The Newsroom

Flipboard Opens Curation Platform: Now Anyone Can Create And Share Their Own Magazines

New Plus “+” Button Gives Readers and Publishers Ability to Curate on Flipboard
From “Great Vacation Ideas” and “My Etsy Wish List” to “The Beatles” by Rolling Stone and “Home How-Tos” by Martha Stewart Living
March 26th, 2013  •  Palo Alto

Today, a brand new edition of Flipboard™ turns the social magazine into a place for self expression. Available on iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, this second generation of Flipboard takes the experience full circle, letting readers not only enjoy great content from around the world but also collect things they find on Flipboard to create their own magazines on any topic, event or personal interest.

Now it’s easy for people to collect, save and share amazing stories, inspiring videos and beautiful photos on Flipboard. Using the new “+” button found on items in Flipboard or by using the new Flipboard bookmarklet for the web, readers can fill their magazines with content that expresses a point of view, reflects personal tastes or shares ideas they find inspiring. For publishers this is a new way to share archival content, publish great collections or package together stories in a totally new way on Flipboard.

“With more than 50 million users, Flipboard is used every day as a place to catch up on the things you care about. But starting now, it’s also a great place to share opinions, save favorite stories, and express your point of view. This is our biggest release ever and one that we think will open an entirely new experience for our readers,” said Mike McCue, Flipboard CEO.

Use the “+” Button to Get Started

With today’s new edition anyone can easily collect stories, videos, audio tracks and images into their own magazines on Flipboard.  Anything that inspires readers, from cooking to current events, can be the topic of a magazine.

To get started a reader taps the “+” button on any Flipboard item, selects “Create Magazine” then gives the magazine a title, adds a description and selects a category. They can keep adding items to the magazine to tell a story, share a perspective or inspire others. For each item that’s flipped into a magazine, attribution back to the source is preserved. If the content is from a social network interactions such as commenting, retweeting or liking are reflected back to the originating social network.

Because magazines are public and sharable, they can grow an audience and others can like items, comment on posts, or even subscribe to other people’s magazines. When people interact with a magazine, the curator learns about it through new Flipboard Notifications.

Also available starting today is a new Flipboard “Flip it” Bookmarklet that lets Flipboard users add great content they find on the Web to any of their magazines or create a new magazine. The “Flip it” bookmarklet is available at share.flipboard.com.

There are basic tools to manage and share a magazine. To change the cover of a magazine, a simple tap and hold on any item in the magazine lets the user select “promote to cover.” To delete a magazine or make it private, there is an “edit” button on the cover of the magazine. Also on the cover is a “share” button so curators and readers can easily share magazines via email, Facebook or Twitter.

Discover Great Content, Find Great Magazines

Also today, Flipboard launched Content Search. Accessible at the top of every page, Content Search lets readers find anything being shared on Flipboard, with search results laid out in Flipboard’s familiar format — essentially creating a whole new magazine just on that search term.

To get inspired or discover new magazines, readers can use Flipboard’s Content Search to find great content by topic, person or #hashtag. By selecting Flipboard’s search results, readers get an instant magazine of everything being shared on Flipboard. For example, a search for Cycling will instantly display pages of stories, videos and images being shared on cycling. If a reader wants to browse for more, they can select from a wide range of results coming from social networks, RSS or magazines.

Magazines by people and publishers will be featured regularly in the Content Guide under “New & Noteworthy” and “By Our Readers.” In the Content Guide readers can find some of the beautiful new magazines already being created, everything from Vanity Fair’s “Royal Watch” to Trey Ratcliff’s “Adventures in New Zealand.”

Adding Etsy
Also announced today, Flipboard partnered with Etsy to bring the Etsy blog and product lines to Flipboard readers. Designed specifically for Flipboard and integrated with the Etsy shopping cart, readers can see beautiful products from this creative community and marketplace as well as flip them into their own magazines or shop using the “buy” button right from Flipboard.

But wait, There’s More

  • A tap on the red ribbon opens a new visual Content Guide that gives readers a view into everything on their Flipboard – showing “My Magazines” as well as all of the content they subscribe to on Flipboard under “My Subscriptions.”  This new view allows readers to rearrange or delete sections by tapping and holding, or quickly switch between section of interest.
  • New side bars within magazines surface related magazines and sub-sections of content so it’s easy to find more interesting sources and topics.
  • Recommended reading suggestions appear throughout Flipboard. For example, in Cover Stories the “More for You” module gives readers an easy way to explore a variety of content related to what their friends are saving into magazines and the sources they subscribe to on Flipboard.
  • Now integrated with Facebook, people can share content from Flipboard to their timeline and create a Facebook section full of the magazines they are curating and stories they are collecting.

Flipboard is available for free from the App Store on iPad, iPhone and iPod touch or at www.AppStore.com/Flipboard.