Google Fast Flip went live yesterday (view it here). Fast Flip is Google's self proclaimed revolutionary news reading tool that allegedly combines the best of print and online creating a user interface which will alter the experience of reading, giving the viewer unlimited access to virtually all that is worth knowing. To me it is just sort of confusing. What is disappointing about this is that Google has been working on this since, I am pretty sure, 2003. That is a long time for something which appears to be pretty basic. 

There are some cool features: being able to scroll through multiple publications to review their coverage of similar news items is clever. Google is sharing revenue with the publications who participate based on the clicks that their pages generate, which is good. However, in return the publications had to give their content minus any of their own advertising, which is a big price to pay for participation in a revenue sharing deal.

Fast Flip is worth watching and once Google irons out some of the bugs, no doubt it will become a valuable tool for some people. But the launch of Fast Flip appears to be more about PR than revolution, a common theme among many of Google's new products.