Facebook Creative Labs have launched their first ever product, a curated visual news reader app called Paper. If you live in the US and own an iPhone, you can download it now from the App Store. Paper is already being lauded by the tech and mobile app community, receiving rave reviews and high praise for its design and user experience.
Most are saying its unlike anything Facebook has done before. What sets Paper apart from other news reader apps out there is its distraction-free, full screen design that completely immerses its users. Paper is made up of sections that you can customize yourself, pulling in stories from your News Feed and external sources including authoritative publications across the web. Each section in Paper uses a combination of human and machine curation.
The Paper algorithm curates stories, pictures and videos that have been posted publicly to Facebook, while human editors will throw in interesting content from lesser known sources. With Paper, Facebook wants to surprise and delight its users by showing them content they may have missed, or content from sources and authors they never would have sought out on their own. Another great feature of Paper is that it doesn’t completely separate you from the Facebook experience, it adds to it.
You can share content, or compose your own content to be shared on Facebook right from within Paper. You will also be able to access Facebook notifications and messages without having to leave the app. If you have had a chance to download and use Paper, what do you think of it so far? I really want to know because I’m an Android user living in Canada, so it might be a while before I get to use it myself. Let me know what I’m missing out on!