Man, that video, typical marketing bullshit. First scene shows a guy writing on a typewriter, next scene shows someone hanging up Polaroid pictures. Seriously? Show me why this app is useful and why I need it, instead of trying to lull me into a world that doesn't exist.
I'm not sure why so many are describing this as a "news" app - it's pretty obviously a refresh of the Facebook design, and a much-needed one at that.<p>At the given time 25% of Facebook is taken up by various buttons and controls; there's a lot you can do and a lot of places you can navigate to from Facebook's homepage. It was obviously designed for desktop, and then ported over to mobile. After a couple refreshes the app was usable, but not exactly an enjoyable experience. So "Paper" is how Facebook would look if it were driven by designers and mobile first (if you need any more evidence that this was very design-driven, look at the marketing video. Typewriters, polaroids, naked woman in bathtub, lens flares and blur... it is, in a word, "hipster.") They also seem to have knocked off Flipboard a little bit and let you see collections of other stories. We'll see how well that takes off, but my assumption is that since it was barely mentioned it will be a minor factor in the new app, and I can't see myself using it.<p>The big move is from a lot of buttons and toggles on a screen to a more "swipe-friendly" UI/UX. That makes sense for mobile, but it's a big change. Something like that has to be intuitive, or it's a nightmare to use.<p>It's important to note that in Facebook's earnings call yesterday it revealed that mobile revenue surpassed desktop revenue for the first time ever. This new app has stories big, beautiful, and in-your-face. That means that ads will be the same way, and will likely drive a premium price. Brilliant in terms of monetization from the Facebook team.
I wonder what 53 will make of Facebook's choice of App name?<p><a href="http://www.fiftythree.com/paper" rel="nofollow">http://www.fiftythree.com/paper</a>
I watched the video. I don't understand what paper is.
Actually, the only reason I watched it was because I somehow confused myself into thinking this was Amazon.
When I was done with the video, I finally realized this is Facebook and it all made sense.
I still don't know what "paper" is of course.
Now I need my coffee.
I'm excited to give this a spin, and that's saying a lot considering I haven't touched FB in a few years now. It's nice to see them innovating with new ideas and products, instead of iterating on their existing main platform.<p>What's interesting is that their mobile strategy involves grabbing as much of your screen real estate as possible, with the FB app, FB Messenger, Instagram, and now Paper. I guess that was obvious when they tried the whole Facebook phone thing.
Does seem like a fluid UXD. Shame android is second class citizen again, and you have to be on facebook to use it.<p>Hopefully if it does pan out as well as the video shows, other apps like flipboard will start incorporating its flow.
Pretty. I like the UI innovative touches for flipping through content, panning pictures, etc. The video does a good job of selling it. Alas, not for me.<p>It seems to me a type of app better suited perhaps to the tablet format. Personally I'm over consuming content like this on my phone. In most cases I may skim something quickly and if it really catches my attention then I'll wait until I'm on a bigger screen to explore it further.<p>The Share section tries to make the point of "the most important stories… your own" and it's a good one, well presented. From my own personal experience though I believe that most of the people I follow online, whether prolific or not, will not dedicate a lot of time to "production" work as in selecting headlines, backgrounds for those headers, more than a couple of beautiful pictures (they never really come out as good as presented), etc. to create a flip-book like these. This will be a good medium for… commercial producers? as shown, the CNNs, Time magazines, of course the Verge, Engadgenet, etc, and that's what I'd end up consuming only to finally uninstall.<p>But I know, that's just me, and my 2 cents.
What a bunch of grumpy old men. I bet everybody sitting here taking shots at this app 1) have never created anything nearly as cool 2) would not have understood Apple in its hayday 3) spend too much time reading and taking shots at other people's work.<p>I'm all for being cynical and questioning what's out there but you have to let the good stuff through. The design here is first class. The Facebook guys have outdone themselves. Yes, it's a culmination of a large body of work that's come before with a few novel improvements. That's how art works. Quit bitching and do something useful.<p>/rantoff
Hmm,<p>Of my 300+ Facebook friends, one guy consistently posts the stereotypical millenial thing described here of "beautiful hike on the coast with Sharon". If someone else started doing that, I'd probably have to cut one of them off.<p>Fewer friends seem to have real pictures of themselves and more have cartoons, cats and memes.<p>This format looks great for presenting what people imagine as a great Facebook post. But I actually think the majority of people don't use Facebook for this - the hippest are already off Facebook and, well, good riddance.
