Switched has a new home! Huffpost Tech.

Click here to visit the new home of Switched!

Hot on HuffPost Tech:

See More Stories
AOL Tech

Google Introduces Fast Flip, a New Way to Read News on the Web

by Caleb Johnson on September 15, 2009 at 10:31 AM


Yesterday, Google debuted its 'Fast Flip' feature, a news hub that simulates the experience of flipping through a newspaper or magazine. The site, part of the experimental Google Labs, lets readers view articles from over three dozen major publishing outlets.

Thumbnails of stories load extremely fast, and the site's design, like that of most Google sites, is sparse and simple. Likely to contribute to our chronic cases of Web ADD, the site lets you zip (with the click of a button) from a New York Times article about President Obama's house in Chicago to a Popular Mechanics story about how to make your own battery-powered gadget chargers. To read the entire article, just click on it and you'll be sent to the publisher's site. You can sort each section by popularity, headlines, date, and headlines.

Google claims that 'Fast Flip' isn't a move to further destroy traditional news outlets. In fact, revenue from the ads placed around the articles will be shared with the publishers. While Fast Flip's news aggregating and display features probably won't save print media's sinking ship, it might at least plug the hole until a proper solution can be found. [From: The New York Times and The Official Google Blog]

Tags: advertising, breakingnews, content, google, new york times, news, publishing, reading, top, web

Add your comments

Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry. Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments.

When you enter your name and email address, you'll be sent a link to confirm your comment, and a password. To leave another comment, just use that password.

To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.

HuffPost AOL Social News Most Popular