Google FastFlip designed to emulate flipping through a newspaper
Fast Flip lets readers glance at pages and browse through them quickly without having to wait for multiple page elements to load, which can significantly slow the rendering of articles, especially if they have multimedia content, according to Google.
The idea is to try to replicate online the ease with which people flip through the pages of print magazines and newspapers in the offline world. This could motivate people to read more online, which Google argues will help publishers attract more readers and increase their revenue.
You'll find it at fastflip.googlelabs.com. I'm not sure I want my online experience to emulate print. That's the first thing we do with any technology: Use it to duplicate what we're already doing with older tools. Computers were first used by consumers for typing and calculating. It took time to imagine and implement activities that were unique to the computing environment.
Still, this is faster than waiting for multiple page elements to load.
But does it make the process of browsing through news items better? Just faster? Or just different?
