Infinite Path

Google has announced the details of a service that has apparently been designed to come to the rescue of the news industry, which seems to be suffering more with every passing day as a consequence of failing to monetise content successfully.

Fast Flip is a service allowing users to flick through online articles in a style which is meant to replicate the manner in which individuals flick through magazines and newspapers with their hands.

It will work by pulling together content from approximately 30 providers, including the BBC, and grouping it together by criteria including popular stories and individual user preferences. It is easy to see how this new service will appeal to users. Rather than searching through numerous websites to come across articles of interest, users will be presented with screenshots from highly relevant webpages. Content and information on the internet seems to be as close to instant as it’s possible to be but the manner in which this service negates the need for searching has made it that little bit closer still.

However, Google’s claims that the service has been created to help out a failing industry are questionable. Fast Flip will make money by displaying contextual adverts around the content displayed to the users. Advertising revenue will then be shared with the publishers who have provided Google with the content. It seems likely that Google will be the real winner here, though, and claims that the search engine giant is, in effect, stealing and then aggregating the content of others are unlikely to die down.

Google were also quick to point out that users would be encouraged to click through to the actual article itself and explore the issues presented on Fast Flip further but this surely seems to detract from the fast-paced nature of the service, which provides users with the opportunity to glance at one article before moving on to the next. Furthermore, it would seem that more than enough information is displayed to render the need to click through to the particular website irrelevant, so news websites are unlikely to see benefits in this respect either.

Even if the providers involved in the deal do see a benefit, the smaller providers who find their traffic dropping off as Fast Flip becomes an authority as a news source may be provided with additional ammunition in their arguments against Google the ‘bully’.