Flipboard behind the story: 100 million Why users like it?

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Introduction: 4 years after entering the app Store, Flipboard accumulated more than 100 million active users, the daily average number of new users reached 250,000 ~30 million, and more than 8,000 publishers have reached direct cooperation. At the end of 2013, Flipboard completed the C round of financing, the cumulative amount reached 161 million U.S. dollars, the valuation climbed to 800 million U.S. dollars.

Mike McCue thought his entrepreneurial path could be over for a while. After selling his start-up company Tellme NX to Microsoft for two years, he has basically successfully integrated the first-run speech-recognition software into Microsoft's platform, which is reported to be as high as $800 million trillion. So, in 2009, he gradually handed over his job and tendered his resignation, turning his eyes to leisure-perhaps as an angel investor and perhaps some charitable work. In any case, he should enjoy his family life better.

But this "retirement" lasted only one weeks. While on a family holiday, he pulled a magazine from the back pocket of the front seat of the plane and began to flip through it. "I remember thinking immediately of reading the same article on the Internet that it didn't look as good as a print version. Originally this article has such an amazing map, can be taken out to enjoy the clip page, can make people retrace maps and full of visual impact of the photos. "McCue recalls," the online version of advertising has also become a factor in the reduction. In the printed version, the full-page ads are considered part of the content. You never thought you'd buy a Vogue magazine that didn't advertise, did you? But web ads are just blocking the display of content. I don't think anyone likes them. I'm beginning to realize that reforming the way content and advertising is being presented is a huge opportunity. ”

McCue's rest plan had to be postponed indefinitely, and he started creating ideas, and from Apple to the iphone product engineer Evan Doll helped himself digitize the media. The end result is today's Flipboard, arguably the first and most vital killer app on the ipad.

In the July 2010, Flipboard was unveiled only a few months after the ipad was marketed. It effectively turns the print publication into a style suitable for tablet display, and from a large number of content publishers, various types of news sources and social networking platform to aggregate content, with a large wave of customization tools, media display skills and convenient sharing channels, etc. to create a touch screen, easy to flip the personalized magazine. This free app is also a revolution in digital advertising, which introduces a combination of design and content into its full-screen, clickable online ads.

4 years after entering the app Store, Flipboard has accumulated more than 100 million active users, with an average daily number of new subscribers reaching 250,000 ~30 and direct cooperation with more than 8,000 publishers. At the end of 2013, Flipboard completed the C round of financing, the cumulative amount reached 161 million U.S. dollars, the valuation climbed to 800 million U.S. dollars.

"Entrepreneurs have always been good at discovering opportunities. On the Flipboard platform, I saw great business opportunities for mobility and socialization. These two strong trends are changing the web world as we know it. "The Ceo,mccue insights of a start-up company in Palo Alto, Calif. "This is an opportunity to rewrite the rules of the Internet, and by changing the way content is presented, distributed, packaged and monetization, we can make the Web a better place." ”

Start a business, sell it, start a business

Decades before McCue began redefining the magazine, he was a teenager obsessed with technology, once obsessed with trying to imprint his name on a magazine. The poor New York native, the most important adolescence in life is always busy copying video game code from a computer publication, learning programming skills, and developing a "jungle Jim" game that pays tribute to the classic adventure game of Blizzard, "pitfall", and obtains the "first bucket of gold"- He licensed the game to the "ER" home computer magazine, which earned 50 of dollars in compensation.

"It's my dream to have my game show up in this kind of computer journal," he said. "This is the first time I've made money by programming," McCue said. ”

His first pioneering attempt was to launch the M-cubed software, but failed. Instead of going to college, he became a programmer at IBM, where he studied for 4 years. He founded monitors Software in Woodstock, New York, in 1989. After about 3 years, the company's first star product sidebar turned out to be a way for users to watch the computer screen more directly, with the efforts of several highly renowned engineers. In the process of research and development sidebar, the company was once in trouble (half of the engineers lost), McCue personally, as the architect and software consultant.

As sidebar prepared for commercialization, McCue stumbled upon a magazine that introduced Norton, a competing product, Symantec (Symantec). "It blew up our product and it went on the market earlier than us," he said. "Even after a few years, McCue recalled the scene is still very sad," I remember walking to the back of the apartment balcony, looking at the distant mountains, thinking we have to swallow this bitter fruit, and either give up, or face difficult. Eventually we decided to continue to launch sidebar, but we need to reposition it, follow the principle of ' less is more ' and create a few bright spots for it. If I had given up, many miracles would never have happened. ”

At a time when the simpler sidebar got a certain degree of success, monitors software began to delve into the new field and launch the WEBFX VRML (virtual Reality Modeling Language) plug-in. With this plugin, Netscape's navigator Web browser supports more complex images. "Mike has subverted Netscape's Web browser and is showing 3D images to users through this WEBFX plugin," said Danny Rimer, a venture capitalist expert. "Rimer was an analyst at the Jürgen & Quist of the San Francisco Investment bank, who dominated Netscape's listing," he said. "I got in touch with Mike and was completely conquered, so I introduced him to Netscape and eventually Netscape bought his company," he said. ”

In 1996, Netscape bought monitors software,mccue with 20 million dollars to start his Silicon Valley career. 3 years later, when AOL bought Netscape with 4.2 billion dollars, he officially withdrew.

