Google has launched a new service through its Google Labs called Fast Flip, a visual version of Google News. Fast Flip is a visual browser of online publications, designed to give you a quick snapshot of what’s being blogged and talked about at many major news sources.
Current sources include Esquire, BBC News, New York Times, TechCrunch, and Salon.com, in addition to about 35 other magazine, news, and general information sites that receive regular updates. You can browse these by popularity, subsection, topic, or by source using Fast Flip’s new visual interface that works a little like Apple’s Cover Flow technology. Each site is represented by an image capture of the relevant page.
Clicking on a displayed page does not actually take you to the site. Instead, it opens the article in an interface that displays a portion of the article as an image file. This allows you to see a quick preview before clicking through to the full story at the site itself.
Arrows at the side of the image in Reader View allow you to browse other stories in the category you’ve chosen, and an expandable tray allows you to access the thumbnails of all stories in that series. You can also e-mail and “Like” any story you find, which requires sign-in with your Google credentials.
Is it useful? It might be for those who use the Internet as their primary news source. You can quickly see what the major news outlets are talking about without having to visit each individually. An RSS reader might be more efficient, but for people who process information visually, Fast Flip might prove more effective or more comfortable overall.
