Flipboard update turns readers into magazine publishers

Flipboard, the popular news-reading app, released an update today that allows its readers to become magazine publishers, creating personalized periodicals curated from a variety of Web content from around the world.

The update features a "+" button that allows readers to save and share stories, photos, videos, and audio clips to electronic magazines that reflect their individual tastes, interests, or opinions. Flipboard suggests that the new functionality, which is also available as a Web bookmarklet called Flip It, will allow publishers to better surface archived content as well as package related stories.

"With more than 50 million users, Flipboard is used every day as a place to catch up on the things you care about," Flipboard CEO Mike McCue said in a statement. "But starting now, it's also a great place to share opinions, save favorite stories, and express your point of view. This is our biggest release ever and one that we think will open an entirely new experience for our readers."

After creating a magazine and choosing a title, curators can choose to make their magazines public and shareable or keep them private. Publishers who choose the public route can learn about their readers' interaction with the magazine through the new Flipboard Notifications tool.

The update includes other magazine management tools, including the ability to change covers and share the magazine on social networks and e-mail. To address an issue that has plagued content creators on other social-sharing sites, Flipboard preserves attribution to the shared content's source.

Other new features launched today include Content Search, which allows readers to discover things that have been published by other readers, as well as a partnership with Etsy that allows users to see and shop for products from the creative community.

The update is available now for users of iPads, iPods, and iPhones on the App Store.