Larry Magid: Facebook's New iPhone App: Paper
SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) — Facebook is introducing a new app for the iPhone called Paper, which is expected to be very mobile friendly in hopes of keeping users enamored with their site.
What it does, is it presents your personal news feed in a more graphically intensive way. With pictures at the forefront and tiles on the screen, it's a really pretty interface, which should be perfect for a smartphone.
They are rolling out the app first on the iPhone and I presume they'll do the same for Android if it works out. It's very much like Flipboard, a popular app that curates users' favorite stories into a magazine. With that app you can pull information from legitimate news sources, but also from your Twitter and Facebook feeds. I don't think there's anything particularly unique about that.
That's one of the things I'd worry about if I were Facebook. The last time they tried to clone something, was their Poke app which mimicked Snapchat and it didn't do very well.
Facebook is doing this to get people on the mobile platform because that's really the future for them. More and more, we're seeing an emphasis on pictures over text.