As many of you may know, Flipboard has started to become a pretty reliable RSS reader. Over the last year or so, it has continually added features and gotten better. In their last update, they added a feature that I thought was pretty neat and really gives the user a way to make Flipboard even better: Flipboard Magazines.
Not only that, but they also added a button you can add to your bookmark bar so that when you are surfing the web, you can add content to your magazine that you make. Then, you can tweak the magazine online to your heart’s content. It just might be the perfect way to share the stuff you love online.
Creating and Adding Content To Your Magazine
When you start with the Flipboard web editor, you can use it to create the start of your magazine. To be honest, it is quite bare bones, but that is fine because the magazine creation mainly happens by using the Flip It button. You can get the button from the Flipboard website and then drag and drop it into your favorite browser.
Flip It button for the web browser
When you are ready to create your first magazine, you can use the editor to start a new one. Name it, give it a description, decide what category it should be put in, and then lastly, you can decide if you want your magazine to be private or not. Once this is setup, you can now start to add content.
Creating a new magazine
Flipboard makes it really easy to add content as you are surfing the web by using the button that I mentioned. When you are in an article or site that you want to save, just click the button and then select the magazine you want to add it to, and you can also add a caption for it. Flipboard automatically selects a picture from the article for you to use, but I wish you had the option to select the one you want.
Adding a site to your magazine
After you are done adding the pages you want for your magazine, you can now head back to the editor on the web to do some final details before you let others read it. You can rearrange pages that you bookmarked and you can also decide which article will be your cover page. Once you are done, you can now share it on Twitter, Facebook, and email it to your friends. People can also subscribe to it on Flipboard if they are using the app as well. The nice part about this is that you can continue to add pages to your magazine and people will be able to see the updates that you make.
Sharing your magazine
Magazine Creation For the Average Person
I have always felt that Flipboard was always willing to push ahead and continue to create a platform that just about anyone can use. I don’t normally use Flipboard as my “go to” RSS reader because I like to be able to read my articles from oldest to newest, and you just can’t do it there. I have been waiting for them to add this feature, but I digress. All that to say, I keep wanting to use it as they have a great user interface and I love that they continue to partner with other magazine publishers to add their content to Flipboard.
With the addition of this new feature, to create your own magazine, they have really given the opportunity for the average person to create a very good looking magazine without hardly any work on their part. The nice part about it is that Flipboard has now brought its app to the masses, where not only can the tech nerds use it, but just about anyone now can feel like Flipboard can be used for their purposes. Take for example, my high school students, who up until this point, would never use Flipboard and have no interest in it. But, now that they can create their own magazines just by bookmarking websites, they suddenly have an interest to use this for their school work.
Looking Ahead
No one can predict the future and I definitely cannot predict where Flipboard will go from here. But, I do know one thing, they will continue to add features that will push them forward. I know for me personally, I would love to see them expand upon this magazine creation and give the end user more features to personalize the experience. For example, give the user the ability to create their own cover page, maybe let them create a table of contents, or other features where the magazine can actually feel like an actual one. This space is hot right now and it seems like long time bloggers are starting to look at it as an opportunity to be more creative. But, I don’t want Flipboard to forget about the little guy, the rest of us who want to create good looking magazines as well for whatever purpose it may be.
I can think of a handful of different ways this new feature can come in handy for the every day user and I am glad to see that Flipboard is continually innovating as they grow. With the demise of Google Reader, this may be a worthwhile app to check out to help replace it. They have many more features than what I mentioned here and if you like the ebook or digital magazine experience, then you should really consider checking this one out for yourself.