Flipboard Personalization: Combat Doomscrolling with New Tools

Flipboard Empowers Users with News Feed Customization

While Facebook contemplates diminishing the prominence of political content and current events within its News Feed, Flipboard is taking a different approach. They are releasing an update designed to grant users greater agency over the information they consume.

The company announced today the introduction of a new control mechanism directly on its primary news feed, known as the “For You” feed. This feature enables users to actively choose topics they wish to follow and deselect those they are no longer interested in.

Addressing "Doomscrolling"

Flipboard characterizes this functionality as “an antidote to doomscrolling,” allowing for a more tailored “For You” feed. The aim is to deliver a broader spectrum of stories aligned with individual interests, shifting the focus away from constant breaking news and political coverage.

Considering the current global climate – encompassing an ongoing pandemic, climate change-related disasters, and geopolitical instability – it’s understandable why individuals might seek respite from the relentless news cycle. However, this trend also presents a potential challenge for Flipboard, potentially leading to decreased app usage.

Despite this, Flipboard acknowledges that a significant portion of its user base utilizes the app for staying informed about current events and political developments. A larger segment, however, dedicates their time to exploring diverse topics such as travel, culinary arts, photography, fitness, and parenting.

Increased User Engagement

By providing tools for personalized feed curation, the company anticipates not only improved user well-being but also extended engagement within the Flipboard application. Initial data from previous changes supports this expectation.

Recent additions of topic personalization features, allowing users to refine their interests – for instance, from general cooking to specific keto cooking, or from health to mindfulness and sleep – have demonstrated positive results. Users who customized their preferences spent, on average, between nine and twelve minutes daily reading related stories.

The launch of For You newsfeed controls seeks to replicate this level of customization and control directly on users’ homepages.

Flipboard reports that this feature directly responds to the most frequent user request: increased control over content selection within their “For You” feed.

How to Customize Your Feed

To access the new feature, users should locate the filter toggles at the top of the main page. Selecting the icon will open a window where topics can be tapped to add or remove them. A search bar is also available for discovering additional interests.

Upon completing customization, simply tapping “Save” will return users to their newly personalized “For You” feed.

Standing Out in a Crowded Market

Flipboard believes its customization capabilities will differentiate it from other news consumption experiences, including those found within social media feeds and other dedicated news apps.

“This level of content control is unique to Flipboard; consider the difficulty of adjusting your feed on other platforms,” stated Flipboard CEO Mike McCue during the update’s introduction. “A highly personalized feed empowers individuals to concentrate on what truly matters to them, avoiding distractions from negative news, misinformation, or the lives of others. We are building a platform that allows people to govern their media intake, rather than being governed by it.”

• Key Feature: Users can now select and deselect topics within their "For You" feed.
• Benefit: Aims to reduce "doomscrolling" and improve mental well-being.
• Impact: Early data suggests increased user engagement with customized feeds.