I've finally downloaded the most beautiful killer app for the iPad - and it's free.
Flipboard promises to turn your social networks into a personal magazine of content directly relevant to you. Here's a video tour that beautifully explains the app and how it works.
Flipboard is so gorgeous and works so well, it exploded out of the blocks at launch last week and quickly crashed. That was the delay in being able to sync it will Facebook and Twitter, though those lags appear to be fixed.
The beauty in the app is the way it lays out your content. Twitter isnt just a stream of links, they are now gridded out, images are embedded, content is summarized and you can more easily bounce around to find interesting news.
It's the previewing of content that makes Flipboard so compelling. If you follow many newsmakers on Twitter and use the site to consume news and information and articles, Flipboard makes reading through your stream an escape into something interesting. No longer are you eternally scrolling through long list and clicking open multiple windows looking for something interesting to read. It's there previewed for you in a quick glance. One swipe turns the page to refresh your screen with more delicious content.
If the Flipboard model can be spun to catch a variety of RSS feeds from news sources I trust and follow, and can be cacheable for offline reading, it will become the newspaper. We will still need news industries to curate and create the news, but when it comes to consuming the content, Flipboard will be the jumping off point - if it can wade through deepening copyright waters.
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