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Flipboard turns social network content into a virtual magazine

by Mike Schramm Jul 21st 2010 at 4:00PM


The latest hotness wandering around the blogs is this iPad app called Flipboard, which turns your favorite social network content into an easy-to-read magazine-styled layout. It does look good -- the idea is that pictures and text are all pulled in from various social feeds, and then assembled together by the app to make a full-color, full-featured magazine that you can flip through instead of pulling up various feeds and/or running a bunch of different clients. We saw a similar app at WWDC this year that pulled content from RSS and styled it in a magazine fashion.

Personally, I'm not entirely sold -- I have the same problem with this app as I did with RSS readers for a long time, which is that I like to see content in the format it's generated for. If someone likes something or posts a link on Facebook, I'd rather see what it looks like in the same space they created it for, not crammed into an app's magazine-style formatting. You may make the argument that information is increasingly growing context in-sensitive, and you'd be right -- I do use an RSS reader now, after many years of trying to read blog items on their own blogs, and social networks are growing more interchangeable as they fight to find their own spots in your attention.

Flipboard may work well (and at the low, low price of free, it's hard to argue against at least trying it out, though word is that the servers are hammered at launch), but I think there's still something to be said for seeing your tweets in your Twitter client and your friends' pictures on Flickr. I'm not quite ready to completely separate all of my social network content from its original form quite yet.

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The latest hotness wandering around the blogs is this iPad app called Flipboard, which turns your favorite social network content into an...
 

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ooglek

I installed it back when this article was posted, and I still really enjoy Flipboard. I can get through my Facebook and Twitter stuff quickly and very richly. The transition from the Flipboard view to the web view is fast and seamless. Other than the fact that I can't select a single RSS feed (that I know of) and that I'm limited to 9 categories, it's fabulous. Use it regularly.

August 14 2010 at 1:30 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
MeerkatMac

So if you're not really into social networking but you're bored sitting around in your doctor's waiting room, you can use this superficial do-nothing app to flip through thumbnails from people that DO have a life and entertain your TV-mentality empty mind for awhile. You won't even mind that they eventually load-it-up with commercials, because heck it's free! That should be worth being annoyed for. Isn't that what TV's for. Wait, I mean Flipbored. No, wait - uh...

And this app deserves all this media attention why?!?!?!?

July 30 2010 at 3:36 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Connie

I'm just blown away by this! I'm cruising through the GigaOm sites easily. It's not boring like viewing RSS feeds -- it's quite entertaining! Can't hardly wait until I get my invite to add FB and Twitter.....

July 23 2010 at 11:22 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Tobi

Did anyone else think the video was...creepy?

July 22 2010 at 5:10 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
darbronnoco420

Pretty sure any blog site will not be a fan of anything like this or RSS based. They want viewers on their page looking at the revenue generating ads. Nothing more to it.

July 22 2010 at 10:34 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Chris Aubeck

Just because the developers failed to prepare for server overload it doesn't mean the product is itself a failure. I seem to recall a certain fruit company having server and product availability problems of its own not too long ago.

July 22 2010 at 9:39 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Glenn Gore

It's a free app, so I didn't waste any money on it, but the app's page on iTunes last time I looked at it had 15+ pages of "can't connect to Facebook or Twitter account" messages on it. I can accept some initial launch hiccups but this is unacceptable. The app looks neat, but at no time in the 3 days since I installed it have I been able to connect to my Twitter account using it. Fail-uninstalled.

July 22 2010 at 5:42 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Glenn Gore's comment
redcard

Wonder what immense success you have achieved in your life, Glenn. Please tell us.

And let's be honest, you're gonna keep trying this app until everything works. Your show of outrage and anger is just that. A show.

July 22 2010 at 12:43 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
heydavila

I love it and have had no problems accessing my FB & Twitter data. Hopefully, they'll fix the problem for those that are having them bcuz it's a completely organic progression of how we digest content on the Paddie

July 21 2010 at 6:35 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
ben

This is a truly beautiful app.

July 21 2010 at 4:59 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Robert Basil

Flipboard = Fail. Can't add Facebook or Twitter accounts because the service is overloaded. Thank God I didn't waste any money on it. The app should not be required to access the Flipboard servers to pull your feeds.

July 21 2010 at 4:44 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
3 replies to Robert Basil's comment
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