Flipboard reaches 56 million users; to focus on generating revenue

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Social magazine app Flipboard has reached 56 million readers, and the company is now considering ways to capitalise on its growth by focusing on generating revenue. Mike McCue, the company’s CEO, revealed at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in New York that Flipboard has seen six million new users since it was updated back in March.

The iOS version of the app was bumped up to version 2.0 in March, which allowed users to publish their own content. The app saw more than 50,000 magazines created on version 2.0 within two weeks alone.

CEO McCue at the Disrupt event spoke about his plans of revenue generation (Image Credit: TechCrunch)

McCue said the 2.0 update is also in the works for the Android version of the app. He said the company is “putting the finishing touches on it” and it should be available “very, very soon”. McCue admitted that the Android version of the update has been more difficult to develop than the iOS version, as it has to cater to a wider category of devices.

The Android version of Flipboard has helped the service gain a huge chunk of users. After releasing the app in June last year, Flipboard's user base grew to 20 million by the end of August, up from five million in January.

"Android has been really striking in terms of how quickly it's growing," McCue said. "We don't break out iOS versus Android numbers, but [Android is] growing very, very fast and is a very important part of our strategy."

McCue’s focus is on revenue as much as on developing the app. He said Flipboard is primarily focused on helping publishers generate revenue by advertising their content. The service wants publishers to be able to charge for content as well as sell products through Flipboard. A news publication should be able to charge users to access certain sections of its paper or a clothing brand should be able to sell its products on Flipboard itself.

That’s not all; Flipboard also wants users to be able to compile articles into magazines and make money off it. That sounds very ambitious, but it could be good news for advertisers, publications and curators.

Report by : Nishtha Kanal

More than 500,000 magazines created on Flipboard 2.0 in two weeks

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Just weeks after it launched a major update to its service, Flipboard has released an infographic showing the popularity of its new features. Flipboard 2.0 went live just two weeks ago and more than 500,000 magazines have already been created by users, the colourful infographic reveals. Flipboard has listed USA, UK and Canada as among the top 5 countries creating magazines on its platform. It goes on to reveal further that 3 million readers have been added to the service since its update went live. There are in all 53 million Flipboard readers in the world today.

Flipboard goes on to share the list of top 10 countries in terms of its readership. The list includes USA, UK, China, Germany, Spain, Canada, France, Italy, Taiwan and Brazil. Over 50 percent of Flipboard 2.0 users are reading magazines everyday, the infographic shows. The numbers and names don't end just there. The infographic also features a list of popular magazines by their publishers, which include The Esquire Interviews, Prefab Perfection, Women We Love, The Beatles and Photo of the Day, to name a few. That said, Flipboard readers picked a unique list of their favourite reads too, which include The Interesting Things, Easter Bunny and MG's Reading List, to name a few.

Flipboard has put up an infographic full of stats

Love reading Flipboard at 9 AM? Well, that's what Flipboard has found in another interesting trivias on the infographic.

The Flipboard 2.0 update is easily one of the biggest to have been introduced to the application to date. The updated app allows Flipboard readers to create and share their own magazines. They can customise their content, revolving around topics, events and other interests, that they would want to share with others.

Earlier this year, Flipboard rolled out a new update for its Android users on the Play Store, which brought along with it several bug fixes in addition to a whole new feature called Flipboard Daydream.

It allows Android 4.2 users to turn Flipboard covers into a screensaver for their tablet or phone. Until now, Flipboard’s signature covers were available only on the tablet edition. Users can now stay up to date with customised news through covers that become part of a screensaver that automatically updates with fresh stories.

If you are lucky enough to have a handset that runs Jelly Bean, you know how impressive the Daydream feature can get. The latest addition to Android 4.2, Daydream is essentially an interactive screensaver that gets activated while the phone is charging or is docked. Users can customise it to throw up the latest news from Google Currents and display photo albums amongst other things. Now Jelly Bean users can get Flipboard news covers appear in the Daydream mode to stay in touch with news even when their phone is idle.

Users can now see covers from the Cover Stories category from their Flipboard account turn into a screensaver with zooming and panning functions. Compared to default competitor Google Currents, this new update will make Flipboard do a lot more than just display headlines in the Daydream mode. Flipboard has taken what is easily the least talked about Jelly Bean function and turned it into a USP for its app. Users might want to tweak settings a bit as the app will use Cover Stories in Daydream.

Report by : tech2 News Staff