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I'm Drew Breunig and I obsess about technology, media, language, and culture. I live in New York, studied anthropology, and work in advertising technology.

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fred-wilson: i find great irony in the fact that flipboard is featuring a post of mine on their front screen where i am mildly critical of their product Yesterday Flipboard showed me an article questioning their legality. While I love the interface, I think this is a Napster situation: Flipboard is coming to the party too early. Napster showed the flexibility of digital music files; their network called into question the entire economy of exchange when the music industry was still a juggernaut fueled by CD sales. Napster was sued to the sidelines, the music industry shifted, and they returned to find iTunes defining the landscape. Flipboard illustrates the flexibility of online content in a similar way, stripping it from it’s ad-supported home and bringing it to an interface built for reading, not ads. I’ve seen arguments that content providers should embrace this or any other manner of getting their content in front of their readers. But I can’t help but see their content being hijacked (fully) in a manner that doesn’t do anything for their bottom-line, let alone their survival. No one is clicking through in Flipboard. The interface keeps you there, moving you from one article to the next. If I were a content producer with bills to pay I’d be blocking Flipboard and figuring out what I can lift from their interface, not handing off my content to their product. However: Flipboard is the future. Right now we’re in the awkward teen years of online reading, watching, whatever. Every content business has their own interface. Beyond being a nuisance for readers (try jumping from the FT, NYT, and WSJ iPad apps…) it’s not the core business for any of these companies. A Flipboard like solution, that standardizes expectations for readers and content producers who want to bring their content everywhere solves a host problems. But for now, the industry needs to take a few steps in that direction before such a solution is achievable (or comfortable). My prediction is based on the story of Napster: Flipboard will be blocked off and or sued, but the taste of the future format will spur publishers and readers to aim towards a similar product in a year or two.

fred-wilson:

i find great irony in the fact that flipboard is featuring a post of mine on their front screen where i am mildly critical of their product

Yesterday Flipboard showed me an article questioning their legality. While I love the interface, I think this is a Napster situation: Flipboard is coming to the party too early.

Napster showed the flexibility of digital music files; their network called into question the entire economy of exchange when the music industry was still a juggernaut fueled by CD sales. Napster was sued to the sidelines, the music industry shifted, and they returned to find iTunes defining the landscape.

Flipboard illustrates the flexibility of online content in a similar way, stripping it from it’s ad-supported home and bringing it to an interface built for reading, not ads. I’ve seen arguments that content providers should embrace this or any other manner of getting their content in front of their readers. But I can’t help but see their content being hijacked (fully) in a manner that doesn’t do anything for their bottom-line, let alone their survival. No one is clicking through in Flipboard. The interface keeps you there, moving you from one article to the next. If I were a content producer with bills to pay I’d be blocking Flipboard and figuring out what I can lift from their interface, not handing off my content to their product.

However: Flipboard is the future. Right now we’re in the awkward teen years of online reading, watching, whatever. Every content business has their own interface. Beyond being a nuisance for readers (try jumping from the FT, NYT, and WSJ iPad apps…) it’s not the core business for any of these companies. A Flipboard like solution, that standardizes expectations for readers and content producers who want to bring their content everywhere solves a host problems. But for now, the industry needs to take a few steps in that direction before such a solution is achievable (or comfortable).

My prediction is based on the story of Napster: Flipboard will be blocked off and or sued, but the taste of the future format will spur publishers and readers to aim towards a similar product in a year or two.

Source: fred-wilson

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  1. dbreunig reblogged this from fred-wilson and added:
    Yesterday Flipboard showed me an article questioning their legality. While I love the interface, I think this is a...
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