[Infowarrior] - Google 'Flip' being tested

[Richard Forno]

Google hopes readers will 'flip' over new format

• By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Technology Writer - Tue Sep 15, 2009 7:28AM EDT

http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20090915/ap_on_hi_te/us_tec_google_news_flipper

SAN FRANCISCO -
Google Inc. is testing a new format that is supposed to make reading  
online stories as easy as flipping through a magazine, a shift that  
eventually could feed more advertising sales to revenue-starved  
publishers.

The Internet search leader unveiled the experiment, called "Fast  
Flip," Monday at a conference hosted by TechCrunch, a popular blog.

The service is meant to duplicate the look and feel of perusing a  
printed publication. The stories are displayed on electronic pages  
that can be quickly scrolled through by clicking on large arrows on  
the side instead of a standard Web link that requires waiting several  
seconds for a page to load. Readers can sort through content based on  
topics, favorite writers and publications.

For now, Fast Flip will only show the first page of a story. Readers  
who want to continue will have to click through to the publisher's  
site, where the display reverts to a traditional Web page.

More than three dozen publishers, broadcasters and Web-only outlets  
have agreed to share their content on Fast Flip. The participants  
include two major newspapers, The New York Times and the Washington  
Post, as well as large magazines like Newsweek and BusinessWeek.

The publishers providing the stories to Fast Flip will get most of the  
revenue from the ads that Google intends to show in the new format.  
That's a switch from Google's main search page and its news section,  
where the Mountain View-based company keeps all the money from ads  
shown alongside headlines and snippets from stories.

Fast Flip is the latest step that Google has taken to improve its  
relationship with newspaper and magazine publishers, many of whom have  
railed against the company for profiting from their articles without  
sharing the wealth.

The acrimony has escalated as a three-year decline in the print  
medium's ad revenue accelerated during the past year. The newspaper  
industry's ad sales plunged 29 percent during the first half this year  
while Google's crept up 4 percent.

In another example of cooperation, Google recently offered to help  
newspaper publishers set up a system to charge readers for access to  
parts of their Web sites.

While the notion of Google funneling more sales to publishers is  
appealing, news executives also want to ensure that Fast Flip doesn't  
become too popular. Publishers still want readers to come to their Web  
sites, where they can sell ads without giving Google a piece of the  
action.

"It's a balancing act," said Martin Nisenholtz, who oversees The New  
York Times Co.'s digital operations. "(Fast Flip) has a richer  
interface, which is part of its appeal. But creating a powerful new  
aggregator is not in the Times' interest."

The Times Co.'s online operations are among the newspaper industry's  
most successful, with Internet ad sales of $136 million during the  
first half of this year.

Fast Feed won't be a big moneymaker right away. As a test service,  
it's starting out in Google's "Labs" department, a part of the Web  
site that doesn't get heavy use like the main search engine and the  
standard news section.

Google, though, is hoping Fast Flip will make reading online more  
enjoyable. If that happens, Google should be able to show more ads to  
more people, with most of the money going to publishers, said Krishna  
Bharat, the inventor of the search engine's news section.

"The publishing industry is facing a number of challenges right now,  
and there is no silver bullet," Bharat said. "We think increasing the  
viewing engagement is part of the solution."

___

On The Net:

http://fastflip.googlelabs.com