After reading the article "Google Releases News-Reading Service," I was happy to hear that Google has decided to come up with a new and improved way of reading newspaper and/or magazine articles online. As mentioned in this article, and from personal experience, it is at times difficult to load articles from news sites. I think the addition of Fast Flip will be a major benefit for all online users that experience the same problem.
With major corporations getting involved, such as The New York Times, Cosmopolitan, and Newsweek, I would have to agree with the chief executive of Salon Media Group, Richard Gingras. According to him, "I don't look at this as the solution to the future of journalism. But who knows? We will learn from it." However, I think that the way that it is designed is an appropriate set-up. Appearing as a collection of images, "stories are displayed side by side in various horizontal rails that show stories arranged by popularity." Fast Flip also deletes the ads that would usually be shown, as well as featuring the opportunity to zoom into a particular section of the article.
I think it will be beneficial just for the fact of being able to read exactly what you want, and you can take exactly what you want from a certain article. "We are helping people immerse themselves in the context," says Krishna Bharat, a Google researcher.
This is a really interesting media trend, Courtney. It shows even more convergence between the Internet and Print Journalism. Like we talked about yesterday, will sitting down with your "fast flip" (or laptop) replace sitting with your paper and cup of coffee in the morning? Like Gingras says, "who knows?"
ReplyDeleteMichelle also posted about this story at here blog, linked here. Take a look because her position may vary a bit from yours.