SpaceTime3D allows you to search Google web pages, Flickr images, Wikipedia and more using a stunning visual interface that speeds up the search process by allowing you to flip through pages presented in a visual stack of search results.

I hope you give it a try.

Er, not so fast. Fast Flip is a wonderful new product that enhances the consumer experience and throws a bone to the ailing newspaper industry. But newspapers won’t be satisfied with scraps, they’re after the meat behind the Google revenue machine.

Not that I blame them. What business really wants a competitor controlling their revenue stream and doling out profits as they see fit? In reality Google is doing more than extending an olive branch, they invented a way to make more money for the papers.

My question…instead of building pay walls to lock up content that will be replicated by millions of other news sites and bloggers, why didn’t newsies think of something like Fast Flip themselves (and thus control ALL the revenue)?
.-= Social Media Commando´s last blog ..Online Reputation Management: Who’s Got Your Back? =-.

I think that at the moment the tool is more useful for trending/breaking news stories covered by the mainstream media (Google’s top publishing partners) and not so much for anything older or harder to find. I would definitely expect them to expand their publisher list but I wonder if they’ll extend the time window backwards or stay focused on the present? More revenue to be made from extending the results pool backwards, of course, since it will ensure that there are fewer/zero instances of no results and therefore there will always be an ad opportunity – but extending backwards might mean that the results are less relevant to readers who are looking for the latest on a story.

Ain’t speculation grand?
.-= Cara deBeer´s last blog ..Good Morning Vietnam =-.