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Google introduces "Fast Flip"

139 points| henning | 16 years ago |flipper.googlelabs.com | reply

66 comments

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[+] dfranke|16 years ago|reply
I was hoping it was an API for selling your startup to Google.
[+] adamhowell|16 years ago|reply
That was supposed to be App Engine.
[+] thaumaturgy|16 years ago|reply
Aaargh. This uses one of the principle UI ideas we're integrating into our wanna-be YCW10 app.

EDIT: Hah. Plus "like" and the mobile UI -- that pretty much is 80% of our client interface.

[+] JacobAldridge|16 years ago|reply
Try to stay positive - this demonstrates that you're onto a good thing.
[+] shotgun|16 years ago|reply
Welcome to the club! I think this is a UI design pattern we're going to see used a lot in the future.

What I find interesting is that you and I are both working on a journalism/publishing startup and found reason to use similar UI ideas.

We must be onto something!

[+] bjclark|16 years ago|reply
I actually think this is pretty cool. I know I tend to jump from cnn.com to bbc.co.uk to espn.com to velonews.com so it would be cool to have a quick way to do this.
[+] mshafrir|16 years ago|reply
On a related note, what are recommended techniques of taking a screenshot of a web page from the server?
[+] mcantelon|16 years ago|reply
How is this useful (honest question)?
[+] txxxxd|16 years ago|reply
It's much much faster than loading and rendering the html, images, and ads on the actual sites.

I can zoom through articles pressing the left/right arrows with no perceptible latency.

[+] moe|16 years ago|reply
I second that question. I browsed through some of the articles but fail to see the appeal. Technically it's a nice little trick but usability-wise I can't see myself using this.
[+] KWD|16 years ago|reply
Agree with you. I see no use for it at all. I'd rather view the headline/snippet approach of Google News, Techmeme, and other sites.
[+] njharman|16 years ago|reply
You and others agreeing with you are making the (self-centered) mistake of assuming that you are the market.

You are not.

As they indicate in the about page Google intends the target to be people who flip through magazines and when they see a title that interests them or a picture of someone they recognize they then read the article.

Whether that market exists or will be the actual market (if any) of this "product" remains to be seen.

[+] adamhowell|16 years ago|reply
Wow. They're shamelessly wrapping ads around other people's content.
[+] axod|16 years ago|reply
AFAIK with the consent of the content producers, and giving them a cut.
[+] Eliezer|16 years ago|reply
Because attention spans aren't short enough.
[+] slig|16 years ago|reply
I don't get it. What's the advantage on reading a image rather than normal rich text?

edit: nevermind. Now I see the left scroll pane.

[+] Pistos2|16 years ago|reply
In summary: I can barely read even the important text (titles, headlines), therefore this is of little use to me. I agree with others: I'd get a lot more out of being presented just clickable titles and headlines in a legible font size; and we already have that in several forms. Showing thumbnails of full-page screenshots is just a waste of screen real estate.
[+] chaosmachine|16 years ago|reply
Pre-rendering websites in the cloud, and sending them as images is an interesting concept.

If there was some way to keep them interactive, it'd be even more interesting.

[+] jrbedard|16 years ago|reply
That used to be the concept behind searchme.com
[+] petercooper|16 years ago|reply
A few years ago I was playing with Web page screenshots and thinking it'd be a big deal. Some sites like DZone even got in on the action pretty quick and.. after all that time, I just can't see it having added value. It looks good but in terms of usability, I've found it adds little for me over time. Any studies been done into this usability wise?
[+] cpr|16 years ago|reply
Can't they render the page images on a decent system like a Mac, with anti-aliased fonts and decent kerning? Horridly ugly images.
[+] riobard|16 years ago|reply
same feeling, esp. after get used to Apple's font rendering engine ...
[+] mattparcher|16 years ago|reply
As a Mac user, I can’t help but feel a bit thrown-off by the aliased text, even if it’s the right decision on their end :/
[+] budwin|16 years ago|reply
it's almost as if google is waiting to launch stuff until _right after_ a new feature comes out on bing
[+] joez|16 years ago|reply
Mobile version also available! Same site.

"Swipe left and right to move between articles. Stretch & pinch or rotate the phone to zoom in and out."

[+] jongraehl|16 years ago|reply
RSS skimming is better for me, but I can see the appeal.
[+] omarish|16 years ago|reply
I don't think this is a product intended for hackers who are connected via RSS and the such, but it's a fun product nonetheless.