Flipboard launches user-created magazines, partners with Etsy (video)

Everybody loves Flipboard, right? If you're a fan like us, rejoice -- your favorite social magazine just got a whole lot better. Today Flipboard for iOS is receiving a major update that will let you create and curate your very own magazines. It also brings a boatload of other improvements to the table including a content partnership with Etsy. An update to the Android version will follow shortly. We were able to take the new version of Flipboard for a spin and get a demo from CTO Eric Feng. Hit the break to dive into the details and watch our hands-on video. %Gallery-183818% %Gallery-183819%

This latest app represents the company's biggest update yet -- a shift from consumption to creation and curation -- and comes just as Flipboard recently gained its 50 millionth user. Creating a magazine is as easy as tapping the plus button that appears at the top right of each article, picture and video inside Flipboard, then adding the content to a new or existing magazine. Your magazines appear in the My Flipboard section of the app and can be made public or private (for when you're working on something you don't want to share with anyone). Once you have some content in your magazine, you can long-press on a picture to promote it to the cover.

Magazines are a great way to share a narrative or tell a story relating to a specific topic. We saw beautifully formatted and paginated magazines about weddings, tree-houses, marriage equality and Coachella. Publishers can use magazines to collect archival content and package material in a completely new way. Feng showed us a magazine about the Beatles that Rolling Stone put together, complete with audio tracks that can be played back while you continue reading. To make it easier to find content, Flipboard includes a new curated search feature which can be filtered to show results from RSS feeds or specific social networks.

This new version not only provides a way to share magazines via email and existing social networks, but introduces social interactions within Flipboard, complete with likes, @ mentions and notifications. You can even find out when someone "reflips" items from your magazine into theirs. Of course, Flipboard preserves the attribution for all original content -- you can like or comment on a Facebook post as if you were on Facebook, retweet or reply to an article shared on Twitter as if you were on Twitter -- even ads propagate right along with the original content. To promote discovery, the By Our Readers section will showcase a rotating selection of user-created magazines.

Flipboard's partnership with Etsy lets you see products available on Etsy's creative marketplace and add them to your magazines -- it's even possible to buy them right from within Flipboard. The new app also integrates with Facebook's Open Graph. Finally, the company's launching a Flipboard bookmarklet for desktop browsers which makes it easier to add content to your magazines while you're surfing the web. The new version of Flipboard for iOS is available right now on the App Store -- just follow the source link below. Android users can expect an update in the very near future.

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NOW WITH 50 MILLION READERS, FLIPBOARD OPENS MAGAZINE CURATION TO EVERYONE

New "Plus"+ Button Lets Readers and Publishers Curate From Flipboard

From "Great Vacation Ideas" and "My Etsy Wish List,"
"The Beatles" by Rolling Stone and "Co.Create" by Fast Company

March 26, 2013 - Palo Alto, Calif. - Today a brand new edition of Flipboard turns the social magazine into a place for self expression. Available on Apple's iPad and iPhone, this second generation of the product takes the experience full circle, letting readers not only enjoy great content from around the world, but also collect things they find on Flipboard to create their own magazines around topics, events or personal interests.

Now it's easy for people to collect, save and share amazing stories, inspiring videos and beautiful photos on Flipboard. Readers can fill their magazines with content that expresses a point of view, reflects personal tastes or shares ideas they find inspiring. For publishers this is a new way to share archival content, publish great collections or package together stories in a totally new way on Flipboard.

Use the Plus Button to Get Started

With today's new edition anyone can collect the stories, videos and images they find into their own magazines. Anything that inspires readers, from cooking to current events, can be the topic of a new magazine. Because magazines are public, they can grow an audience and others can like items, comment on posts, or even subscribe to other people's magazines. When people interact a magazine, the curator learns about it through new Flipboard Notifications.

To get started a reader taps the + button that's been added to any item on Flipboard, selects "Create Magazine" then gives the magazine a title, adds a description and selects a category. They can keep adding items to the magazine to tell a story, share a perspective or inspire others. For each item that's flipped into a magazine, attribution back to the source is preserved, and if the content is from a social network interactions such as commenting, retweeting or liking are reflected back to the originating social network.

