Webware

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.

The newspaper industry has been hit hard by the weak economy. Advertising revenue is down. Layoffs are frequent. And even the most-trusted papers are facing possible closure. So, the industry has tried to find unique ways to help improve business.

Perhaps that's why it shouldn't surprise us that The New York Post announced Monday that it has inked a deal with SpectrumDNA to bring the company's Addictionary software-as-a-service platform to the newspaper's Web site.

Addictionary allows Web site visitors to create words and assign definitions to those words. People can rate and comment on words created by others.

According to a statement, both SpectrumDNA and the Post believe the Addictionary engine will help the newspaper achieve more "viral and word-of-mouth distribution." They also said they believe it could increase advertising revenue.

A definition made possible by Addictionary.

(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

The Addictionary platform has enjoyed some success. Its SaaS platform is currently being used by "The Office" Web page, Comedy Central, and Dictionary.com.

Once The New York Post's Addictionary gets going, the companies plan to release a variety of derivative products, including greeting cards, calendars, games, and books featuring the top-rated words created by the Post's community.

Is Addictionary the Trojan horse the newspaper industry has needed? We'll find out in August when the Post deploys the new feature.

It appears some people haven't figured this out yet, but the Internet is a dollar store, the kind you see tucked into the corners of shopping malls about to be demolished. In dollar stores, everything is a buck. So why not buy it? It's just a buck!

The Internet is not a Tiffany, the kind of store you see in the best locations in shopping malls that have not yet become dated monstrosities about to be demolished. In a Tiffany store you pay too much for a hunk of metal because the brand name behind the metal adds cache to the product.

I'm writing this because today we hear from Bloomberg News that The New York Times is considering charging $5 a month for access to stories on its Web site. Is the fee reasonable? For the quality of the Times' writing and reporting, you bet it is.

But it's still too much, and it's bad business. The success of the iTunes store, and the iPhone app store, shows how easy it is to get people to pay a small amount for a downloadable product. It's a lesson worth learning. And with the cost of distributing each incremental copy of a digital good being close to zero, there is no reason at all to overcharge for products.

There are contrary views. One analysis shows that $0.99 iPhone apps are no more popular than more expensive apps. But especially for companies trying to convert customers who have to date paid nothing for the service (the New York Times content is free), the logic of charging as little as possible, as opposed to as much as possible, makes more sense.

The old joke's punch line, "Yeah, but we make it up in volume," is no laughing matter on the Net. This is a model that is known to work. You want your price point to be so low that people don't think about it. $5 a month is $60 a year, real money for most people. $1? Far fewer people experience the payment of a dollar as an actual transaction. People will pay trinket prices for online goods without thinking about it. And especially when you're selling content that you want as many people as possible to see, wouldn't you rather collect a little money from a lot of people, than a fair price from just a few?

The hottest hotspots in New York...for nerds.

(Credit: Sam Lessin)

Just how powerful can the data behind a location-based application be? Extremely.

Earlier this month, the second annual Internet Week New York took place, and Dropio founder and certifiable data nerd Sam Lessin crunched a bunch of numbers based on what his contacts on urban navigation and friend-finding service Foursquare were doing. Lessin was working with a group of fewer than 100 contacts, almost all of whom are involved in the tech and new-media industries (this is the scene that birthed Foursquare and its predecessor Dodgeball, after all), and yet it's a fascinating peek at just how much this kind of data can reveal. He's posted it on his personal file "drop" on Dropio.

Lessin trawled through the data to find what time people checked into coffee shops in the morning (and whether they were doing this earlier or later on a given day), how much people "lost steam" over the course of a party- and conference-filled week, and how much the most popular gatherings actually matched up to the Internet Week New York official schedule. As it turns out, the hottest parties were impromptu, unofficial gatherings at the Standard Hotel and, um, Sing Sing Karaoke.

Obviously, this isn't perfect. Foursquare updates are voluntary, which means that data can't say a thing about what people are doing when they aren't telling the app about it. The presence of an app like Foursquare, too, can also skew social activity: word about the massive impromptu party at the Standard Hotel bar, for example, spread when the Foursquare check-ins started snowballing.

But when you have enough people participating--which, as of yet, Foursquare does not--the critical mass starts to correct some of those issues. It's a fascinating sneak peek at what sort of value this data could have down the road.

What we can also look forward to: pretty infographics, Orwellian privacy concerns. Eek.

There are literally dozens of categories in the annual Webby Awards--too many, if you ask some--covering pretty much every niche of digital media. This year's winners, announced Tuesday, are quite a lot to scroll through.

The list of top honors, however, is short.

This year, the Webby Awards' Person of the Year is former "Saturday Night Life" cast member Jimmy Fallon, whose new "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" has brought Twittering and gadget fandom to the network-TV crowd.

The film-specific Person of the Year award goes to "Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane, who has partnered with Google on an animated Web series and whose creations consistently rank at the top of Hulu's most-watched clips.

The Artist of the Year accolade is for Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor. A vocal critic of the mainstream music industry, Reznor has been skeptical of "innovative" digital distribution efforts and most recently lashed out at Apple on his blog for turning down a Nine Inch Nails iPhone app.

