So what’s your verdict on Facebook’s newest “Game Changing” social application, Paper? While it’s an interesting attempt to paper over (get it) Facebook’s stale UI and stale content – the fact that a lot of the news from Paper is curated (aka picked for you by a human) makes me believe that this is a non-starter. Here’s why.
Right out of the box I find it difficult to tell how to refresh the content. Browsing a single source (i.e. NY Times) is clunky. Am I only browsing what they post to FB? I’m guessing so, but I’m not really sure. How do I refresh ? Oh and this content is all curated – which I am pretty sure means that someone picks it for me. I bet I’m going to read lots of controversial news about Facebook sponsors, right?
It feels as if Facebook is at least a year or two late to the “Wow look at that really cool blown up picture that is moving across my screen” phenomenon. Hasn’t that ship sailed? Just about every news app released not only has that feature, but they claim to be smarter about picking news for you (Tip: Most aren’t).
If I want top stories – Google Play Newsstand is pretty good. So is Flipboard. I don’t really see how Paper is lots different from Flipboard, et al. And to me it seems like a big conflict of interest that many of the “This is the greatest app, and it’s going to replace everything” reviews/opinions came from what appeared to be launch day media partners.
More disturbingly I’m left wondering if Facebook really wants to make Paper their next big thing – how soon before access to your Facebook account might be cut off for third-party applications like Flipboard.
Sorry I’m just not seeing what’s all that groundbreaking or new here. Pretty UI. Jazzy photos that take up too much of my screen. Paper is the next Facebook Poke.