Facebook to Shut Down 'Paper' News Creation and Curation App

Facebook is shutting down news creation and curation app Paper, reports The Verge. Paper, which debuted in 2014, was the first product to come out of Facebook Creative Labs, which has since been dismantled.

Paper, a Flipboard competitor, consisted of a news reader that pulled content from a user's Facebook News Feed and a variety of well-known online publications, organizing it all into a magazine-style layout with sections ranging from technology to animals. A team of editors curated the most popular online content for users and for a time, it was a popular replacement for the traditional Facebook News Feed.

paper

Though it received positive reviews and was one of Facebook's most downloaded apps, it was not able to attract and maintain a large audience, leading to Facebook's decision to shut it down. Paper has been defunct for a while, going without an update since March of 2015.

According to Facebook, many of the concepts introduced in Paper, like Instant Articles, have since been added to its other apps and services. Instant Articles is a platform designed to speed up the loading times of articles and news stories and it adopted much of its design language from Paper.

Paper has been removed from the App Store as of today and existing app users will no longer be able to use the app after July 29.

Tag: Facebook

Top Rated Comments

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TMRJIJ

31 months ago

I'm quite sad. That was the only way I could stomach using Facebook.

Rating: 7 Votes

brendu

31 months ago

Paper was a fantastic app. I've been considering ditching Facebook. This just might do it. Morons are killing the app that they should have made the official Facebook app and keeping all their other **** apps.

Rating: 6 Votes

lampwins

31 months ago

Sad... Paper did Facebook better than Facebook did Facebook. Will be missed, I guess I will have to get used to Apple News as an aggregate.

Rating: 4 Votes

cyberdogl2

31 months ago

I used Paper mainly because it still integrates Facebook chat. So sad it will be gone

Rating: 3 Votes

crushed

31 months ago

Ya, sad to see it go this way. It was my primary way to interact with Facebook for the past 2 years. I thought it was one of the most beautifully designed app on the AppStore. I love the way it brought up interesting stuff to read, with no clutter, no ads, let me chat, create posts, leave comments, basically made Facebook more bearable.... But I can't say the writing wasn't on the wall for a year now.

Rating: 2 Votes

MizuNoHane

31 months ago

There's a message for Paper users when they open the app that it's finally going lights out. Sad! It had such a beautiful way of presenting both news and posts from unexpected sources - I learned so much more on this app than Facebook proper because it was an app that almost demanded that you sit down and read. Going to miss it a lot.

Rating: 2 Votes

dampfnudel

31 months ago

When will Facebook do the same :p

They seem to be getting closer every day.

Rating: 2 Votes

Msechs

31 months ago

I'm pretty sure they figured out a lot of us were just using it because you can actually still send and receive messages in it without being subjected to the messaging app... All I want is to send or read an occasional frickin' message. How about porting THAT feature back to the FB App?

Rating: 2 Votes

Sleaka J

31 months ago

it was not able to attract and maintain a large audience

What a surprise, being a US only app totally cemented that.

Note to developers, if what you wanted is a large audience, don't limit it from the start and keep it limited.

Rating: 1 Votes

Dizzy714

31 months ago

I used Paper for its superior quality photo uploads than the official app, what shall I do now.

Rating: 1 Votes

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