Most of the articles that show up in your newspaper or magazine are chosen by professional editors. What if they are picked out by a friend from college instead? Or a colleague from work? Or your mom? Anyone you know, really?
That’s the concept behind Flipboard, a new application for Apple Inc.’s mega-selling iPad.
It’s a marriage of the new media ethos that we’ve all become news editors for our online contacts and the traditional media’s talent for packaging the news in a way that’s inviting and cohesive.
Flipboard takes the random links that accumulate on your Facebook or Twitter account — plus your friends’ personal status updates and tweets — and makes something like a digital magazine out of them.
Blurbs of text and photos recommended by friends become fodder for a continuously updated collage of content. You can also add sections to your magazine compiled from the tweets of just one contact or a specific publication — Spin magazine, say, or The Huffington Post.
The pages are laid out much like a newspaper or magazine. A swipe of the finger flips open the next page on the iPad’s dazzlingly vivid screen.
And you can use the app to post comments to an item on Facebook or e-mail articles to friends.
For a week or so, I’ve made this hodge-podge my daily reading.
Flipboard comes with enough flaws that I won’t be canceling my newspaper or magazine subscriptions just yet.
But I think the app has promise.
As much as the blizzard of Web links that confront me every day have begun to dictate my reading habits, I still want a comprehensive take on the day’s events — something more than a link on a Facebook page. And there’s an obvious appeal in keeping tabs on what the people I actually know and care about are interested in reading.
Flipboard…