I've been blogging for over five years. I'm also an avid Facebook user in that I try to post statuses that are interesting and relevant to my audience instead of just the usual "I ate a grilled cheese for lunch and now I feel feelings about it". I also, as of recently, ironically own a typewriter and I am working on a novel. Basically, I love creating content.<p>Theoretically, I am the target market for this product because it's supposed to lure me into divulging more longform-ish content to Facebook and creating narratives about it.<p>I was completely repelled by the ad, not only because I still don't see how this product differentiates from Facebook_regular, but because of the vast array of hipsters doing things that have nothing to do with actual Facebook. If you like photography and animation and writing in the Real World, why would you want to move that content to Facebook? If you create content digitally, why would you want to do it on anything except for a platform you own?<p>Moreover, I was horrified to see that woman not only Facebooking ("Papering?") in the bathtub, but sharing pictures of her fetus, which could then be enlarged by anyone who cares enough.<p>2014. What a world.
this looks like an idea that was tried so many times and people just don't care. I think about smart tags in GMail here, or circles. Most people simply don't micromanage their data flows according to topics. Maybe I simply don't get the difference here, but if I am right, then I am deeply disappointed and frustrated to see people spend money and smart developers' time into ideas that already failed years ago.
Some beautiful design and thoughtful UI in the app here, and this is also a lovely microsite - I love the use of the video full screen. It'd be great to see some of this sort of thoughtful design go into the UI of web browsers on mobile platforms (which are also platforms for reading and sharing stories).<p>Shame it's from Facebook.
I can't wait for the next trend in app/services marketing. I'm tired of:<p>Introducing %word% , bla bla bla beautiful bla bla bla Share. Coupled with short sentences over a huge iOS/ OS X images.<p>It feels as if this has been here forever.
Regardless of the FB hate that seems to be spreading in this forum the app itself has a lot to appreciate. Im not a facebook user, and I'm not sure how much of this will really get used by the average facebook user. However, this iOS app appears to be very well done, and if it behaves as well as the demo shows is a nice benchmark for mobile app UX. It actually makes me want to start digging into the new iOS 7 APIs.
Yet another way to view text, images, and video. For me, really comes down to the content. Does the content interest me? - I can't tell by the site.
It's funny they choose to tease it, instead of aving an 'get it now' call to action from day one [edit: I would have tried it now as I see it for the first time, I'm not sure I'll care for another content feed app in 3 days, especially as it will have discussed to death in meantime]. And I don't get the link between the name and the app. Is it paper as in newspaper ?
Garbage like this actually has an effect on me that's the exact opposite of what's intended: I will, under no circumstances whatsoever, ever use any product from Facebook with the name "paper" in it.<p><a href="http://theoatmeal.com/comics/sell_generation" rel="nofollow">http://theoatmeal.com/comics/sell_generation</a>
Is it me, or is it just facebook with news feeds and a nice big handful of gestures. Their must be a massive increase in RSI due to hundreds of apps/interfaces with different gesture controls. I don't know if my muscle memory has anymore room for this app. Im going to end up loosing important things, like konami codes...
Sucks to be Jason Calacanis right now, who JUST launch "Inside" app that basically tries to do this - <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/27/inside-mobile-news-launch/" rel="nofollow">http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/27/inside-mobile-news-launch/</a>
The underlying assumption at FB seems to be that people are interested in (something like a) magazine but one curated not by professional journalists, designers and advertisers but rather curated by uncle joe, grandma bessie, etc. I know which magazine I'd rather read.
As a new frontend programmer, what kind of libraries did Facebook use to create a page like this with full screen video/the "explore" page which has thumb moving on it? Was it a type of JS? Was it Flash? Just wondering...
So, for one, I had to watch the video twice to try to figure out what the app actually does. Though, I suppose maybe that's just my own ineptitude. Because I'm still not sure what it does.<p>Secondly, what is the market for this? I can already make my own "paper" type thing with Flipboard or the myriad other options on the market. Considering this seems like something I need to not only download, but take time to customize, does Facebook expect people to switch right on over to them?<p>Why can't I just go on Facebook or Twitter and see what stories my friends are sharing? That's the point, isn't it? I don't get it.
