Flipboard iPad Application

The 2 speakers Michael and Jesmond were great presenters whom passion for the application overflowed onto me. Maybe the team's strategy was to get the 2 best individual to present, however I felt it would have reflected better if the entire team showed teamwork by ensuring everybody had a chance to present. At the end, Michael did a fantastic job of tanking all the questions skillfully.

User interface
The first thing I noticed about this application is how beautiful the application looks. The way the text and graphics are arranged and placed in the ipad's real estate just seems to go so well together. On first impression, I didnt think too much about implementation and assumed that maybe it just happened to be that way. It is only until Michael talked about the layout algorithm(he actually called it griding algorithm in his presentation but upon further research, I realise there isnt such a word). The algorithm takes into account variables such as popularity, whether it has images or videos etc and priorities them to determine which one gets larger real estate. Not only that, the algorithm have to juggle how to place them on the screen when in landscape as well as in portrait view. The amount of thought that goes into something so seemingly simple astound me. Jesmond later revealed more secrets about the design elements of Flipboard by highlighting the attention to detail about many of the minute things in the application. I especially like the way the pages flip, especially when the pages are flipped halfway you can see that the text are stacked together and you can still read them just like a physical magazine! Even though the flipping animation is not the company's core offering, it is such attention to details that makes people hooked onto the app, thereby using it more. For this, the company has really done a great job!

Caching
One thing I didnt like about the application is the inability to cache data for offline usage. Especially on a tablet or phone devices, having the mobility to use the app while out of wifi zone should be expected. Before writing this, I thought to myself some of the possible reasons why they did not include this feature. Maybe the combined text and images would be too large for the devices? maybe they didnt want to make the user go through the process of downloading content? Yet none of these reasons really make much sense. I think this should be a no-brainer and if anybody from FlipBoard is reading this, Shame on you! You better include this in the next update!

Business model
Flipboard's business model is quite interesting and is something worth investigating(maybe as a business student, this appeals to me more). It is a pity that during the presentation this was not discussed in details as I think there is much insight we can gain from this. In the presentation it was mentioned that until recently, Flipboard was surviving on the funds it had raised(US$60.5mil). Now Flipboard offers full page glossy advertisement from the publisher's advertiser and takes a cut from it. Additionally, Flipboard also offer subscription to some premium content from publishers. This in essence is a similar business model as a traditional magazine publisher who earns from both consumer buying the content as well as advertisement. Whether this is good or bad still remains to be seen as this method of content and advertisement distribution is still relatively new. Publishers and advertiser still have not wrapped their heads fully around how to best leverage on this new platform. Thus from a strategic point of view, I think Flipboard made the right decision to employ a familiar business model to partner with the publishers.

Personal thoughts on FlipBoard
I think that the road ahead for Flipboard is going to get very tough. As a aggregation platform, the company is pretty much dependent on publishers for content. Without access to these content, the application will be rendered useless and users will start to quit. Just in summer 2012, both Wired and The New Yorker decided to pull out of Flipboard citing ad sales as the main reason. Personally, I feel that they wont be the last to do so. FlipBoard partnership with the publishers are sorta complicated. Even though it is an additional distribution channel and the publishers can potentially reach out to more people, they are in fact providing content and money to their competitor! Using the Flipboard's advertising model, not only do publishers earn less money than their website/application banner advertisements, they still have to split the revenue with Flipboard. And with another type of advertisement to sell, publishers are essentially cannibalizing their original revenue source. Lastly, by offering content to Flipboard, users will prefer Flipboard and not use the publisher's own application and website. All of these would affect negatively on the publishers.

Yet you may wonder why some publishers are still currently sticking with Flipboard. For this I offer my two cents worth
1) Riding the hype of a new distribution platform
2) Mine user data and behavior
3) Small time publishers who do not have the resources for their own digital distribution

I believe these are the three reasons why some publishers are currently still on board. However all three reasons are not sustainable for Flipboard and they are at risk of losing content. It will be a matter of time when the publishers understand how to serve their niche and pull out of Flipboard. Thus for Flipboard to gain competitive advantage, they have to think of ways to increase the advertising value against the publishers applications advertisement without infuriating consumers. They may also possibly offer publishers more support and help them leverage on this platform for more advertising revenue. This would mean the advertisement they offer to consumers will have to be radically different than what they are doing now. Lastly, it is crucial that they device a way to help increase the publisher's subscriber base.