Flipboard 2.0: we’re all magazine editors now

I used to be a heavy user of Flipboard, an innovative iOS/Android app that turned your Twitter, Facebook and other news feeds into a stylish, flickable magazine-style format.

In recent months, I’ve edged away from Flipboard in favour of semi-rival Zite, largely because it was better at anticipating content from other sources that I might want to read, instead of merely sprucing up the presentation of my existing feeds.

However, a feature in the newly released Flipboard 2.0 has piqued my personal and professional interest in the app once more. Flipboard now allows users to become their own magazine editors (yes, I can feel that noose tightening around my neck), selecting content from different sources and presenting it in their own bespoke titles.

To add content to your magazine, you browse your regular roster of Flipboard feeds and hit the star icon when an item takes your fancy. You can’t actually edit the selected articles yourself (allowing the proletariat to edit content, whatever next?), but you can add a comment to make your views known to your readers.

Flipboard then automatically pulls your selected articles into your chosen magazine (you can create as many as you wish), and presents them in a smartly designed magazine format, complete with a front cover showing the title of your magazine, a cover image and mini-contents of what’s inside. Annoyingly, you can’t just click on one of the contents headlines and jump straight to the article, but that’s the only bone I can pick with the presentation.

You can invite other Flipboard users to subscribe to your magazines using shortcut links — check out the eponymous Tech BC and Photography BC — or send friends an email that contains the front cover of your mag, to tempt them to subscribe.

With Google Reader about to bite the dust, Flipboard’s reinvention really couldn’t come at a better time. This is the next-generation RSS feed. You read it here first.