A new category, Breakout of the Year, joins the Webbys this year. It's been awarded to--surprise, surprise--Twitter.

The fact that the Webbys' top awards go to known entities isn't new. Its highest honors tend to go to mainstream celebrities who have built their fame offline and have then turned to the Web as a sort of experimental platform. Last year's Person of the Year awards, for example, went to comedian Stephen Colbert, director Michel Gondry, and Black Eyed Peas frontman Will.i.am for his YouTube sensation "Yes We Can" in support of Barack Obama's presidential campaign.

The Webbys ceremony is set for June 8 as part of Internet Week New York.

The nominations for the Webby Awards, that annual extravaganza of accolades for just about anything connected to the Internet, have been announced. Leading the pack of nominees for the 13th annual Webbys are The New York Times' nytimes.com with 13 nominations, NBC.com with 12, and The Onion with 8. There are, in case you were counting, two nominations for Fail Blog.

There are also plenty of video productions nominated, like FunnyorDie.com's "Paris Hilton Responds to McCain Ad" and "Children's Hospital," the comedy series on TheWB.com starring "The Daily Show" alums Rob Corddry and Ed Helms.

If you're interested in the full list, it's here.

As always, Webby winners are limited to five words for acceptance speeches. Last year, when late-night comedian Stephen Colbert accepted his award for "Person of the Year," his chosen five words were, "Me, me, me, me, me!"

What's different this year: In 2008, there were separate awards shows for the Webby Awards proper and the Film & Video offshoot. This year, perhaps because of budget cuts, both sets of awards will be presented at the same show on June 8, in conjunction with Internet Week New York. But it'll still be at its regular location at the luxe Cipriani Wall Street space--and Saturday Night Live's Seth Meyers will be hosting.

I'm still crossing my fingers for a surprise performance by Rick Astley, but at this point that fad is totally over.

(Credit: Twitter)

In observance of Good Friday, a New York church has been Twittering the story of the Passion--the biblical tale of the hours leading up to Jesus' crucifixion. This means that subscribers will receive 140-character updates coming from a set of Twitter accounts run by people playing characters in the story.

Trinity Wall Street is an Episcopal church in Manhattan's Financial District that live-streams its services on the Web, encourages members of the congregation to send video e-postcards to friends and family, and produces its own podcasts. The church's thinking behind offering a Twitter feed of the Passion is to offer a way to bring the day of observance into modern life and technology: While Good Friday is one of the most important days of the church year for many Christian denominations, there are plenty of devout Americans who don't take the day off from work.

But edgy interpretations of the Passion are nothing new. This is the same subject matter depicted in "The Passion of the Christ," the controversial Mel Gibson movie from a few years ago in which the dialogue was presented in the languages of the time without subtitles.

Also worth noting this week: a Passover haggadah depicted in the form of a Facebook news feed.

Google Maps and Google Earth are the centerpiece of NYCGo, a new information and reference project launched by the New York City government to provide resources to both visitors and locals. Wednesday's launch announced the debut of NYCGo.com, a Google Maps-fueled local search and reference site, as well as the unveiling of the renovated New York City Information Center a few blocks north of the tourist-heavy Times Square district.

NYCGo.com contains not just Google map and search data, but also travel deals from Travelocity and local content from what-to-do powerhouse Time Out New York, nightlife culture magazine Paper, the New York Observer, and eco-living guide Greenopia.

The information center, located on Seventh Avenue between 52nd and 53rd streets, is equally Googly. The city's technocratic mayor, Michael Bloomberg, even contributed a guest post to the official Google blog to announce it: "The Information Center features interactive map tables, powered by the Google Maps API for Flash, that let you navigate venues and attractions as well as create personalized itineraries, which can be printed, emailed or sent to mobile devices," the blog post explained. "Additionally, there's a gigantic video wall that utilizes Google Earth to display a 3D model of New York City on which you can map out personalized itineraries."

Bloomberg has been aggressive about promoting tech initiatives during his time in office, from a wind power plan (part of the much bigger "GreeNYC" project) and a city-run venture firm. Under his watch, the Mountain View, Calif.-based Google opened its New York satellite office, taking over several floors of the historic former Port Authority building downtown.

A side note: the video provided by Google shows the "interactive map tables" in the new information center, and they look a whole lot like Microsoft Surface units. But they aren't, a representative from NYCGo tells us. They're custom-made.

Facebook announced Tuesday that it has followed MySpace's lead and will ban Project Playlist from its service. According to the company, it has removed the Project Playlist app from Facebook and all embedded playlists have been removed from user profiles. Facebook said in a statement that it hopes Project Playlist can come to an amicable agreement with the labels so users can get back to using the app.

The New York Times announced Wednesday that it witnessed its online ad revenues drop for the first time in the site's history. According to the company, its online ad revenue slumped by 3.8 percent in November and total revenue from all its continuing advertising operations dropped by 20.9 percent.

Friendfinder Networks, a company that offers adult-oriented sites, is filing for an initial public offering with the SEC. According to documents released by the federal regulatory body, Friendfinder Networks wants to use the IPO to raise $460 million from the sale of the shares to pay off its enormous debt.