Last week, the editor-in-chief sent us the Web link of an article about a newspaper. What I liked was the look and feel of the page, which was like a real magazine on the Web.
It was fed through Readability (www.readability.com) – an application, or app, that helps you bookmark or download your favourite content and read it in a look that makes you feel comfortable.
While content is exploding on the Net,our behaviour pattern has changed. Being on the Web is like visiting a library. You can read in a library, but then you don’t have to be there all the time and in fact, cannot be. Just as you borrow books from your library, apps like Readability help you organise the stuff you discover or subscribe to in a format that is convenient for your eyes, your back or for your time.
It is not the only one. Read It Later(www.readitlaterlist.com) helps you queue up articles, or even videos, from more than 300content apps, and again, is available across leading platforms such as Google’s Android or Apple’s iOS.
Apple has its own Flipboard, which helps you personalise the content that is being shared with you on social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook. Through a “social news magazine” the Apple system also gives you Zite (www.zite.com) that intelligently develops pages to match your preference and helps you generate a personalised magazine and has back-end partnerships with publishers.
{{/usCountry}}Apple has its own Flipboard, which helps you personalise the content that is being shared with you on social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook. Through a “social news magazine” the Apple system also gives you Zite (www.zite.com) that intelligently develops pages to match your preference and helps you generate a personalised magazine and has back-end partnerships with publishers.
{{/usCountry}}Yahoo’s Livestand app helps you aggregate content from professional news sources, not just random stuff from social media sites.
Google has an app called Currents (www.google.com/producer/currents) that does pretty much the same stuff for tablets and smartphones, with different variants for Android and Apple platforms.
These apps are revolutionising the way we consume Web content. The future is in convenience and customisation of content.