In 1999, McCue with former Netscape staff Angus Davis, founded the Tellme NX Company. The software technology developed by the company is similar to a "voice browser" that converts voice commands into VoiceXML languages and then enters the data into the network to search for the required information for the user. The tool can help major U.S. companies take on some of their customer service jobs and provide mobile voice search services to customers such as American Airlines, FEDFX and Verizon Wireless, a mobile communications operator.

By 2005, 3500多万名 American users would make calls through Tellme to inquire about product information, with a company earning more than 100 million dollars a month. At the same time, the company attracted more than 235 million U.S. dollars in venture capital, investors including Kleiner, Benchmark and the Barksdale Group; Rimer also invested, and he is now a partner in the London Venture Index Ventures.

"Whatever Mike wants to do after monitors software, I will invest." "Mike is the entrepreneur model I want to invest in," says Rimer. He has the essential qualities of a successful entrepreneur: passionate, focused, and with a dream to change the world. ”

In March 2007, Microsoft snapped up the identity of Tellme,mccue and the CEO became the general manager. At the time of his departure, Tellme software has become an integral part of Microsoft's products, penetrating many of its key offerings, including Live Search (today's Bing), the Ford-car multimedia entertainment system in conjunction with Ford, and the Microsoft Mobile operating system ( Today's Windows Phone.

"I enjoy the life I've been searching for. "I think having goals can make life better," McCue said. I have 4 children, and I want them to see that dad is a man of pursuit, not a retired bum. When I met Evan Doll, I realized the time was ripe to create another company. ”

Grab the ipad

McCue's first contact with doll began with the help of a headhunter. At that time, doll had been at Apple for 6 years, and as a senior software engineer at Stanford University to teach iOS development courses. He has been involved in the development of the first three generations of Apple's iphone smartphone.

I was completely impressed by him. "I think this guy is more than just an engineer, or the kind of person who can be a co-founder," McCue said. He has an excellent aptitude for judgment and insight beyond engineers. In many ways, he reminds me of the one who was so high-spirited. ”

Within weeks of meeting with McCue, doll left Apple. They began to carefully develop the Flipboard. The two founders initially envisioned a user interface for the PC, but they soon had to dismiss the idea because of the difficulty of navigating content in the traditional web world.

"In the weeks before the ipad went on the market, we started talking in the office and grilling ourselves, ' What's the first version of Flipboard on the ipad? ' "This is a risky move that needs careful consideration," doll recalls. We don't even know if anyone will buy the ipad, and we can't tell if it's going to be a success in the market or a crushing defeat. But for a long time, there was only one such sensational platform, so we thought it was worth the fight. ”

But McCue and doll don't even know what the ipad will look like, let alone how it will implement the user interface. They made the very right bold assumption under known conditions that the tablet would be a bigger iphone or ipod Touch and equipped with touchscreen navigation. Based on this vision, Flipboard developed its iconic page-flip animation design, and its browsing experience is the same as print magazine. Doll even created a paper ipad model to better understand the shape and feel of the tablet.

In January 2010, Steve Jobs released the ipad to the media. The Flipboard team even downloaded his software development kit before he finished his speech and fine-tuned the part of the code that they guessed was right, discarding the code that was not on the right. "We are very close to the ipad that Steve Jobs released. "McCue said proudly," This has won us a success, but also to seize the market opportunity. Our designs and ideas are at least a year ahead of others. ”

The 1.0 version of Flipboard boasts "the world's first social magazine", which integrates stories, images, headlines and recent updates from Twitter and Facebook platforms. The app provides links and graphic feeds in the pages of the magazine so users can discover, consume, and share social content. Flipboard also allows users to surround themselves with topics of interest or custom personalized units; It also unifies the format of all kinds of ads, thus achieving the matching of advertising and content, to the maximum extent to ensure the relevance of advertising and user interest.

"We believe that the greatest contribution of Flipboard is based on the evolution and development of today's technology, from the understanding of user preferences to guide users and help them to use time and attention to their own interests." "We want to solve the problem of information overload, but only if we have a very thorough insight into every reader," Doll said. ”

Just a few hours into the App Store, Flipboard the top of the ipad for all of the world's news-category apps, and eventually Apple awarded its "2010 ipad app" title. Flipboard has now developed products for Apple's other device platforms and is available in Google's Android, Microsoft Windows 8 and BlackBerry operating systems, and for Amazon's Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble's Nook, The company has also launched an optimized version of Flipboard. For more than 4 years, Flipboard has worked with a number of media giants, including the own of American talk show queen Oprah Winfrey, Times Group, Kang na shi Group, ESPN, Hearst Group and the New York Times Company.

