Flipboard has a big revamp in store, as its latest update now brings Smart Magazines to make it easier for users to find news and other content relevant to them.
With this new update, Flipboard aims to "modernize the notion of magazines" and make it easier to read more on a specific topic or customize and personalize the experience.
Flipboard Smart Magazines With Shelf Space
"At the heart of this edition is the Smart Magazine, a new way to organize the world's stories, curated by experts and enthusiasts, into continually updating collections that can be personalized by you," says Flipboard.
The new Smart Magazine feature includes a neat "shelf space" area, which serves as a Home carousel where users can quickly access news and content that's relevant to them. The update aims to make Flipboard more useful and helpful for both new and existing users, offering better organization and facilitating discovery of content based on interests.
So far, Flipboard users could either open up a slew of individual topics and magazines, or access the Cover Stories section for various stories aggregated by interests. However, the whopping range of topics covered on Flipboard (34 million topics) and magazines (30 million) could be quite overwhelming.
The revamp should significantly reduce clutter and better organize everything so it's easier to find what you're looking for. For instance, Flipboard users interested in photography could follow various magazines and topics, but so far they didn't have any suitable solution to see it all in one place.
How It Works
To add an interest or passion, such as the "photography" example Flipboard used, simply swipe left. Adding that interest will automatically display magazines you're already following, as well as suggest some others that would qualify. The passion or broad interest (photography, sports, cooking and such) would materialize in a Smart Magazine to keep it all in place.
Each Smart Magazine starts out with current major stories, which most people interested in the topic would want to read. As you dive deeper into the Smart Magazine, you'll start seeing more content tailored to your particular interests, not just the board topic in general.
A one-screen Passion Picker makes it easy for Flipboard users to find the topics they might want to follow and further personalize their Smart Magazines by adding specific publications, Twitter accounts and hashtags, YouTube feeds and more. In time, the magazine should become even smarter as you like and add more stories.
"The more you interact with Flipboard, the better your experience will be: the algorithm learns from what you follow, heart and add," Flipboard further explains. "Liking great content helps your friends and followers, too, as those stories are more likely to surface to them."
The Home screen carousel can house up to nine Smart Magazines. Anything past that will be housed in the Magazines section of the app.
Flipboard's Jenn de la Vega also published a useful post explaining how users can make the most of their Flipboard experience, taking full advantage of the latest update. The post details how you can organize, personalize, create magazines, customize them and more.
