In the one of the latest Educause Learning Initiative (ELI)’s 7 Things You Should Know About series, ELI explores Personalized Digital Magazines (direct link to PDF document). These are tablet applications such as Flipboard, Zite, and Taptu that aggregate users’ social media network connections such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google Reader, transforming the information into an interactive magazine format. The guide answers several questions about the technology, including who’s using it, its implications, its downsides (including copyright questions), and its significance and provides a scenario for a student’s use of this technology in a college program.
I’ve actually heavily used Flipboard and Zite since getting an iPad, and found both apps to be quite useful in quickly getting through my social network streams. I don’t use them all the time, but it’s a different way to interact with the streams.
The ELI 7 Things You Should Know About series provides concise overviews of emerging technologies, especially in relation to their impact on higher education.
I’ve found I love Flipboard on my iPad, as well. It is a nice change from the native formats for Twitter, Facebook, etc., and I can also pull in any blog feed, too. I sort of wish I could ‘mash’ it all together sometimes, instead of having each separate section.
The Zite app seems to group by category, not platform. However, I still prefer the interface of FlipBoard to Zite, you’re absolutely right.