Why I Stopped Using Flipboard (2010)

August 31, 2010

Like most people, I was extremely excited when Flipboard hit the App Store several weeks ago. Created by veteran software entrepreneurs and endorsed by John Doerr and the likes, it rockets to stardom literally within one day, and the popularity immediately crashed their servers. During the first few days of usage, I had the impression that the brilliant minds behind Flipboard had figured out how to balance the open nature of the web and the soothing editorial authority of traditional magazines. Finally we would be able to consume news online with a consistent and pleasant reading experience, one that feels like the good-old print media’s.

Two weeks later, I found myself using Flipboard less and less. It still has a place on the Dock of my iPad’s home screen, but I seldom launch it more than twice per week. When I do, I tend to stay in it only for a short time. I would scan the headlines quickly and send the articles of interest to Instapaper for later reading — the same process I follow when browsing my Twitter feed.

To me, there are two fundamental problems with Flipboard: the idea of ‘curated content’, and the information hierarchy and gesture variety.

Curated content

The whole notion of curation has been getting a lot of play in the tech world nowadays. Even Steve Jobs used it in one of his keynote speeches. A common concept in the art world, curation in the technology context more or less points to the backlash against the lack of structure of User-Generated Content. Just as a museum or exhibition curator would try to create a certain kind of narrative by filtering a myriad of art works, a ‘content curator’ sifts through streams of information to map out patterns and trends.

Taking Twitter as the infrastructure of the information world (which is brilliant, by the way), Flipboard offers a couple of reading ‘channels’ put together by either its staff curators or well-known tech world luminaries. The problem, however, is that Flipboard displays articles in chronological order, so the visually dominant story will not necessarily be the most important or interesting one for any given reader. In other words, there’s a disconnection between form and content, which makes the whole thing quasi-curation — the equivalent of an art curator picking a group of works for an exhibition and place them arbitrarily in the gallery.

This problem is all the more obvious when one reads the two unremovable channels in Flipboard: Twitter and Facebook. As sources of information, neither of these two were put together with a strict curatorial mindset. This goes without saying for a social site like Facebook, where users upload random stuff at random time of the day, and I think it’s largely true with Twitter too. Even the most meticulous Twitter user cannot guarantee the quality of his Twitter feed, because most information created in the Twitterverse are unstructured, arbitrary and without a consistent narrative. When content of mixed quality are glorified by a faux-magazine layout, the sense of form / content disconnection becomes intolerable.

Information hierarchy and gesture variety

Print media have flat hierarchy; there’s only one ‘layer’ of information, so to speak. The only gesture you’ll need to navigate through content in print media is flipping. With Flipboard, in addition to flipping, you need two clicks to reach the full article, which is displayed in a built-in browser. The app is deliberately designed in a way that requires readers to visit the original website to go beyond the first few paragraphs of the article. This works as sort of a pat-on-the-shoulder for website publishers and advertisers that Flipboard doesn’t intend to snatch all the traffic away. While this is an understandable strategy, the result is that I often find myself more willing to spend two extra taps and pipe the article to Instapaper for better reading experience. This is because the unpredictable website layout often requires further adjustments (pinching, double-tapping, etc.), thus breaking a smooth flip-tap gesture flow. It would be great if I can finish my readings using only those two gestures: flipping and tapping. If I have to deal with a browser to read the articles, I may as well use a Twitter client to do the same thing. After all, it wouldn’t be far off to think of Flipboard as a beautiful and intelligent Twitter (and Facebook) client with a bunch of curated Lists.

Camp apps don’t last

To me, Flipboard is one of the best ‘camp’ apps. (Others in the ‘camp’ camp: Wired for iPad, ConvertBot, Reeder, and Apple’s own Notes.) It trades simplicity for visual sleekness, desperately attempting at turning something into what it’s not (namely, turning arbitrarily organised content into seemingly curated content. Also, turning open information on the web into a virtual magazine). I admire the effort, but the sensibility known as camp doesn’t usually work in a world ruled by Helvetica, simplicity and speed. Think about all the criticism against Notes.app’s faux leather notepad metaphor and the mostly positive response to Simplenote’s ultra simplistic visual design. In general, camp apps tend to get raving reviews initially, but the excitement fades away quickly.

I remember seeing Mike McCue (CEO of Flipboard) in an interview with Robert Scoble when Flipboard debuted, in which he said they will work out something other than chronological ordering to weigh the importance of the content. This could be a meaningful change if implemented properly. What I’m not sure about is whether pretending to be a magazine is the way to go. I’ll bet it isn’t.
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Originally published at http://lawrence.li/blog/2010/08/why-i-stopped-using-flipboard/ (link dead)