Today, on Feb 3, the eve of its 10-year anniversary, Facebook is launching Paper, a new iOS newsreader app that sheds light on the social networking giant’s plans for its 2nd decade.
Paper is the first product to come out of Facebook Creative Labs, which was established to help cook up innovative mobile offerings as standalone products. If Paper is an indicator of how Facebook Labs is supposed to compete with nimble startups, then it’s going to be fun ride & sure to make Google sweat.
Before we explain the big picture, let’s take a look at the nuts & bolts of Facebook Paper & its functionality as an iOS app. Paper will bring you stuff you like (articles, videos & pictures) through a combination of algorithm-curated & human editor picked Content.
Of course, everything is still linked to Content posted on Facebook by someone. The difference is that Paper makes a clean break with all the rules & formats that have added walls to Facebook Content over the last 10 years. The Content you see may have been posted by anyone, & not just those who are in your circle of friends.
The algorithm picks the best Content based on factors such as likes & editors have discretion to add in great Content which they think is worth promoting. The result is that good Content – no matter the source, will get pushed up & shown on Paper.
It’s the 2014 version of Digg for Facebook users, combining news & Content based on popularity & merit. The thing that makes the whole thing work, of course, is the gigantic 1.23 billion horde that is Facebook.
Without the numbers, it wouldn’t be much good, but the sheer size & scope of Facebook content ensures that anything & everything good posted on the Internet will be put through the algorithm & pushed to the top on Paper if it’s good.
No doubt it’s still information overkill, but you can personalize the content shown by sticking to specific sections like sports, headlines, business, entertainment & food that you can add to your “Paper.”
At the moment, Paper is launching without ads, but that may not last for long if it starts getting too popular. After all, mobile ads is what is driving Facebook’s earnings at the moment, & Facebook’s main app is the key component of this money machine.
While Paper is being pitched as a reader, it does have interesting possibilities as a publishing tool with a WYSIWYG editor. It’s very versatile, & made for mobile posting. For instance, the font is big for small posts, & gets smaller as your post gets longer. Add in a location, & a map is automatically in the preview.
As a newsreader, publishing tool, micro-blogging platform & a social network, Paper may perhaps be trying to be everything to everyone.
At the moment, it’s safe to say that it’s at least going to be something that will keep users interested in Facebook Content & stem the exodus of users moving to Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram & Pinterest. As for the big picture, Paper may ostensibly be just a tool to showcase Facebook Content, but the entire effort has shades of Google written all over it.
Take Facebook Creative Labs, where Product Manager Michael Reckhow & Product Designer Mike Matas have been given carte-blanche by Mark Zuckerberg to develop standalone products. The comparison with Google Labs, name included, is very much unavoidable.
Secondly, the function & design of Paper, as a tool for presenting must-read Content organized into sections, seems like a preemptive strike to do for mobile what Google News has done on the web. Whether Paper becomes the mobile gatekeeper of news at large remains to be seen, but it’s sure to be the new gatekeeper of “stories from Facebook.”
Image Credit: Paper
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