There are basic tools to manage and share a magazine. To change the cover of a magazine, a simple tap and hold on any item in the magazine lets the user select "promote to cover." To delete a magazine or make it private, there is an "edit" button on the cover of the magazine. Also on the cover is a "share" button so curators and readers can easily share magazines via email, Facebook or Twitter.

Discover Great Content, Find Great Magazines

Also today, Flipboard launched Content Search. Accessible at the top of every page, Content Search lets readers find anything being shared on Flipboard, with search results laid out in Flipboard's familiar format and easy to filp through -- essentially creating a whole new magazine just on that search term.

To get inspired or discover new magazines, readers can use Flipboard's new Content Search to find great content by topic, person or #hashtag. By selecting Flipboard's results, readers get an instant magazine of everything being shared on Flipboard. For example, a search for "cycling" will instantly display pages of stories, videos and images being shared on cycling. Ifreaders want to browse for more, they can select from a wide range of results coming from social networks, RSS or magazines.

Magazines by people and publishers will be featured regularly in the Content Guide under New & Noteworthy and By Our Readers. In the Content Guide readers can see some of the beautiful new magazines already being created, everything from Vanity Fair's "Royalty Watch" to Trey Ratcliff's "Adventures in New Zealand."

Adding Etsy

Also announced today, Flipboard partnered with Etsy to bring the Etsy blog and product lines to Flipboard readers. Designed specifically for Flipboard and integrated with the Etsy shopping cart, readers can see the beautiful products from this creative community and marketplace, flip them into magazines and even shop (using the "buy" button) right from Flipboard.

But wait, There's More

- A tap on the red ribbon opens a new visual Content Guide that gives readers a view into everything on their Flipboard - showing "My Magazines" as well as all of the content they subscribe to on Flipboard under "My Subscriptions." This new view allows readers to rearrange or delete sections by tapping and holding or quickly switch between section of interest.
- New side bars in magazines surface related magazines and sub-sections of content so it's easy to find more interesting sources and topics.
- New recommended reading suggestions appear throughout Flipboard. For example, in Cover Stories the "More for You" module gives readers an easy way to explore a variety of content related to their interests.
- Now with Facebook Open Graph integration, people can add Flipboard to their Facebook About page and share the magazines they are creating and stories they are collecting.

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The Guardian Partners with Flipboard on Launch of Its Open Curation Platform

March 26, 2013, New York -- The Guardian today announced that it has partnered with Flipboard, which unveiled a brand new edition of its social magazine that offers publishers a new way to share archival content, publish great magazines and package together stories in a totally new way.

As a launch partner, the Guardian will initially feature three magazines – optimized for Flipboard on the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch – to appear in Flipboard's Content Guide. They include:

The Royals: a selection of the Guardian's coverage of the British monarchy;
Space: Mars, Meteors and Monkeys: a selection of space and science news, images and videos;
The Death Penalty in America: a selection of the Guardian's ground-breaking coverage of capital punishment in the US.

"Our partnership with Flipboard reflects the Guardian's commitment to offer new and innovative ways for readers to engage with our content and extend our reach across a variety of digital platforms," said Guardian US CEO Michael Bloom. "We're thrilled to be part of Flipboard's elegantly designed user experience to bring the Guardian's distinctive journalism to a new and growing community of readers."

Flipboard's latest edition allows anyone to collect stories, videos and images they find into their own magazines. Readers can fill their magazines with content that expresses a point of view, reflects personal tastes or shares ideas they find inspiring. For publishers, it offers a new way to package stories. Because magazines are public, they can grow an audience and others can like items, comment on posts, or even subscribe to other people's magazines. When people interact with a magazine, the curator learns about it through new Flipboard notifications.

Magazines by people and publishers will be featured regularly in the Content Guide under "New & Noteworthy" and "By Our Readers". In the Content Guide readers can see some of the beautiful new magazines already being created.