The news aggregation and social network aggregator Flipboard is changing the way it works with online publishers.
First, publishers are no longer needed to work directly with Flipboard to get their stories into the app. Instead, the service introduces a new self-serve signup option, allowing Flipboard to automatically pull in stories directly from publishers' RSS feeds as a content source for a Flipboard Magazine.
Here, Flipboard that has been pretty dormant in innovating, has awoken to make things easier for publishers to be part of Flipboard.
It's a way for any publisher to reach Flipboard's audience of 100 million monthly active users.
Flipboard also curates stories into topic-based channels with algorithms and human editors. What this means, publishers could be selected for top spots if Flipboard's team deems it worthy for its audience.
While this is certainly a good news for publishers out there, CEO Mike McCue had made it clear that Flipboard isn’t going to let everyone into the app. Flipboard is going to filter and publishers are going to be reviewed after their form is submitted.
This is to ensure that publishers comply with Flipboard’s content rules.
"We're not going to allow adult content on the platform, as an example. Now that doesn’t mean that we’re censoring. There’s going to be right-wing and left-wing content," McCue said.
Second, Flipboard isn't going to convert publishers' articles into the app's native format. Instead of doing that, it's going to focus on the mobile web.
While Flipboard is already having plenty of non-native articles, publishers that meet certain content and advertising guidelines will be given a RED (Reader Enhanced Display) lightning bold symbol by their articles.
This is to "celebrate the best of the mobile web," according to McCue. And to give readers a clear signal about which articles will load quickly without any annoying advertising.
In addition to that previlege, RED articles will also be prioritized in Flipboard.
While Flipboard focuses on web experience, McCue said that Flipboard;s native article format isn't going away entirely.
Flipboard in moving away from native articles could potentially hurt its opportunities to make money out of ads. But according to McCue, "I'm not too worried about that part” because if the audience is happy and publishers are happy, "Flipboard is going to do great from a monetization point of view."
For Flipboard, the goal is for users to enjoy reading stories online at a time when other services are plagued with poor ad experiences and occupied with a lot of fake news.
“What I am concerned about is the state of mobile web advertising," continued McCue.
Publishers are encouraged to promote their Flipboard accounts through social plugins, which is a strategy that could help publishers get more traffic through Flipboard, and could provide a nice boost for Flipboard itself.
Both of these updates are a big step for Flipboard as it tries to incentivize more publishers to contribute.
