New Facebook Paper app (video)
Facebook has just released its new Paper app today. Heard of it? It’s a new way of sharing stories and kind of sort of turning Facebook into a publisher of content.
I’m still trying to wrap my head around it and even searched for it in the app store, but it didn’t come up. Apparently, you can search for topics like tech, sports, cooking, whatever, and you’ll get content hand selected from a team of editors. They’ll pull from legitimate publishers, lesser-known blogs and even user posts.
Paper isn’t meant to replace the Facebook app on your iPhone, but rather, act as an alternative. Facebook has been wanting to come up with a reader for years, with Mark Zuckerberg saying in the past that he wanted to make Facebook “the best personalized newspaper in the world.”
“Picking up a feed on your phone is nowhere near the experience of picking up your favorite magazine and flipping through it,” says Mike Matas, the lead designer on the new app, via Wired. “How do we design something on a screen the size of a credit card that will bring in some of the influence of older print design? That led all of our decisions.”
Paper also changes the way you post to Facebook, where it feels more like you are publishing legitimate content and less like you are clicking “post” after uploading a picture of yourself with a Bud Light and typing, “This is how we do it!”
The success of the app seems to come down to the type of content that the editors put forth and feature. Without being able to download the app, I can’t offer an opinion at this point. But, it’s supposedly released today so you should be able to check it out soon.
Will this be just another failed Facebook app? Or will it effectively change how you interact with Facebook? I guess we’ll all find out together.