"Throughout Mike's career, he has been creating new ways to access and consume information,"--paper software, Tellme, Flipboard today. "As Flipboard's first investor, Rimer never hid his admiration for the company," I never thought Flipboard was just a news browser, a subversive of the way the traditional magazine industry used to consume information. With the advancement of Science and technology, it has created a universally accepted way of presenting Internet content. ”

The exquisite digital experience of traditional magazines

Flipboard is not the only news application that focuses on the headline content of the media. "News, media and entertainment" is the third most popular application category in the iOS and Android platforms, second only to "games" and "social media", according to Simon Khalaf, president and CEO of Flurry, a San Francisco mobile analytics tool and advertising service provider.

According to Flurry's report, American consumers spend an average of 2 hours and 19 minutes a day on apps, averaging 9.5% per cent a year, while the value of news and magazine applications soared by 31% in 2013.

"The use of news apps is almost all-weather. "Khalaf added," Some news apps are accessed every hour. "The flurry company's report confirms that news classes have a longer life cycle than other apps.

This is obviously a huge attraction for advertisers, and advertising is the only source of revenue Flipboard currently has. "I believe that focusing on a business model will win the final victory--but the helm needs to be able to see the ball and choose the best and most advantageous one," he said. "said McCue. Flipboard declined to disclose specific income, but said that its entire version of the advertising price can be flat with the print media ads, of course, than the relatively cheap standard online advertising is much more expensive. Cisco, Gucci, Levi ' s, Starbucks, Toyota and Volvo all took part in the Flipboard platform's advertising campaign, and Flipboard's disclosure was stunning: hits reached 3%.

Part of Flipboard's success has been the fierce competition in the field. Facebook launched an independent news-reading application in early 2014, monitors the concept and implementation of Flipboard. Google has released its own magazine kiosk for the Android platform to use Google Play newsstand. In addition, some of the weaker rivals are willing to share the soup, such as circa (a short newsletter-reading application) and trove (The Washington Post can set up a news kiosk based on the user's Facebook profile).

In front of the eyeing competitor, Flipboard's coping style is to continuously optimize the function and service. In the spring of 2013, the company unveiled a new tool that allows readers to create their own DIY magazines around any topic, event or individual interest (no matter how absurd or complex) to select stories, videos, audio and video content. This customized magazine can be completely private or shared with the public, supporting readers ' comments and interactions. It is worth emphasizing that each digital magazine is labeled as the source of the original content provider or social networking platform.

In the first year of publication, Flipboard readers created nearly 8 million digital magazines. "We all want our actions to have an impact on others," he said. "My grandmother used to cut some articles from newspapers, put them on a pee-doll and mailed them to me, and my mother still forwarded me some articles she thought I might want to read," she said. So, in this sense, this is not just a content, but the communication and connection between people, like ' I have been thinking about you, I want to share with you these things ' as intimate. ”

Later, Flipboard released a new feature-custom online sales, where businesses or users can build their own catalogs. With the help of graphics tools like Pinterest, users can generate wish lists and gift guides in the products of the Flipboard platform's business products or other electronic business platforms, and attach a purchase link to share the finished product magazine with friends and family. Its advertisers can put a price tag on a product posted in Flipboard magazine, directing readers to move from a simple browsing product to an online purchase. The first batch of brand partners have Banana Republic (Gap's minimalist fashion for the characteristics of high-end clothing brand), the United States makeup Electric business site Birchbox, EBay, fashion electric website fab and fashion women's website ModCloth. Although Flipboard does not charge these partners any fees, it also says it earns a certain amount of revenue by selling ads to partners near their products.

In addition, Flipboard also focus on the practice of internal strength, continuous improvement and enhance its core software functions. Earlier in 2014, the company bought personalized news application Zite from CNN. In 2011, CNN bought Zite (Flipboard and CNN's specific terms of agreement) for more than 20 million dollars. Zite has a very powerful algorithmic analysis system that can track more than 40,000 topics per day from millions of articles and recommend content based on users ' interests and preferences. After acquiring Zite, Flipboard will make full use of zite advanced technology in Content recommendation, personalization and search.

"We've been struggling to figure out how to get people to discover us from the ocean of magazines." "Today we can build personalized recommendations based on the interest of our readers," McCue admits. Zite is bringing us some amazing changes. ”

After completing the transaction with Zite, Flipboard has been authorized by CNN's global content and has customized its own magazine for its renowned hosts, including CNN's renowned event producer and host Fareed Zakaria, who hosted the lead on CNN. Wait for the show's former ABC chief journalist Jake Tapper, and Ace host John King and so on. McCue said Flipboard will continue to build similar collaborations with other celebrities, celebrities and media partners. He also revealed that in the next few months, Flipboard will launch a number of innovative technologies.

Despite short-term goals and a long-term future, McCue says Flipboard will be the end of his entrepreneurial journey. And this time he was serious.

"This is the last company I founded. "I'm going to spend the rest of my career here," he vowed. Many people love Flipboard and are very happy to use it, but it has a lot of unsatisfactory places. For example, we also need to build an ecosystem that supports quality content. Believe that this will be our ultimate goal: Create an ecosystem for content providers that can be found and accepted by a new generation of readers; on this platform, content can be used to match the monetization of traditional print media, while being able to display it in perfect fashion on a variety of devices today. ”