Google on Monday released an experimental new content browser called Fast Flip that makes it possible to see a curated set of content sites using a physical "turn the pages" metaphor. Fast Flip pages are cached by Google and load very quickly, which is cool. And if your brain is stuck in 1969 and you want to pretend that new-fangled computer in front of you is a microfilm reader, it'll feel natural to use.
Fast Flip is a good solution for putting a magazine or newspaper online, and it makes scanning even a more modern Web feed really fast. But it still feels forced. It's an intermediate online format that gives you an experience that's even more linear than a print publication, and it provides less overall context than you can get from a moderately well-design Web site.
Dozens of sites are participating in the Fast Flip experiment.
(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)In Fast Flip, neither standard Web rules nor print layout concepts apply. For example, in Fast Flip, you can only scan left and right (page by page). You can't read down the page. If you click anywhere on the page, you leave Fast Flip and go to the Web. Links don't work. And multimedia doesn't work on the page either. Fast Flip previews are, in fact, flat graphics files, which explains their lack of interactivity. On the mobile versions of Fast Flip, zooming in on a column is likely to leave you with text at a readable size but displayed on a column that's too wide to read without scrolling back and forth, making the feature rather useless. Hey Google, wasn't HTML invented for a reason?
Fast Flip also displays Google ads alongside publisher content. I presume Google will share revenues with content providers, but this scheme does take control over advertising away from publishers.
Mind you, I'm not opposed to the creation of different ways to get people into stories. An old mantra in publishing is to provide "multiple entry points" for readers. If I get users to my pages from Fast Flip that I otherwise wouldn't get, who am I to argue? But Web designers have spent the past 10 years building sites that work in browsers, and Fast Flip by its existence tries to tell publishers that there's still life left in the old print-based, dead page model. I think we've moved beyond that.
You can quickly flip forward or back through pages, or jump to a particular page by clicking on its thumbnail view.
(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)Here's what I'd like to see instead: first, I agree with the Fast Flip designers that loading pages takes too long and that caching pages in a Web app is a good way to bring speed back to content browsing. But can we do it with real pages instead of static graphics? Second, the idea that there's a recommended linear reading order of pages on a site is intriguing, even if the order is simply chronological. But I don't think readers want to be locked in to that order. How about we give readers standard forward and back content navigation buttons (not browser forward and back) to take them through a site in addition to the hyperlinks they're used to?
Fast Flip is clearly an experiment, and as I said, if it gets more people to read online content, I'll applaud it for that alone. But I'm not going to actually like it from a technical perspective, or as a user, until it gives publishers, designers, and readers more control over their content.
See also: Zinio.
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Google Fast Flip, a new service in testing for Google News.
(Credit: Google)
Google is testing a service that will let newshounds read Web pages of magazines and newspapers like they were flipping through an old-fashioned paper copy.
Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience, plans to demonstrate Google Fast Flip later on Monday at TechCrunch50. It's a Google Labs project that expands the presence of publishers on Google News, organizing and displaying authorized screen grabs of news stories--not snippets--within the Google News site.
For example, readers will be able to scroll through a series of screen grabs bearing the publisher's logo that display stories on the weekend's NFL games or Kanye West's opinions on best female video of the year, also allowing them to browse by categories organized around Google News sections, the most popular stories, or news sources. They'll be able to read some of the story within a section of the Fast Flip site but will need to click through to the publisher's Web site in order to read the full story.
Fast Flip is being tested in partnership with 36 publishers, including The New York Times, Newsweek, and Salon.com, which will get a portion of the revenue from ads that Google plans to sell alongside Fast Flip pages.
Martin Nisenholtz, senior vice president of digital operations at the Times, called Fast Flip "a modest R&D project" designed as an experiment to gauge click-through rates and traffic, rather than any sort of money-making venture. He declined to comment on how much revenue Google would be sharing with the paper.
Google News, of course, has been a lightning rod for criticism from the struggling newspaper industry. Some publishers believe that Google News siphons their content and discourages readers from clicking through to the source of the story by including the headline and a snippet of the story. Others grouse about the way bloggers who are merely writing and commenting on a piece of original reporting can sometimes get more exposure on Google News than the author or publisher of the original story.
Readers will be able to see a portion of the article, but will have to click through for the whole thing. Publishers will get a cut of the revenue from ads sold on the right hand rail.
(Credit: Google)Fast Flip gives publishers more of what they want: a chance to share in the ad revenue generated by Google News combined with the spotlight and traffic that comes along with inclusion in Google News. Mayer hinted that something like this was coming in May, when she testified before Congress that "the structure of the Web has caused the atomic unit of consumption for news to migrate from the full newspaper to the individual article."
But Fast Flip requires publishers to showcase more of their content than a simple Google News listing requires, which could allow readers to completely skip clicking through after getting the gist of the story from the first few paragraphs. On the other hand, a more attractive presentation of the story could attract more clicks than a single headline might.
