I really like the Fast Flip design, but it’s not as malleable as I’d like to see. I want to add feeds, and create tabs and rows.
I don’t like that it embeds full articles. I thought placing your frame around a whole page went out of style 15 years ago. Maybe that’s to control for adjusting to mobile devices?
And also because they’re trying to monetize it. The Center for Investigative Reporting has jumped on the Fast Flip train, and their argument sounds pretty reasonable.
“The announcement Monday that CIR and California Watch are now part of Google’s Fast Flip offers the hope that our work will reach a wider audience. We, along with a range of news organization big and small, for profit and non-profit, are part of an experiment with this new search tool that allows users to a flip through websites, much as you would turn the pages of a book or magazine. We also have the opportunity to share ad revenue through Fast Flip.”
The Fast Flip design is similar to the rudimentary ideas I have for the Social OPAC (library jargon for main library catalog page) I’m designing for class this semester. I’m going to see if I can laminate a really smart, intuitive social element on top of (or into) something like the Fast Flip.
“Google Fast Flip is a web application that lets users discover and share news articles. It combines qualities of print and the Web, with the ability to “flip” through pages online as quickly as flipping through a magazine. It also enables users to follow friends and topics, discover new content and create their own custom magazines around searches.”
