Condensing the web with Google Fast Flip

Google recently released Fast Flip - http://fastflip.googlelabs.com/: a categorized collection of screenshots from print and online that allegedly allows "faster" news browsing. It is a promising experiment. Google now needs to include more publishers and level the playing field to showcase quality content. Once there are enough players users should be able to customize views, topics and sources.

Basic features include a "magazine style rack" homepage layout that lets users browse "as quickly as flipping through a magazine"; top stories and topic tabs generated by most read, most emailed and most popular partner attributes; voting and recommending to friends; personalization of relevant topics with your Google account login; and available apps for iPhone and Android.

To build Google Fast Flip, Google partnered with three dozen top publishers, including the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Salon, Fast Company, ProPublica and Newsweek. These partners share the revenue earned from contextually relevant ads which gives publishers an opportunity to introduce new readers to their content. It also tests Google's theory that being able to read articles faster means people will read more of them, driving more ad revenue to publishers.

Click here for the full list of participating publishers http://fastflip.googlelabs.com/sources.