Since it's a partner-only service for the moment, criticism of Fast Flip will probably be muted. Nisenholtz acknowledged that the Times is trying lots of things these days to gauge what works in Web publishing. "We're in the business of learning around here in part, and we felt that this was an interesting test."
This isn't Google's only attempt to work with an industry that has been so critical of the company in the past. Google is also said to be testing a micropayments service for other publishers that don't want to embrace the free-content movement.
Pure Digital Technologies, maker of the Flip series digital video recorders, has a new update for its FlipShare software going out Tuesday that makes it easier to share videos without having to use YouTube, MySpace, or another video hosts.
Users can now create channels that can only be accessed by users who have been invited by e-mail. Any time you add a video to one of these channels, the people on your list get a message that contains thumbnail previews and direct links to the newly added clips. While the video quality may not be up to snuff compared with watching your HD-recorded content via a host that supports HD, it's certainly not bad.
The channels feature has been designed largely to satisfy the needs of Flip users who want to share items privately. While shared videos aren't as social as if you had shared them on a site like YouTube or MySpace, you do get a higher level of control over what users can see after having sent them the link; permission to view certain video items can be taken away at any time. You can also drag videos in and out of channels to change the clips you want people to see.
Channel sharing lets you share videos to specific people privately, and without the use of third-party video hosts.
(Credit: CNET)Along with the addition of channels to the FlipShare software, the company is announcing an application for the iPhone that will let you, and people you've shared videos with, watch clips right on the device. However the application will not be available for download until it receives approval from Apple. This is interesting in itself, since the newly announced iPhone 3G S will let users record video on their device, edit it, and upload it to various hosts. For many, this will reduce the appeal of Flip's devices since you cannot do any editing or uploading without first connecting it to a computer.
Depending on how much design work you've done, and what kind of software you're using, you probably have some idea of which fonts you have installed and what they look like. If you don't, there's a wonderfully simple Web app called Flipping Typical that gives you a WYSIWYG heads up of all of them at once.
You can type in whatever text you want to see and it will show you how it looks in each font, and the site updates in real time to reflect the changes. You can also use keyboard shortcuts to toggle on bold or italics to see what it would look like with a hint of formatting. It's smart enough to remember what font you were looking at between sessions, so if you close the page and come back later it will come back with that formatting still intact.
Most modern Web apps with font control have previews you can see before changing a font, but this app differs in showing what you have that can be used in offline programs too. I like it because it's good for brainstorming a quick font choice, something which can become increasingly difficult the larger your font library gets. For business cards, fliers, posters, and more, this can be a simple way to cut development time down.
Related: Fawnt makes font hunting easy, sexy
(via DownloadSquad and Lifehacker)
Flipping Typical shows you what fonts you have installed on your machine and lets you type in whatever you want to see, showing you how it looks in each font.
(Credit: CNET Networks)
Flip Video Mino
(Credit: Flip Video)Although it was recently outed by B&H, Wednesday marks the official unveiling of Pure Digital's Flip Video Mino, the latest camcorder from one of the leaders of the low-res, straight-to-Web capture pack. Thinner and smaller than its popular sibling, the Flip Video Ultra, the Mino crams similar technology into a more compact, more attractive package that can fit into a pants pocket.
Most of the Mino is about redesign. The USB connector now flips straight up, rather than to the side, for an overall more compact footprint that should fit better in a crowded USB environment. Though it has a slightly smaller LCD display--1.4 inches compared with 1.5 inches--the back navigation controls look a mite more sophisticated than before. Pure Digital has also punted the replaceable battery in favor of a nonremovable lithium ion model. The company claims you can shoot for four hours on a charge.
USB connector (left) and back (right)
(Credit: Pure Digital)Like the 60-minute version of the Ultra, the Mino comes equipped with 2GB of memory, capable of storing 60 minutes of its VGA-resolution video. The company has moved up to a later generation image-processing architecture. So in theory the Mino should provide a bit better image quality, and the company says that the camcorder includes an updated--more sensitive--microphone with improved signal processing. And, of course, it comes with in-camera software that provides the plug-in-and-upload simplicity which endears these camcorders to sharers on sites like YouTube and MySpace; the latter is a new partner for the company. In addition, the Mino now supports direct operation on a Mac, without requiring software installation. It also provides a TV-out connector for larger-scale enjoyment.
The company stresses that the Mino is not intended to replace the Ultra--it's a "social accessory for the YouTube/MySpace/Facebook generation to communicate and express themselves." A PR rep quotes market research saying this magic demographic wants it "thinner to fit in their pocket and that they would prefer rechargeable batteries (like an iPod) and a sleeker/cooler design."
Maybe I'm too old to understand why everyone wouldn't want a smaller, sleeker, and more functional--albeit slightly more expensive--version of the same product, regardless of their need to accessorize their social life.
The Mino is slated to ship via selected online and brick-and-mortar retailers, including Amazon.com, Walmart.com, and directly from the company's TheFlip.com, and will go into wider distribution this fall. It costs $179.99.
