Posted: Sep 16, 2009 9:59 PM
Updated: Sep 16, 2009 10:15 PM
Google has been getting a lot of hype this week with the introduction of its Fast Flip news product. Microsoft launched its competitive product, Bing Visual Search, on the same day (making one wonder if there aren't some corporate spies traveling between Redmond, WA and Mountain View, CA). Both are interesting interfaces that challenge us to look at news in a webcentric way. Neither are killer apps, but they're both innovative. Fast Flip presents news options visually (usually as a reproduction of the new story's page) and you can slide through your choices. Clicking on the thumbnail brings up a bigger picture of the story as it is presented on the partner website. This is even bolder than what you find at Google News: a headline, a couple of sentences, and a link. Here you'll find a reproduction of a good chunk of the story. Only when you click (again) on the story are you brought to the originating website. That's a hell of a bold choice for publishers, whose ads do not appear in the reproduction of their page. Their ads are stripped and replaced with Google Ads. That's where the revenue share comes from.
Writes Tom Bradley at PC World:
"...snazzy interface aside, Fast Flip isn't about eye candy or changing the way users search. Fast Flip is about helping print media adapt to the Internet age (and making a few dollars in the process)... Fast Flip is not an experiment in altruism... Google plans to make money and share that revenue with the publishers it partners with. Fast Flip pages are not bogged down with multimedia content and multiple ad banners. They are streamlined to load quickly (hence the "fast" part of Fast Flip)."
This is the first time Google has shared revenue with publishers. That will be enough for some publishers to participate. But, let's face it; nobody's going to get rich off this (except Google, maybe). You can do OK, but revenue sharing is not a news business model. The benefit to the publishers comes from the incremental added traffic they will get from this. Judging from my own experience, the interface really does invite clicking through. Hence, this will be more of a marketing tool for news than anything else.
The revenue share is Google's answer to the complaint that it's stealing from the news industry. And why not? It has nothing to lose. When you aggregate, you get the lion's share of the money while distributing small chunks to the publishers.
I agree with Robin Waters of Techcrunch, who thinks Fast Flip and Visual Search are nice, but not sea changes in news. Robin, rightly, calls for some perspective:
"No, Google is not becoming the ’source’ of all news overnight and monopolizing aggregation. No, the personalization element doesn’t suddenly give everyone a reason to stay away from traditional media (even though they could contain stories you might not be interested in). And no, the revenue-sharing aspect is not going to make a dent in newspaper companies’ income."
Still, this isn't stopping more than three dozen news partners from teaming up with Google for Fast Flip's rollout. Fast Flip also has a very good version just for mobile devices. It works quite well and is designed nicely for its own platform.
While not a revenue goldmine, Fast Flip is still very much worth our participation. We need to be within Fast Flip because this is another piece of how people find information online. We can't continue fearing the aggregators.
Bing Visual Search (why are Microsoft's products so literal?) presents a similar up-front interface, but plays things a lot safer. Right now, you're presented with galleries that Microsoft has hand-created. Visual Search doesn't touch news, sticking with safer topics like camera reviews and information about movies:
I suspect Microsoft will move this interface into its news product, but has decided to roll it out slowly with less controversial content.
Are Fast Flip and Visual Search sea changes? No. But here's the thing -- both are trying to be "of the Web" by packaging information in a webby way. There is no reason why local news sites can't experiment this way. Presenting information in new and different ways requires more resolve than money. You don't need Google's bucks to have a different interface on your front page -- you just need a good programmer.
What we also learn from these new interfaces is the need for incorporating aggregation into our experimentation. Remember -- it's far better to be the aggregator than the aggregated. Don't stop innovating. If your site looks the same as it did a year ago, you're behind. Take risks, even incremental ones, and you'll see a difference. So, too, will your audience.
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