Some of the most popular U.S. magazines are dialing down their efforts to publish content through Flipboard, reports Ad Age.
Flipboard is an ultra popular digital magazine app available on iOS and Android devices that places a publication’s content into a user friendly layout that’s optimized for touch screens. Some publications, like Wired and The New Yorker, were even selling advertising and collecting revenue through the rich Flipboard feeds.
But as of next month, both publications have decided to start offering Flipboard users a smaller excerpt of each article found within the stream. Anyone who wants to read the full article must click through to the publication’s website, which can be done without having to navigate away from the app (via built-in web browser).
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“Our intention is to adapt our model to allow Flipboard users to know what content at Wired is out there,” Wired VP and Publisher Howard Mittman told Ad Age. “It will have a headline and a sentence leading to a URL. If digital consumers want to interact with Wired, they can do so at Wired.com and not through an intermediary.”
This is probably a good idea for the traditional print publications, who are just now starting to take ownership over the digital space in terms of both building readership and generating revenue. It probably makes more sense to push readers to the website to see advertising that’s already there, rather than sell ads within another platform.
Flipboard also recently made headlines by bringing in full content from the New York Times, including articles behind the paywall. That means, you can gain access to full content on Flipboard — and use the app’s effortless and pretty reading experience — but only if you’re a NYT subscriber. I’m curious as to whether other publications rooted in print will eventually follow suit, perhaps not with a paywall model, but certainly with the option to view entire articles on Flipboard (and other platforms) when you have a subscription.
Let us know in the comments if you’ll be annoyed about not having the full articles show up in your Flipboard stream.
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