Mobile magazine Flipboard revealed today that over half a million personalized magazines have been created on its platform since the launch of the new feature just two weeks prior. During this time, the company also added 3 million new users to its service, bringing its total user base to now 53 million.
In late March, the startup introduced a way for its users to something else besides search, discover, read and share to social networks – it essentially turned its entire audience into magazine editors. With a “flip it” option now accompanying every story from Flipboard’s collection of content from publishers around the world, anyone is able to now create personalized, topical magazines which other readers can subscribe to directly in the iOS or Android application.
Flipboard says that now over 50 percent of its users are reading these personalized ‘zines daily. Some of these have been created by publishers themselves, with a few of the more popular ones coming from Esquire, Rolling Stone, Martha Stewart Living, National Geographic and others. Meanwhile, magazines created by users are also popular – TechCrunch contributor MG Siegler’s “Reading List” mag, for example, made #3 on the most popular list.
One very prolific magazine – “Modern Gentlemen’s Playground – has already seen 2,495 items added, Flipboard notes. And not surprisingly, BuzzFeed has the most flipped article – “28 Incredibly Beautiful Places You Won’t Believe Actually Exist.” Which I’m pretty sure everyone on the Internet has now read. (I think I’ve read it three times, it’s like linkbait that never fails!) The articles’s photographic content, of course, speaks to Flipboard readers’ propensity for browsing highly visual photo essays.
The sharing patterns in Flipboard are also interesting. Apparently, the magazine is transitioning to become a morning news paper of sorts, with users doing the most reading around 9:00 AM, while magazine creation takes place in the afternoon (1:00 PM) and sharing peaks in the evening (7:00 PM). You can almost see the flow of the content creation to consumption process at work here, starting with reading content, then magazine creators curating the articles for niche readerships, and finally leading to those who spread content further on social networks.
Oh, as for the people making the content in the first place? Um, we just work all the time. You’re welcome.