I was looking for apps that would help me in my day to day job in public relations. There are several free apps out there that can do just that. What I found was a mix between apps that allow you to manage your social media, and apps that allow you to stay up on current issues and news. An interesting thing I found out, there are not apps out there that join the two. I think in a perfect world a great public relations app would monitor your social media, allow you to schedule posts, and keep you up to date on current news/issues. If there is an app out there like that please comment below. At the end of the day I did find a good app that was a great news app that I could use for my clients.
The best app that I found was Flipboard. Flipboard is an app that allows you to pick your favorite topics for news and current issues.
Your news feed is filtered to only include those topics from top newsworthy outlets, social media, and blogs. The layout is a very simple scroll story to story as you would find on Google or Yahoo. There is a feature called magazine which allows you to select specific articles that you can pick from any news outlet, called “Flip It”. The magazine will only hold those articles that you can read altogether. It is like picking up a magazine in the dentist office and loving every story in the table of context! Twitter and Facebook can be connected to allow you to share your favorite story. Users can friend other users, as well as share their magazines with them.
There are a few downsides to Flipboard. I did say you could share your favorite stories on Twitter and Facebook, but that is all you can do with the social media. The web interface does not search as well as the app does. Flipboard is free, but they do show advertising, very heavy advertising. You cannot remove the advertising. Another annoying aspect of Flipboard the content that shows at the top of the feed. Flipboard’s top search results isn’t from top quality news outlets as you think.
Flipboard interface is available on both an app (ios/android) and website. The website has over 34,000 searchable topics. The app has over 100 million monthly users searching for their favorite topics.
Conway, P. (2013, September 25). Flipboard - Website Review. Retrieved July 27, 2019, from https://www.commonsensemedia.org/website-reviews/flipboard
Mossberg, W. (2017, February 09). Mossberg: Flipboard redesigns itself around "smart" digital magazines. Retrieved from https://www.theverge.com/2017/2/8/14541922/flipboard-news-app-update-4-0-smart-magazines-walt-mossberg
Personalized for any interest. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://flipboard.com/
Slant.com. (n.d.). Flipboard Review. Retrieved July 27, 2019, from http://www.citationmachine.net/apa/cite-a-website