Facebook today announced Paper, a news creation and curation tool that ties into a user's Facebook account. The app is the first product to come out of Facebook Creative Labs, a division within Facebook made of small teams who are dedicated to startup-style projects.

Paper-Facebook-P2
Paper is split into a news reader that pulls its content from both a user's Facebook News Feed and from well-known online publications, featuring a magazine-style layout with sections that range from technology news to animals. Facebook will also reportedly assign a team of editors to curate the best and most popular online content for users, and a composition tool that allows users to create their own status updates rich with media will be available as well.

Speaking to Re/code, Mike Matas, product design lead for Paper, explained why the company moved beyond a visual newsreader like Flipboard [Direct Link] and created both a news reading and creating tool.

“As you start changing the way you’re displaying this content, we hope that it will change the way people think about posting content,” Michael Matas, Paper’s product design lead, said in an interview. “Because the two are obviously really connected.”

But just as important, as Matas explains it, “It’s no fun to make a bunch of great stuff if no one ever sees it.”

Paper by Facebook will be available from the iOS App Store in the US starting February 3rd, with international availability to be determined. A visual walkthrough of the app is available on Facebook's website.

Top Rated Comments

CJK Avatar
148 months ago
Paper?

Wonder what FiftyThree (http://www.fiftythree.com/paper) thinks of the name of FB's new app ...
Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Spanky Deluxe Avatar
148 months ago
Why would they give the app the same name as an existing and very successful app? Seems daft to me.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
PJL500 Avatar
148 months ago
Another data mining app

Just another gimmick to diminish individual privacy. Move on.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
FloatingBones Avatar
148 months ago
FB's highly-produced video failed to show how advertisements will be injected into your Paper stream.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
aprofetto8 Avatar
148 months ago
I think it actually looks pretty cool. Though I'm quite perplexed by the name as there is a well known app called Paper that already exists.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
sully54 Avatar
148 months ago
The thing is, I no longer get any meaningful news from Facebook. My newsfeed is full of useless and crappy like magnets. They need to fix this first, or the fact that many people like me have started weaning ourselves from regular Facebook usage, before they start even considering an app of this nature.

The only redeeming feature of this app is the curated content. But even that remains to be seen.

And btw, Facebook, the name "Paper" is already taken.

Here's a good video of the problem with Facebook: http://youtu.be/l9ZqXlHl65g (http://youtu.be/l9ZqXlHl65g)
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)

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