Flipboard Unveils Local News Initiative in 23 Metro Markets in the U.S., Canada
Curated content platform Flipboard is thinking local.
Flipboard Tuesday rolled out a local initiative aimed at bringing users in 23 metropolitan areas in the U.S. and Canada a mix of news from regional sources and national stories of local interest.
This local content will be accessible via the Flipboard application’s Explore tab, with content coming from sources that share their stories on Flipboard, including newspapers, television and radio stations, college news sites and blogs.
Flipboard will also add content from other sources, such as RSS feeds and Twitter.
The company said its machine learning algorithms will classify content related to the 23 metro areas at launch and recommend stories to followers of those cities based on their IP (internet protocol) addresses.
When people in any of the 23 local markets where the option is debuting download the Flipboard app, they will be given the choice of following the local section, while existing Flipboard users can find the content via the app’s Explore tab and through topic recommendation cards in their For You feeds.
The 23 metro regions where the local initiative is debuting are: Atlanta; Austin, Texas; Boston; Chicago; Dallas; Denver; Houston; Las Vegas; Los Angeles; Miami; Minneapolis-St. Paul; New Orleans; New York; Philadelphia; Phoenix; Portland, Ore.; Sacramento, Calif.; San Diego; the San Francisco Bay area; Seattle; Toronto; Vancouver, British Columbia; and Washington, D.C.
Flipboard highlighted existing magazines on its platform from: the Miami Herald, with 15 on topics including the National Basketball Association’s Miami Heat and Cuba; the Chicago Sun-Times, with 24, including Chicago Politics and Chicago Education; and The Mercury News (San Jose, Calif.), with 37 on topics such as the National Football League’s San Francisco 49ers and the wildfires in California.
Flipboard vice president of content and communications Marci McCue said in a release, “The goal of this initiative is twofold: to offer our readers the best in both local and national news and information, and to support local publications and broadcasters that are looking to reach and grow their audiences in new ways.”
McClatchy senior director of product and experience Jessica Gilbert added, “We applaud Flipboard’s thoughtful efforts to elevate local news to its users and are delighted that two of our largest metros, the Miami Herald and The Sacramento Bee, will be part of this inaugural initiative. We’re excited that our high-impact local journalism—including investigative, opinion, sports and ‘news you can use’—will be surfaced and look forward to continuing to collaborate with Flipboard on spotlighting local journalism.”
