Google adds new media partners to 'Fast Flip'

Google said the new outlets bring to about 90 the number of titles available from the 50 newspapers, magazines, websites, newswires and television and radio broadcasters available on Fast Flip, which was launched three months ago.

Agence France-Presse is one of the original participants in Fast Flip along with the BBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, Newsweek, online news sites TechCrunch, Salon and Slate and others.

Fast Flip allows users to quickly browse through news stories from the websites of Google's partners.

An Internet 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.

Tribune Co. newspapers available on Fast Flip include the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune. McClatchy newspapers include the Miami Herald and the Kansas City Star.

Other new partners include Popular Science, Reuters, Public Radio International and US News and World Report

"We're looking forward to innovating and iterating with all these new partners in Fast Flip," Google software engineer Jack Hebert said in a blog post.

"Our goal is to work with the industry to help it continue to innovate and build bigger audiences, better engage those audiences and generate more revenue," Hebert said.

The Mountain View, California-based Google has had a strained relationship with US newspaper owners and its news aggregator website Google News has drawn fire from some for linking to articles without sharing advertising revenue.

Unlike Google News, Google shares advertising revenue from Fast Flip with its media partners.

With print advertising revenue shrinking and circulation declining, US newspaper publishers have been actively searching for ways to earn more money from the Web, including possibly charging for content online.

Google, The Washington Post and The New York Times earlier this month unveiled an experiment in online presentation of news called "Living Stories," described as a more dynamic way of reading news on the Web.

Living Stories groups coverage of a particular topic from a news organization under a single URL, or Web address.

For the moment, Fast Flip is considered an experimental "Google Labs" product. It is accessible at fastflip.googlelabs.com.

(c) 2009 AFP