Short Takes: Flipboard Makes Media Inroads

 

Flipboard has a delicate balancing act to pull off. The Mike McCue-led company has a killer user interface for tablet-reading. The problem is it doesn’t have content. Rather than play a dangerous game like YouTube, Flipboard hopes to make nice with content owners from the get-go.
Today it signed up USA Today as its latest publishing partner. The Gannett newspaper will be available in Flipboard’s news section. While this is the first deal Flipboard has struck with a national newspaper, it has a series of partnerships with magazine publishers, including one to bring Oprah to Flipboard and an agreement with Conde Nast that will see The New Yorker, Wired and Bon Appetit come to its app. Flipboard brought in former Time Inc. editor Josh Quitner as its editorial director in June.
These agreements are key if Flipboard lives up to its promise. McCue told Digiday back in April the goal is to marry the beauty of magazines with the real-time nature and social connections of the Web.

More in Media

Why 1440 is evolving from a newsletter company to a destination of explainers

Newsletter company 1440 is expanding beyond email by building an online library of explainers, amid the rise of AI-driven search.

Publisher alliance Ozone makes a larger play for U.S. advertisers

Publisher alliance Ozone is on a growth tear in the US and plans to expand its local headcount to 50 people next year.

Media Briefing: From blocking to licensing, publishers inch toward leverage with AI

There are new levers for publishers to test in the AI era. While they’re still far from holding the upper hand, compared to a year ago, the outlook no longer looks quite so bleak.