Flipboard Comes to the Web with Magazines: A Hands-On Look

The social-network newsreader Flipboard just made the opposite move that most tech companies are making: it's taking content from its mobile app to the Web browser, with Flipboard Magazines for the Web.

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company made the announcement Tuesday, bringing content aggregated by its users into "Magazines" to the Web. Don't worry Flipboard fanatics, it's keeping that unique "flip" navigation. Flipboard says that its users have created and curated "millions of magazines" on their news reading service, and that, "starting today, anyone can read magazines created on Flipboard right in their Web browser."

Here's the cool part: anyone can read the user-curated magazines on the Web. However, if you want to join in the fun, you still have to have the Flipboard app on your tablet or smartphone and create an account.

With the addition of Web browsing Flipboard magazines, the social news aggregation site comes one step closer to becoming a full feature news reading platform. Created in 2010 by Mike McCue and Evan Doll, the Flipboard app was originally just for iPad. Reaction was strongly positive, and it was even named "iPad App of the Year" by Apple the same year it was released. After introducing an Android version with the Samsung Galaxy S3, Flipboard has grown its user base to about 75 million people.

Flipboard's user interface was designed for users to easily and intuitively "flip" through news stories to find something interesting. The layout had big pictures and clear headlines, and once clicking on them, most stories appear in the same intuitive flipping style of the app.

Flipboard on the Web: Feel

So the question is, does Flipboard's Magazines feel as intuitive on the Web as in the palm of your hand? This demonstration video shows you how to navigate through Flipboard Magazines on the Web (accompanied briefly by an excellent song: The Bad Plus's "Flim").

Basically, there's navigation with your cursor, navigation with the arrows, and assignable number keys for faster flipping. Not featured in the video is a little bonus UI feature available for people with newer MacBook laptops: flipping. Using the two-finger up and down scroll on the track pad of the MacBook, you can flip through stories. It feels almost identical to the mobile app's navigation, and it's so intuitive, I didn't realize I was doing it until I had finished browsing my first magazine.

Look

Flipboard Magazines looked gorgeous on the small screen, but unfortunately, the same cannot be said consistently about the Web browser version. What look like big, beautiful images on a 5-innch screen lose their luster blown up to 15-inches. And what were once passable images, especially preview images for videos, now look unfocused, or worse, pixelated and icky.

Still, Flipboard's variations from page to page - for example, a small article/big article page followed by a big/small, and an occasional full-page image - keep the reading experience fresh and interesting. And magazine pages still retain the clean look of the Flipboard app.

Flipboard Magazines for the Web support Internet Explorer 9 and later, Safari, Chrome, and Firefox in 11 languages, and you can share, curate, and check out users' various magazines as well.

Now, if they'd only make all of Flipboard, including Flipboard's own aggregated topics groups, available on the Web, they may be a viable and fresh alternative to all of the companies that are trying to take Google Reader's place.