A couple of weeks ago Google released a new news content browser called fast flip. Unlike the current Google news the content isn’t text-based- it uses screen/page shots of best-match articles which you can then click-through to get a large size .png of the article.
So, starting at http://fastflip.googlelabs.com/ select an article you like the look of, or search for a topic e.g. http://fastflip.googlelabs.com/search?q=seo. Then select a page to get a large-view (e.g. http://fastflip.googlelabs.com/view?q=seo#uUkRg2LSKjfgrM).
Because it’s not text based the criteria for finding it is substantially different than for regular Google news. With the regular news you can search with keywords to find a huge selection of possible articles and items, so a search for pretty much anything can findrelevant news results- which when clicked-through will take you from the SERP link to the originating page.
With fast flip this link to the originating content is in an image, so there’s no opportunity to optimise. But then, as you won’t get your news included unless Google has approached you this isn’t much of a problem.
In the past days I’ve used fast flip and confess that I find it easier to read my rss, use news sites and dip in and out of Google news when I feel like it. It is not the usability of the service that interests me, or the resources it currently references, what interests me as an SEO is what direction Google may be thinking of taking.
Often test apps like this are a precursor of what we can expect in the future, depending on how their effectiveness is measured. I’ll reserve judgement for the time being.
Related posts:
