From the Post:

Google News has dropped the “Text Version” feature sometime over the past week or so. A Google News Help thread has some complaints dating back to October 22nd. More in the full post including a comment from Google

Source: Search Engine Roundtable

From Greg Sterling’s SEL Blog Post:

The previously rumored Google news site “Flipper” is in fact launching today as “Fast Flip” in Google Labs. But maybe it should be called Google Skimmer because it permits people to move very quickly through lots of visually rich news pages from dozens of partner publications. According to the Google Blog Post:

Fast Flip is a new reading experience that combines the best elements of print and online articles. Like a print magazine, Fast Flip lets you browse sequentially through bundles of recent news, headlines and popular topics, as well as feeds from individual top publishers. As the name suggests, flipping through content is very fast, so you can quickly look through a lot of pages until you find something interesting. At the same time, we provide aggregation and search over many top newspapers and magazines, and the ability to share content with your friends and community. Fast Flip also personalizes the experience for you, by taking cues from selections you make to show you more content from sources, topics and journalists that you seem to like. In short, you get fast browsing, natural magazine-style navigation, recommendations from friends and other members of the community and a selection of content that is serendipitous and personalized.

Much More in Greg Sterling’s Search Engine Land Post (with screen shots) where he points out that iPhone and Android versions are available.

Access Fast Flip (Beta) from Google Labs

Source: Search Engine Land

See Also: It’s worth noting that New York Times has offered an “Article Skimmer” prototype since early 2009 when it was described in this article.

Here at The Times, we often hear a common story of usage from our customers: Reading the Sunday Times, spreading out the paper on a table while eating brunch. For many of our customers, this ritual is fundamental to their enjoyment of the weekend, and its absence would be jolting.

[Snip]

Instead, our focus was on the fundamentals of the experience. It is empowering to spread so much information out on a table, so we spread as many stories as we can fit into the space of your screen. It is easier and more relaxing to scan a surface of information than flip through a stack, so information is laid out in a rigid two-dimensional grid. The sections do not flip into place; instead, they slide up and down. If you want to imagine the whole of the content as a giant uncut scroll of paper, don’t let us stop you.

In June, 2009 “Article Skimmer” had its third release. You can read about it here.

The third release prototype has (according to the paper):
+ Improved Navigation
+ Arrow Keys: Even More Useful (Many users have expressed delight at being able to move around the article skimmer using the up and down arrow keys. Now you can move between pages using the left and right arrow keys.
+ The Addition of the Times Wire

From the Article:

USA Today has launched a site called Newsdeck (http://digbig.com/5babef) which aggregates the paper’s top stories in a headline format. The page bears little resemblance to a news site and in fact looks very much like a deck of cards. Each of the eight cards contains headlines on different topics, such as news, travel, money, sport and technology, with each headline linking through to the full story on the paper’s main website.

Direct to NewsDeck from USA Today

The article also mentions the “Skimmer” prototype from the NY Times. We first blogged about Skimmer in March and then again in June.

Source: VIP LiveWire

As word of a new Google News feature (it’s a test, not available to the public) breaks, it’s worth noting that this week The New York Times updated their “Skimmer” service that allows users (this service is a prototype) to skim multiple articles on a single web page, similar to skimming the print version of a newspaper.

The First Look Blog has more about “what’s new” with this update.

Direct to Skimmer

It’s also worth mentioning that the NY Times launched a new service about a month ago named Times Wire. The page automatically updates itself in real-time as new stories are published. You can even personalize the types of articles that appear on your web page. Cool!

Direct to Times Wire

Gary has written a brief overview post about a powerful news search and intelligence tool named Silobreaker. It’s a product that all info pros should know about.

Direct to Post.

Source: VIP LiveWire

From the NY Times First Look Weblog:

We’ve enabled a new feature called Apture on select New York Times blogs: Dot Earth, Economix and Diner’s Journal. Apture allows readers to dig deeper into a subject without ever leaving the page. In a blog post like this, when you see a hyperlink with a small icon next to it, click on that link. You’ll instantly see related videos, maps, documents, photos, New York Times topic pages and other content, all while staying on the same page.

Have feedback? An email address is listed in the post.

Source: NY Times First Look Blog

Last week posted an item about the Beta release of Newssift, a faceted new news browsing tool. If you’re interested in learning more about the product (it’s free to use), take a look at this interview from the BBC with the CEO of FT Search, Robin Johnson.

Direct to Video

Source: Newssift Blog

Gary here. Over on LiveWire we’ve posted a brief overview of one of my favorite sites and most valuable tools, NewsNow. You can find the post here.