Fast Flip: Google Hot on the Heels of Bing Visual Search

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Google Fast Flip screenshot

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uploaded by Jordan Yerman

Google has introduced Fast Flip, a visual way to flip through websites that has a newspapery feel to it. Google is hoping to woo newspapers, whose own revenue models have gotten trounced by the web over the past several years. Microsoft's Bing has a similar offering, called Bing Visual Search, which, while announced earlier than Fast Flip, is not yet available for use as of this post.

Google Fast Flip is a catalogue of stories classified as news, ordered by keyword in its default setting, and the viewer can quickly flip across web pages that rank with that keyword, clicking through to the page they want to read in greater detail

Bing Visual Search is apparently pretty similar, but I'm unable to test it at this time, since it isn't live. The advantage of Visual Search, if it isn't limited to news, would be the ability to avoid clicking through to splogs or spam sites in pursuit of trending topics.