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WASHINGTON - Internet giant Google unveiled an online news reader called "Fast Flip" on Monday, featuring stories from the BBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post and other major media outlets.
Google, which launched Fast Flip at the TechCrunch50 technology conference in San Francisco, compared using the quick-loading product to flipping through the pages of a magazine "really fast without unnatural delays."
Fast Flip allows users to quickly browse through news stories from the websites of Google's three dozen partners.
A large arrow allows a Web surfer can quickly jump from one article to the next using large arrows at speeds significantly faster than the time it usually takes to load a Web page.
Besides the BBC, the Times and the Post, companies supplying content include magazines such as the Atlantic, BusinessWeek, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Marie Claire, Newsweek and Popular Mechanics and online sites TechCrunch, Salon and Slate.
Google has had a strained relationship with some US publishers and the California Internet giant said its media partners would share advertising revenue from Fast Flip.
"Partners will share the revenue earned from contextually relevant ads," Fast Flip developer Krishna Bharat, a Google engineer, said in a blog post. "This gives publishers an opportunity to introduce new readers to their content."
With print advertising revenue and circulation declining, US newspaper publishers have been actively looking for ways to earn more money from the Web, including possibly charging for content on the Internet.
Fast Flip allows readers to browse stories by topic, by publication or by what is most viewed or most popular.
It shows only the first page of a story and users who want to read more have to click through to the host website of the host publication.
Fast Flip also allows users to share content with friends or members of a social network, and Google said it is offering a mobile version of the product.
Fast Flip is considered an experimental "Google Labs" product. It is accessible at fastflip.googlelabs.com. - AFP/ar
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