Facebook upgrades Paper with birthdays, events, photo comments, & more

Scroll. Swipe. Tap. Read.

Facebook’s clever news app Paper turns 10 weeks old today. And the Menlo Park, Calif.-based social network giant has announced an upgrade to Paper, called version 1.1, designed (of course) to keep people coming back again — and again.

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Paper helps mobile users access social content, but the feeds are imbued with specifically tailored news content the Facebook’s in-house editorial team selects.

Facebook has integrated many of the features into the mobile app already available on its main site, adding birthday and event notifications. Just tap and open. The feature enables readers to insert photographs and post those as replies. This also goes for group updates. Facebook has added what they’re calling unread accounts in order to visually see which of your groups have posted something new. Simply swipe to open the main menu, tap the search field, and viola, see your bookmarks and group lists.

Perhaps the flashiest update is the addition of nine new article covers. According to Facebook’s blog post announcing version 1.1:

“You already know that articles in Paper unfold to show you stories from some of the world’s best publishers. Designer Sharon Hwang painstakingly crafted over 50 of these custom article covers for Paper so you can quickly identify favorite publications like National Geographic. In version 1.1 we’ve added many new covers to the collection. Now it’s even easier to spot articles from Bloomberg News, Mashable, FT, kottke, Fox News, Popular Science, The Hollywood Reporter, Vanity Fair and Hacker News. Happy reading!”

Facebook said Paper is getting traction. People “explore” an average of 80 stories per day across a multitude of up to six different sections. Surprise, the Facebook section on Paper is the most popular section, followed by Headlines, Tech, Ideas, LOL, and Pop Life. The company also said, “We’re also seeing an avid use of some of our more tailored sections, like Pride. If you want to add more sections or change their order, swipe down to get the man menu and tap Edit Sections.”

Other upgrades to the app, according to Facebook’s blog post:

“This update includes basic accessibility support, and an arrow indicator that tells you when there are new stories in other sections. We’re also continually working to make the app faster and more reliable. For a full list of new features in Paper 1.1 visit the App Store and get the update.”

Happy reading!