You can think of Flipboard as a smart magazine. Unlike traditional print magazines, Flipboard personalizes your content based on your interests, then displays relevant articles in a magazine-style layout that’s easy to interact with and pleasing to the eye. In addition to articles, you’ll see other types of content, including videos, podcasts, tweets, and more. People can use Flipboard to create digital magazines to share with other users; as you read through the content on Flipboard, you can easily add them to a new or existing magazine under your profile. Flipboard also lets you curate magazines based on a passion of yours, for specific sources, for sharing with a group, or for creating a collection.
How the Flipboard App Works
Flipboard works by letting you quite literally flip through stories. It has a unique gesture-based flip function that flips the page when you swipe up/down or left/right on the screen, much like flipping the page of a real magazine. Stories appear in your home feed with an image, a headline, the source name, and how recently it was published. All you have to do is tap a story to expand it to read it in full. Each story also includes a menu button represented by three dots in the lower right corner, allowing you to interact with the story. If you decide to “Like” one or choose to see “Less like this,” Flipboard will curate content for you based on your selection. You can also flip the story into a magazine or share it via social media.
How to Get Started With Flipboard
Download the free Flipboard app or sign up via a web browser at Flipboard.com. Flipboard will ask what your interests are by prompting you to select a few topics to follow; you can always unfollow these and add additional ones later. Flipboard will then fill your home feed with stories based on the topics you’ve chosen. From here, you can begin using the app. You can easily uninstall Flipboard if it’s not your cup of tea. Download For:
How to Use Flipboard
On the Flipboard mobile app, you’ll see five icons in the main menu at the bottom. Here’s how you use them. Home (the house icon): This is where you’ll find all of your stories; flip through them or pull down to refresh. Following (the grid icon): Here’s where you can see the topics, profiles, and accounts you’re following. Use the search function at the top to find something or someone specific. Search (the magnifying glass icon): This is the place to go to discover more topics and add them to your Flipboard. Tap a suggestion, then tap the red Follow button to follow it, or use the search function at the top to find a specific topic. Notifications (the speech bubble icon): Activities such as follows, likes and comments on your stories, and more will appear here. Don’t want to see these? You can disable Flipboard notifications in a few steps. Your Profile (the person icon): Here’s where you get to show off; add a profile photo, a username, and a short bio. Similar to Instagram, magazines you curate will appear in a grid layout below your profile information.
Why You Should Use Flipboard
You might already get some of your news from other places online, such as by following news sources on social media, visiting individual sites, or subscribing to blogs. Flipboard, however, offers more benefits than these other ways of getting your news fix.
Keep your friends’ lives separate from the news: News stories appearing on your Facebook or Twitter feed will be mixed in with the random posts from your friends and following. Although Flipboard is a social app, too, stories shown are always about news and don’t include any friendly social updates. Get the look and feel of a real newspaper or magazine: By far, one of the biggest things attracting people to Flipboard is its unique layout and gesture-based flip functionality. Get your news from reputable sources: Forget about finding news sources yourself because Flipboard does the work for you. When you follow a topic, you’ll see the latest and most popular articles from leading sources around the world. Personalize your news experience: Follow only the topics you’re interested in, the users who curate great stories, and the social accounts you want to integrate into your news experience. Flipboard also curates storyboards made up of 5-12 stories on important topics. Become a news curator yourself: You can create smart magazines on your favorite topics that automatically update with new content.
