader, or simply an aggregator, is client software or a web application that aggregates digital Content (media), content such as online newsp ...

from

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

Inc. that mimicked the experience of flicking through a newspaper or magazine, allowing

visual search Visual search is a type of perception, perceptual task requiring attention that typically involves an active scan of the visual environment for a particular object or feature (the target) among other objects or features (the distractors). Visual s ...

of stories in manner similar to

microfiche A microform is a scaled-down reproduction of a document, typically either photographic film or paper, made for the purposes of transmission, storage, reading, and printing. Microform images are commonly reduced to about 4% or of the original d ...

. It was launched in

beta Beta (, ; uppercase , lowercase , or cursive ; or ) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 2. In Ancient Greek, beta represented the voiced bilabial plosive . In Modern Greek, it represe ...

Google Labs Google Labs is an incubator created by Google to test and publicly demonstrate new projects. The original version was online from early 2002 to mid-2011. Google described Labs as "a playground where our more adventurous users can play around w ...

at the TechCrunch 50 conference in September 2009. 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. Stories could be scrolled between using the mouse or cursor keys. The presentation of stories used a similar algorithm to

Google News Google News is a news aggregator service developed by Google. It presents a continuous flow of links to articles organized from thousands of publishers and magazines. Google News is available as an app on Android, iOS, and the Web. Google ...

, but stories could be ordered by publication as well as by subject. 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." Fast Flip was created after

Larry Page Lawrence Edward Page (born March 26, 1973) is an American businessman, computer engineer and computer scientist best known for co-founding Google with Sergey Brin. Page was chief executive officer of Google from 1997 until August 2001 when ...

"asked why the web was not more like a magazine, allowing users to flip from screen to screen seamlessly." Fast Flip was available as well on

iPhone The iPhone is a line of smartphones developed and marketed by Apple that run iOS, the company's own mobile operating system. The first-generation iPhone was announced by then–Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, at ...

and Android

mobile device A mobile device or handheld device is a computer small enough to hold and operate in hand. Mobile devices are typically battery-powered and possess a flat-panel display and one or more built-in input devices, such as a touchscreen or keypad. ...

s. Users of Fast Flip were able to follow friends and topics, find new content, and to create their own customized magazines around their searches. 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. Fast Flip was praised for allowing visual, fast and

serendipitous Serendipity is an unplanned fortunate discovery. The term was coined by Horace Walpole in 1754. The concept is often associated with scientific and technological breakthroughs, where accidental discoveries led to new insights or inventions. Man ...

browsing of news stories, but it has been criticized as being a novelty, anachronistic, as it emulates print media, limits navigation and presents few news sources, and as being more focused on the needs of publishers than of readers. Its visual search has been compared to the beta visual search of

Microsoft Bing Microsoft Bing (also known simply as Bing) is a search engine owned and operated by Microsoft. The service traces its roots back to Microsoft's earlier search engines, including MSN Search, Windows Live Search, and Live Search. Bing offers a ...

and to ''

The Onion ''The Onion'' is an American digital media company and newspaper organization that publishes satirical articles on international, national, and local news. The company is currently based in Chicago, but originated as a weekly print publication ...

s microfiche iPhone app. 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. In September 2011, Google announced it would discontinue a number of its products, including Google Fast Flip.

References

{{Google LLC American news websites Android (operating system) software Fast Flip Fast Flip Internet properties disestablished in 2011 Internet properties established in 2009 News aggregators

See also

References