The Flipboard is much more than about sorting and presenting our social network feeds in a beautiful form.
As I hinted last week, it will not only change media, it will change commerce and, therefore, travel as we know it. Here is why…
Aesthetics touch our emotions and amplify our will to engage, be it business, art, religion or politics.
This was true for divine ideals in the renaissance, it was true for politics when the modern newspaper was born and it’s true for business today for companies like Apple, Virgin, Monocle magazine etc. Aesthetics drives engagement and business.
So I believe that the Flipboard will drive more people to buy the iPads and to start use the social networks to a larger degree than before, as it is looks great and is easy to use, and simply because people will be more engaged with content when it is more relevant.
Social networks with members that I trust are more valuable than adverts. In fact, a friend’s recommendation with a rich content ad, delivered dynamically, is hard to beat.
Think of it as Google Adsense, but with rich, beautiful content plus a transaction widget or online access to customer service of a company that I’d like to do business with.
Trusted friends recommendations + aesthetics + ease of use and call to action. This is something we have talked about since the advent of internet but yet have failed to deliver. It’s all happening now and it’s called Flipboard. No, really, it is…
Twitter feeds will be the main source of information for the Flipboard and will eventually kill all online communities.
When it comes to twitter we have seen nothing yet. Think about it as a puzzle. All the gazillions of 140 character messages out there are simply pieces of info floating around waiting for some context, waiting for a home.
The more info that’s produced and the more people aggregating this content the better and the more perfect the puzzle will become.
We have gotten used to social networks living in silos, even though this is changing. But the walls still exist between the networks and transaction.
So when we go to our online community we come to talk and sometimes to listen but never to buy. Flipboard changes that.
Merchandising is all about context and packaging. At Disneyworld you cannot exit any ride without going into a souvenir shop filled with relevant products.
Even I bought a vintage Michael Jackson T shirt after a revisit to Captain EO this summer.
Say you are a hotel buff, like me. I love five-star places that make me feel like I’m stepping into another world, in another time.
For me the destination is secondary (well, it’s an expensive hobby). I can’t trust Tripadvisor and I can’t use any ordinary commercial hotel websites.
Instead I use travel mags and do a lot of online research. This takes time.
If I can create a separate Flipboard for the trusted hotel buffs that I follow, and have beautiful rich content ads integrated from the likes of Villa Galici, I think my resistance to use this ad would be very low.
And, furthermore, the more information I get from different social networks and Twitter feeds into my Flipboard, then the more useful it becomes.
To use an anology. We are now looking at the possibility where Flipboard will throw the first global virtual Tupperware party, lasting 24 hours a day 365 days a year.
We are very happy to bring our plastics as long because of who we trust, especially when are buying into something bigger than just ourselves. We can´t stand to be left behind.
In short: mixing trust with aspiration makes for a very powerful combination. And that is why Flipboard is a game-changer.
Related posts:
- Why Flipboard is a game-changer for travel
- Game-changer? Smartphone manufacturers looking to disrupt travel distribution
- The Week in Travel Tech – Rows almighty, Flipboard ecstasy, happy queuing
- Google makes travel search three-dimensional with Social Search
- STA Travel axes online travel community as power of Facebook takes over
About Special Nodes
http://gizmodo.com/5594176/is-flipboard-legal
The mother of all scrapers…
OK I grant you, the Claudia Shiffer of all scrapers.
I share a lot of the opinions expressed in this article. Many of us in travel seem to be focused heavily on the hard side, or the plumbing of the industry, everything that is geared to the transaction and less on the softer issues Stephan raises here like aesthetics, design, emotions. It’s good to remember how important those factors already are today and will become even more tomorrow. There will be more potential game changers coming onto the scene in both areas. Is Flipboard one of them? We will see but it, or something like it, certainly has the potential to be.
“Twitter feeds will be the main source of information for the Flipboard and will eventually kill all online communities.”
Seriously?
This assumes everyone craves micro-connections and abbreviated conversations. I think instead what is happening is Twitter has become the springboard that accelerates connections into other increasingly hyper-vertical communities, but complements rather than replaces them.
How Flipboard affects this process remains to be seen. But it sounds like maybe Twitter should instead launch a better iPhone / iPad app?
I love this idea! It’s wonderful to see someone fill the gaps for the novice looking to make travel plans. I know that some people have to plan for years for their dream vacations, so this is especially helpful.My sons are gamers and this will be especially helpful to them so that they don’t have a break in their gaming procedures than other sites.