When the girl in the bath came on screen I remembered I was watching a video of a bunch of people who are addicted to their f'ing iPhones. And then I felt like I was watching an episode of Black Mirror.
Here's the source video on Vimeo: <a href="http://vimeo.com/85421325" rel="nofollow">http://vimeo.com/85421325</a><p>For some reason I was redirected there in IE11, after both Firefox and Chrome crashed.
Can't we wait for it to exist and then talk about it?<p>Who knows whether it will be intuitive or not. Can't tell from that video. My phone isn't as still as the one in the video,<p>I don't like too much swiping of little bits and pieces all the time. Tap, swipe, all day long.. just show me the content and stop making a zilion forks in the road. You're making me put my hand in front of the screen every 2 seconds, it looks like hard work to me... all that swiping and endless mashup of random stuff.<p>Is it news? Is it noise? Is it noisy news?
According to The Verge not only is this iPhone only - it's US ONLY! Seriously a news reader app limited by location. Can anyone come up with a half sane reason they are doing that?
Is this a native app or a web app running in a browser? I watched the video (at work, so without sound) and I can't tell. If its browser based then I'm extremely impressed.
Anybody know how they kept the phone so still in those videos? The hand holding it doesn't move. Is there a pole underneath attaching it to a surface we can't see?
On the first time, I wondered how the Paper creators manage to create a Facebook page without the Facebook branding, then realized it is Facebook's thing :-)
Why name it Paper since it is just another UI for a subset of Facebook's features? You can comment, like, view posts, and only the new thing is categories. It is almost everything you do on Facebook, once you can upload something, it can be called a new UI for Facebook, replacing the old one. Why confuse with Paper? Now I have two apps for Facebook, one for reading one for writing, great.
Reading the (few) details, it seems pretty poor at algorithmic level, in the sense of how it choose the stories <i>for you</i>.<p>I wonder what the best strategy is, while in the past we had ugly interfaces with interesting algos (e.g., reddit), now it seems there's just UX/UI... my question is: is this a viable solution? Can you build UX first, and then complete it with better algos?
This reminds me of drop.io - a company Facebook purchased several years ago. I suspect Lessin, one of the founders and a writer played a role in this very polished storytelling metaphor for what amounts to content integration and sharing utility. If they carryover the phone, chat and other mediums from drop.io they may have something.
Facebook is trying get in the market of successful concepts like Flipboard and Pulse. Why wouldn't Facebook like to mine what people (and their 'Friends') 'like' and show them relevant news when Flipboard and Pulse connect to your Facebook, churn what you shared in the past and show you news which you might like.
It looks beautiful - which is what I have come to expect from the designers over there at facebook. I love how Mike and Sharon's trips are used in their marketing materials, it is a nice personal touch.<p>The facebook timeline is starting to feel extremely stale - if facebook can make it so its users can tell better stories then I am all for it.
Quick suggestion: a reminder that this app is coming. Rather than tell me to share it, remember that February 3 is days away and I'm not really inspired to put it on my calendar. would have been great to see a request to get notified on launch via my choice of social network / e-mail.
Instead of pulling information from the marketing page, why not just read the PR release instead <a href="http://newsroom.fb.com/News/793/Introducing-Paper-Stories-from-Facebook" rel="nofollow">http://newsroom.fb.com/News/793/Introducing-Paper-Stories-fr...</a>
This looks like the work of Mike Matas and the rest of the team from Push Pop Press. Nice to see them be able to work on a full experience like this after being acquired by Facebook.
It's all about advertising.<p>Being able to deliver rich, full-screen stories to you implies being able to deliver rich, full-screen video ads to you. And that's where the money is.
Why announce now if it's not available till February? I suppose if the news sites inundate me with more articles about this app, I'll remember to try it out.
So if you share something on Paper would it also show up on Facebook? I can't tell if Paper is a new platform/app or just another way of browsing Facebook.
I don't understand why this is some big, ground shaking app.<p>This is what the Facebook app itself should be. Instead of improving their terrible news feed, they make this.
Wonder how much the experience would degrade with a lesser internet connection. Even WiFi probably won't keep up with that, but perhaps enough. But 3G?
I think this is another prime example of building a vitamin instead of building a medicine. Do I really need this? How is this different from FlipBoard?
it's nice to see mike matas' again. i really felt in love with his UI skills<p>(<a href="http://mikematas.com" rel="nofollow">http://mikematas.com</a>)