Flipboard is already an attractive aggregator app and with 100 million active monthly users it seems like a popular post-RSS reader choice for those looking to keep on top of the news.
But a new feature known as Smart Magazine seeks to improve the experience by using a combination of machine-learning and editorial choices to generate personalised magazines tailored to the user’s specific interests.
Pick a topic and Flipboard prompts the further drilling down into subcategories. With these selected, a Smart Magazine is generated with similar stories clustered together. The main feed in the original app is still there but is now called Cover Stories.
Flipboard's head of curation Mia Quagliarello explained in a recent blog post that user data showed that high-level categories such as photography had unique sub-clusters of linked interests where those who like street photography also tend to read about film or black and white photography.
Knowledge of these clusters of interests make it easier to construct the ideal Smart Magazine.
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