Pure Digital also announced a make-your-own-DVD service; you upload up to an hour's worth of video, and they burn a DVD and distribute it to your family and friends. That will run you $19.99 a pop. The company also claims you can "keep your videos archived forever," but remember that "forever" doesn't mean the same thing to companies as it does to people. Can you say MSN Music?
On Sale Now: $99.99 - $179.99
View the latest prices for Flip Video Mino (black)
On Sale Now: $99.99 - $179.99
View the latest prices for Flip Video Mino (white)
It may be too soon to say Flip.com has completely flopped, but Conde Nast has indeed flipped its strategy.
The teenage girl-centric site, which the company's CondeNet Web unit launched last February, has been morphed from a standalone social network to a set of distributed Web applications designed for existing social networks' developer platforms. It'll first go live on the Facebook Platform, according to Conde Nast.
In essence, the magazine-publishing giant realized that capitalizing on the popularity of existing social networks was probably a better strategy than trying to create its own.
The original Flip was centered around shared "flipbooks" that members could create using photos, videos, and other content--and as many predicted, it didn't gain a whole lot of momentum. Currently, it has only 300,000 registered users, and TechCrunch noted that traffic measured by ComScore has been plummeting.
The Flip home page will remain, but the majority of its features will be tweaked into applications suited for Facebook and its brethren. But this niche might not be any more open: companies like Slide and RockYou have already made it big as widget creators--not to mention the overwhelming glut of other applications that can make it extremely difficult to rise above the noise. Flip's new strategy will have to offer something really new.
SpaceTime is a new tool for searching the Web in three dimensions. You can search using Google and Yahoo, or dig deeper into niche services like eBay and Flickr. Results show up in a swirling sky-like environment where you can sort through rendered pages in stacks, similar to Windows Vista's Flip 3D window-shuffling effect and the upcoming Time Machine in OSX Leopard. You can maneuver around any page, and zoom back and forth. To see any result up close, just double-click on it and it will revert to a customized browser window that's running a shelled version of Internet Explorer.
SpaceTime installs as an extension, and is by no means a lightweight Web app. The minimum hardware specs will likely put it out of the range of most computers that are over two or three years old. In our testing, we found it to hog a considerable amount of RAM and CPU, so unless your machine is beefy, you're likely to have an undesirable experience. It's also limited to Windows machines, so Mac users are out of luck.
This is by no means the first venture into the world of turning the internet into 3D. 3B, which launched at last year's Web 2.0 conference, turns bookmarked pages into walls in a Doom-like 3D world. Users of the popular MMORPG Second Life are also able to put up live Web pages inside the virtual world.
Frankly, I really don't find a use for these services. When I am searching for something, I want it to be as quick and easy as possible. If I have time to dedicate to a search, I'm often using multiple search engines or the built-in search on Web sites. While SpaceTime is visually appealing, the amount of resources used and slow search speeds make it too prohibitive to take the place of something like your browser's built-in search box.
Yahoo search results show up as a stack of windows. Users can drift through them, or double-click on a window to view the page in their browser.
(Credit: CNET Networks)
>> Senator to propose surveillance of illegal images. John McCain wants to give surveillance duty to your Internet service provider and to Web sites to crack down on child pornography. All questionable images would be flagged and sent to the authorities with your IP address. (CNET News.com)
>> Flip launches. Conde Nast's answer to MySpace and other social networks. The service, aimed at teenage girls, lets you create a scrapbook of sorts in the form of a flip book. Your flip book can then be shared on other services. (Mashable)
>> Gmail leaves beta. Lately Google products leaving beta have gotten some bad press, but Gmail seems to have weathered the storm nicely. Gmail launched in April, 2004 with a groundbreaking 1GB of storage, and now offers nearly three times that much. The service has also lifted its "by invitation only" means of joining, a policy that spurned Web sites where people could trade invites for all sorts of things with eager Gmail hopefuls. (CNET News.com)
>> Amazon Unbox video downloads coming to TiVo. First you got podcasts; now, you can watch movies on your TiVo using Amazon's Unbox movie download service. Like purchasing TV shows on Microsoft's movie service for the Xbox 360, media can be re-downloaded an unlimited number of times if you wish to clear some of that valuable hard-drive space. (Crave)
>> Real-world success with virtual goods. Sony says that selling virtual goods for actual currency is a good thing--as long as it's done through an official, regulated store. Sony set-up its own store on several Everquest II game servers to allow transactions for virtual goods. The store earned Sony over $250,000 dollars. (CNET News.com)
>> Antivirus expert: 'Ransomware' on the rise. Gone are the days of simple Trojans and viruses. The next generation of malware is called "Ransomware," and it works when crafty hackers hijack your data, encrypt it, and hold it hostage for a fee. Once aimed at large companies, normal folks like you and me will be the new targets for this attack. (CNET News.com)
>> Vodafone in deal to access MySpace via mobiles. It's been done through Cingular, Helio and probably any other phone with a mobile browser, but Vodafone is joining the fray by shipping phones with the MySpace mobile application pre-installed. (CNET News.com)
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