Unveiled by Marissa Mayer at a TechCrunch 50 event in San Francisco, Fast Flip is actually more of a carrot than an olive branch, because it offers publishers a potential additional revenue stream.
Here's how it works.
Readers can rapidly browse articles much like flipping through physical magazine or newspaper pages. Fast Flip serves up screen shots of the Web pages containing relevant articles, cropped to show just the article and the masthead. While typical news Web pages can take several seconds to load, Fast Flip is designed to respond almost instantly, replicating the feel of a magazine.
The articles are organized by what's popular among all readers that day, and by each reader's personal preferences. Readers can refer the articles to their friends, or “like" an article, much the same way articles are “Dugg." If a reader wants to go beyond the first screen to read the full article, a click takes them to the publisher's website.
“We wanted to bring the advantages of print media, the speed and hands-on control you get with a newspaper or magazine, and combine that with the technical advantages of the Internet," said Krishna Bharat, who created Google News and is a Google Distinguished Researcher. “Such as continuous updates, recommendations from the community and friends. We wanted the best of both worlds."
But nothing in either world comes for free. To make money, Fast Flip also serves up contextual ads around the screen shots. To entice publishers to share their content on Fast Flip, Google agreed to share “the bulk" of the revenue it receives from ads on Fast Flip's pages.
