

Flipboard Turns Twitter Into Your Own Magazine - niekmaas
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/07/when-you-are-the-editor.html

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Timothee
"This tiny company (19 employees)"

"Flipboard has raised $10.5 million"

"Flipboard hasn’t worked out a business model yet"

From what I saw of Flipboard, it looks very nice. But these numbers seem
pretty high for an iPad app.

Inherently, an app/service like this doesn't have any network effect, any
"virality" besides literal word-of-mouth (you using it doesn't make me know
you're using it, unlike services like Twitpic let's say: when you post a
picture, it makes me aware of Twitpic) and can be replaced instantly without
me losing anything.

Again, the app looks great and it got a fantastic start. But I'm curious how
it will pan out in the coming months.

~~~
samratjp
I wouldn't be so fast to dismiss it - the money could have gone towards this
important acquisition <http://www.flipboard.com/press/flipboard-acquires-
ellerdale>

Obviously, iPad may not be the only platform, it seems good enough of a
prototype to get Kleiner Perkins attention (remember they've allocated a few
hundred mil for iPhone + iPad apps?). I wouldn't be shocked if they've already
partnered with Nook and Kindle.

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callmeed
While I _like_ Flipboard, I have to admit: I still use Instapaper much more.
And, yes, I think they are comparable.

~~~
dugmartin
Same here. The first couple of days it was out I used it a lot - especially
the HN feed. However, I realized I missed the comments and I switched back
using HN via the web.

Also, the endless "RT by @blahblah" list of users on the right column for each
story is basically useless clutter.

I use Read Later instead of instapaper, same thing, I just like the FF plugin
it offers:

<http://readitlaterlist.com/>

Its funny, when I built LookLater a few years ago the Instapaper/ReadLater use
case is I guess really what I had in my mind.

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samratjp
I thought that name sounded familiar - Evan Doll used to teach the iPhone
class @Stanford
([http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/education/edlife/18IT-t.ht...](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/education/edlife/18IT-t.html)).
Sounds like the company has some smarts to make it.

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csmeder
Isn't this essentially scrapping content from other web sites with out their
permission, removing all the ads, and then presenting them in a nice way. I
always assumed this was not allowed?

~~~
ThomPete
Well it's my information that they are scraping so I guess that is ok.

~~~
niekmaas
Quote from the article: "...what the company is doing might not be legal,
since its software works by “scraping” content from other Web sites. But McCue
insists there is no problem because Flipboard displays only a small part of an
article, not the entire thing, and then embeds a link that takes a reader to
the original."

But I'm not sure if this is true. Scraping is scraping, regardless whether or
not you link to it.

In the last paragraph you can find this though "Flipboard hasn’t worked out a
business model yet, but plans to put ads next to articles and then share some
advertising revenue with publishers." Which indicates they do acknowledge the
publishers for the content and want to share (potential) revenues with those
publishers.

~~~
ehsanul
_Scraping is scraping, regardless whether or not you link to it._

By that logic, Google and other search providers' services should be up for
scrutiny.

~~~
Timothee
I would add Facebook, which is more around the same model as Flipboard in that
context: when you share a link on Facebook, it grabs the content to present a
nice snippet with a picture, title and summary.

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code_devil
I got my iPad over the weekend. And this was one of the first apps I
installed. So far I have been loving it. Currently you can only have 9
sources. Maybe they will charge for having more than 9 sources or maybe they
are trying to keep the ui nice and simple, since Evan Doll is a former apple
employee and instructor for the iPhone classes at Stanford.

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blasdel
_After using it for a few days, I’ve concluded that Flipboard is designed for
people that want to “read” but are annoyed with words getting in the way.

That sounds insulting but it’s actually a rather brilliant insight._ —
<http://trenchant.org/daily/2010/8/5/>

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bradgessler
Actually, it doesn't. Yet.

~~~
mikeryan
For beta users you can... I installed Flipboard about 2 weeks ago and have
been able to use Twitter and Facebook for about a week. They seem to be
letting people in to use Twitter and Facebook at a pretty fast clip.

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js4all
Wow, this is old news. I am using Flipboard for two weeks now.

