Last month was a big month for the social media super giant. With several large announcements such as 1.25 billion active users as well as a personal video reviewing the “best of” someone’s profile, Facebook seems to be thriving. Along with this success has come the launch of a new mobile application by the name of “Paper”.
Paper is a new way to access your Facebook profile. Currently, there are two main ways to navigate the website: from a browser window and from the app designed for your specific mobile operating system. While both work and both see significant improvements and updates on a month to month basis, users don’t always seem happy with the app, which has its share of glitches and problems and simply feels like a “mini-Facebook”.
To address the limited amount of browsing you can do from your phone and to improve the website version of Facebook, Creative Labs has been invented. This new division of Facebook only has one job: developing ideas and features that may eventually make it to the main website. The first development to come from this collaborative department is Paper.
Paper is currently only for the iPhone, however there are plans to make it available for Android eventually as well. The app is designed to resemble a newspaper so that it’s easy, quick, and interesting to read.
If you choose to download the app, make sure you watch the demo video that’s included with it so you have a better idea of what you’re doing. Facebook’s Feed feature has been split up into 20 different categories that include things like “Headlines,” “Cute,” and “Photos”. Each section will include different types of stories and pictures that come straight from your standard newsfeed and are specific to their particular category. Each category’s aim is to only include posts that belong in that particular category. These categories will pull from your friends feed, as well as popular, publicly shared content on Facebook in general.
Most of these sections will resemble a newspaper and will display as mini-articles or smaller versions of large pictures. Simply swipe to the left or to the right to see a new piece in the section that you’re in, or choose a new section completely to switch up the content you’re already seeing.
Currently, Paper is only available on iOS and only to US users, and the deadline to get it out to more people is unknown. However, expect it and other new Facebook features to hit the market soon.