Just a day after Mark Zuckerberg talked about "new and engaging types of mobile experiences", Facebook has announced the launch of Paper, a highly immersive visual news reader that will release on February 3rd for iPhone users.
Possibly a Flipboard killer, Paper is the first product out of Facebook Creative Labs which aims to produce game-changing products from the Facebook stable. Paper will be a standalone app and will have an entirely different look than the native Facebook app. With bigger images, full screen videos and no bells and whistles, the app is aimed to keep users immersed in consuming content. The user interface looks neat but can be tricky to use at first. Check the video below to see it in action:
Currently, the stories shared on Paper will be under 19 sections with one of them being "News Feed" which, as you can guess, will show you updates from your friends and pages you have liked; in a different layout altogether. The content that you will see on Paper will be curated by human editors as well as algorithms.
There won't be any personalization, to begin with. Although it might get added later on, which will only improve the product I believe. Also, the app will be ad-free initially.
In my opinion, Paper might just become a preferred news reader for many people out there. And I can't wait for it to come on Google's Play Store so that I can give it spin on my Nexus 4. Also, this makes me all the more excited about what Facebook Creative Labs will roll out in the future. The race to dominate the mobile market between Google and Facebook is hotting up!
What do you think about Paper? Will it find takers or not? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
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