Flipboard

Flipboard is a mobile RSS reader that is designed to change the way we interact with RSS feeds. Flipboard organizes all of your feeds by topics into what it calls magazines, which you can then flip through to see all of your relevant news for the day. It's a quick way to browse through headlines if you're just wanting to get an overview of what's going on that day. Unlike other RSS feeds, Flipboard doesn't host full RSS content, so you'll have to click through to the actual site to read the full article. That's unfortunate if you like to get all of your news reading done without a lot of fluff, but it is an excellent way to support sites that produce content you want to see stick around. Flipboard has some social features, but they're not very fleshed out and honestly best ignored. You can like articles and comment on them, but it's commenting on the article in Flipboard's interface, so the comment is only available to other Flipboard users. That's great if you and your friends are avid Flipboard users, but the app's community is so small that the social features seem tacked on instead of a full feature. Flipboard also caters to those who might not like reading black-on-white text articles with a dark interface that switches to white-on-black, but it's jarring to be taken out of the dark-mode app to the website to read an article on a white screen. That's an unfortunate side effect of Flipboard not having an article mobilizer for reading content on the go. Flipboard's categorization and magazine-flipping presentation have made it a very popular choice for keeping up with RSS feeds and news, but it has a few flaws that keep it from being the perfect app for that.

I came to FB when FB purchased Zite. I was immediately impressed by the software and began to extensively use the program. Unfortunately, as Flipboard’s popularity has grown, so has the company’s propensity for selling copious amounts of advertising. So much so that ads are now a big distraction when attempting to read, or save, an article. I am waiting for another Flipboard “Like” program to come along to where I can safely move my accumulated, personal and saved Boards. When that occurs, and I’m hoping soon, FB can kiss me goodbye.