Flipboard emulates newspapers with redesigned ‘cover stories’

Flipboard, a social magazine service, is moving away from a web news staple: reverse chronological order.

Instead, Flipboard will focus more on content curation, serving up articles to readers based on their subscriptions and browsing habits. This will first manifest itself in the service’s redesigned cover stories, which now more closely resemble newspapers — with important, personally relevant content rising to the top — than an eclectic smattering of content.

Above: Flipboard’s new “cover stories” section.

“People just don’t want time-based feeds, they’d like to see groupings by topic,” Flipboard communications rep Christel van der Boom told VentureBeat in an email.

Flipboard has always relied on a mix of algorithms and human editors to deliver content to readers. But now the company is more focused on how people are using the app to serve up a more personalized experience to each reader.

In addition to redesigning cover stories, Flipboard’s most trafficked section, the company is bringing a new organizational structure to its “Weekend” section, which features a variety of new groupings (“Now in Theaters,” “Sports Weekend,” “Sunday Reads,” etc.).

Fllipboard pulls in articles, videos, and social content from a variety of news sites and social networks. Since launching in 2010, it’s racked up over 100 million monthly readers across its iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and BlackBerry apps. It competes with other digital magazine services, including Zite, Pulse News, and News360. It’s one of the most popular services — and also the most well funded, with over $160 million in funding raised to date.

Flipboard is rolling out the update to its iOS and Android apps slowly to ensure there aren’t any mishaps.