Flipboard is a free app that is available for IOS, Windows, and Android. The platform itself is formatted to replicate and uses the lingo of a magazine. The concept is that each user makes their account and creates their very own personalized “magazine” feed to read. The app was designed to bring together news and social media, and it excels at it. People throw around the phrase “it’s the best of both worlds”, but with Flipboard, it is literally the best of both worlds. A need for current content on what is happening in the world as well as a desire to be kept up to date on the lives of one’s favorite pop culture artists are easily appeased.
“Over the years, in partnership with the world’s greatest publishers and with you, our community, we’ve built a curated experience with a plurality of voices, where people can find quality stories on any interest, investing in their lives and their passions.”
Mike Mccue, Co-Founder and CEO
FLIPBOARD SET-UP
The setup process is similar to Pinterest or Spotify. It starts by allowing the user to pick areas of content they are interested in. Each creates it own Smart Magazine tab on the home page, as to allow the user to view isolated topics. The “best of both worlds” view is labeled as “For You”. It is a feed filled with content from your individual interests as well as news updates and breaking stories. If a particular article catches your eye, you can save it to one of your magazines. A magazine is a compilation of your saved articles and content that you manually put together.
THE COSTCO OF APPS
Flipboard is the Costco of apps in the market space for news and social media. Costco is known for its bulk product full of value at a steal of a price. Flipboard is a free app, so it is quite literally as cheap as a product can get. Flipboard also delivers a bulk amount of value-loaded content to you. What more could you ask for? Free samples? Well, Flipboard has its version of those too. Content that you did not choose will make its way to your main feed. This sounds like a turn-off because I know it makes you think of ads, but it’s not. These samples of content are breaking news posts and content related to your declared interests.
“Over the years, in partnership with the world’s greatest publishers and with you, our community, we’ve built a curated experience with a plurality of voices, where people can find quality stories on any interest, investing in their lives and their passions.”
Mike Mccue, Co-Founder and CEO
