Google revamps mobile news strategy

By Jordan Crook

September 16, 2009

Google Fast Flip

To feed the ever-growing consumer appetite for news and information on the go, Google has launched the Fast Flip Web application for iPhone and Android devices.

The Fast Flip application lets users quickly browse through various news publications and magazines the same way they would with a physical print copy, all from within the application. Google has launched this new offering in hopes of simplifying the usually slow and frustrating process of browsing through news on the mobile Web.

�Browsing print and online articles on a phone can often be a slow task,� said Steve Kanefsky, software engineer at Google Mobile, in his blog post. �There are many different sites to visit and media-rich pages can take a long time to load.

�Of course, mobile devices make this more difficult with small screens, slower Internet connections and less comfortable keyboards,� he said.

The Fast Flip application lets users flip through stories with a quick swipe of the finger.

To get more information on a subject or view an article in its entirety, the application only requires a tap on the screen of the mobile device.

Fast Flip works by aggregating articles and information from dozens of publications and giving the user the ability to choose which section they are interested in browsing through based on popular articles or topics.

Google Fast Flip also transforms searching for a specific topic into a personal magazine that caters directly to the user�s query, collecting content from multiple sources to serve a well-rounded response.

For those readers who prefer consuming information via digital means, the viral element is not lost in the Fast Flip Web application.

Users who want to pass along an article have the ability to email that information to a friend by clicking the Email link in the upper right-hand corner of the screen.

Popular filters for the Fast Flip application include Recent, Most Viewed, Recommended and Headlines.

Fast Flip also offers the user the ability to filter based on different sections such as Politics, Business, U.S., World, Sports, Science/Tech, Entertainment, Health, Opinion and Travel.

The Fast Flip application will deploy advertisements and Google plans on splitting that revenue with the dozens of publishers contributing to the application, according to a New York Times article.

This is not Google�s first effort to simplify mobile search.

In August, Google launched its Listen audio-search application and optimized its mobile Image search (see story).

�Google Fast Flip combines some of the best features of reading articles in print and on the Web,� Mr. Kanefsky said. �With this Web app, you can literally flip through stories with the swipe of your finger.