Flipboard, the popular curated news reading app for the iPad, just released version 1.5 that makes it easier to discover quality content and share it with your professional network on LinkedIn. The new edition is available for download from the AppStore today.
According to TechCrunch’s interview with Flipboard CEO Mike McCue, the app takes select Web content, from blog posts to articles from newspaper websites, strips their navigation bars/links and advertisements and presents the digital content in magazine style complete with page turns to access longer stories and galleries. It also offers partner content from the likes of Wired so those features are optimized for the app and the publisher sells unique Flipboard ads to readers.
New features in this new release include:
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LinkedIn Integration: See what your connections on LinkedIn are reading, and share your finds with colleagues by linking your LinkedIn account to Flipboard. Plus, LinkedIn Today’s selection of business-oriented news will become part of the content feed on Flipboard and displayed like a magazine layout, so you can stay on top of relevant information for your industry determined by your professional network.
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Improved Navigation with “Red Ribbon”: Tap on the “Red Ribbon” on the upper right corner on every screen to access the slide-out Content Guide. It provides instant access to your social networks (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter etc.), your favorite content, RSS feeds, content from Flipboard partners and even content Flipboard curates (by human editors, not algorithms) and groups by topic/interest.
- Read Later: Started an article but have no time to finish? The Flipboard app now connects to Instapaper and ReadItLater to give you access to stuff you’d want to revisit.
- Popular on Flipboard: See the trending content on Flipboard.
- Unlimited “Favorites”: Users were limited to only 22 stories they can shortlist in the previous version of Flipboard, so with release 1.5, you can add as many articles as you like to your Favorite list by tapping on the “Add” button on the upper left corner.
- Open Article in Full Screen with a Single Tap: To see full-sized articles from the likes of National Geographic and The Economist, simply tap the story once. Flip the page to read other articles from the same outlet.
Watch an extended demo of this new release on TechCrunchTV.
Flipboard looks to be a beautiful way to consume digital content on the iPad, actually on any platform in my opinion. My RSS feeds would actually look inviting rather than an overwhelming list of headlines. What is your favorite news reading app?
[Source: The LinkedIn blog, TechCrunchTV, The Official Flipboard blog]
