One of the great attractions of magazines and newspapers over the internet has always been the ability to take them with you where ever you are and flip through the pages at your leisure.
With the release of the iPad and now the Flipboard app this freedom is now available in a fantastic electronic form.
Flipboard is a social magazine that brings to life the stories, photos, news and updates being shared across Twitter and Facebook. Released lat week and already one of the top free downloads for iPad users.
Users have the ability to flip through the pages of the magazine that is always updating and has fresh stories sourced from the millions of links shared on facebook and twitter. Navigation is very intuitive and having the ability to browse thorugh the magazine, "zoom in" on pictures and articles and of interest and link through to full articles and posts on the originating websites gives users an experience that can not be rivalled in print media.
A Look at Flipboard
Interest has been so great that Flipboard has been unable to keep up with the demand of users wanting linking through to their facebook and twitter accounts. The public content is still fairly raw and currently has limited categories to browse through however by sourcing articles, blogs, links that your friends and followers are looking at it will be able to intuitively have content available to you that will be of interest and you can update, like and share again the posts, blogs etc that have been promoted by your friends. For me that would be a logical track and the acquisition of Ellerdale will no doubt increase content relevency over time and yes I am one of the millions waiting for my facebook and twitter accounts to be linked which no doubt will make a huge difference as that is where the intellegent sharing really comes to the fore.
For me, an avid magazine reader and traditionalist in many ways this could just be the thing that gets me to move my page flipping fetish from print to pad.
I think you are right that print is definitely continuing to die a slow death, and no doubt the i-pad continues to provide the consumers what they want .
Posted by: cycling clothing | 30/03/2011 at 07:01 PM
Many thanks Sean & I totally agree with you - there are times when you just can't beat sitting down with a quiet book or magazine and one failing the iPad has in this aspect is the reflective nature of the screen (especially if you put a protective skin on it). This makes it near impossible to read in the sun.
Posted by: Glenn Marvin | 03/08/2010 at 09:52 AM
I think you are right that print is definitely continuing to die a slow death, and no doubt the i-pad continues to provide the consumers what they want, which is as close to "real life" magazines or books as possible. I will say however that there are some times I just don't want to turn on any device, and want the quiet solitude of a book or magazine. The i-pad is pretty cool though.. Thanks for sharing this insight.
Posted by: Sean Carroll | 03/08/2010 at 08:51 AM