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I'm not sure why so many are describing this as a "news" app - it's pretty obviously a refresh of the Facebook design, and a much-needed one at that. At the gi

I'm not sure why so many are describing this as a "news" app - it's pretty obviously a refresh of the Facebook design, and a much-needed one at that. At the given time 25% of Facebook is taken up by various buttons and controls; there's a lot you can do and a lot of places you can navigate to from Facebook's homepage. It was obviously designed for desktop, and then ported over to mobile. After a couple refreshes the app was usable, but not exactly an enjoyable experience. So "Paper" is how Facebook would look if it were driven by designers and mobile first (if you need any more evidence that this was very design-driven, look at the marketing video. Typewriters, polaroids, naked woman in bathtub, lens flares and blur... it is, in a word, "hipster.") They also seem to have knocked off Flipboard a little bit and let you see collections of other stories. We'll see how well that takes off, but my assumption is that since it was barely mentioned it will be a minor factor in the new app, and I can't see myself using it. The big move is from a lot of buttons and toggles on a screen to a more "swipe-friendly" UI/UX. That makes sense for mobile, but it's a big change. Something like that has to be intuitive, or it's a nightmare to use. It's important to note that in Facebook's earnings call yesterday it revealed that mobile revenue surpassed desktop revenue for the first time ever. This new app has stories big, beautiful, and in-your-face. That means that ads will be the same way, and will likely drive a premium price. Brilliant in terms of monetization from the Facebook team.

cliveowen 13y ago
I have to agree, in fact I wonder why would they even bother marketing it as a way to share and collect stories instead of proposing it as a more visual alternative to the main app. I have the feeling that at Facebook they tend to half-ass things, like Home or the redesigned Newsfeed. They release an half-baked product and then let it rot for months with sporadic under-the-hood updates (I actually wonder why the hell every single day the main app needs a 10MB update to do what yesterday could do without problems, but that's for another time).
- amaks 13y ago
  >> I have the feeling that at Facebook they tend to half-ass things, like Home or the redesigned Newsfeed. That's their motto, is it not? "Move fast and break things". It's hard to expect anything well designed with an engineering attitude like this.
bydpark 13y ago
I agree with this, but I would also like to note how similar it is (or can be) to Tumblr. With the different layouts and themes, they can start selling themes like Tumblr has, creating a new market for that. This trend of Facebook taking other companies' ideas is evident from the hashtag being implemented into posts. Who knows, they might even try to take over Google's search function.
- mandeepj 13y ago
  > Who knows, they might even try to take over Google's search function. FB's graph search? Then there is Google's knowledge graph So at the end, we as consumers are winners :-)
  - amaks 13y ago
    If only FB graph search worked as advertised. However, it's far cry from Google search and knowledge base.
    - canistr 13y ago
      Graph search is a solution in search of a problem.
kin 13y ago
While I agree with you that content-wise it's just your news feed w/ a different look and feel, it seems to be filtered to just articles vs status posts. Furthermore, there seems to be an interest-based category filter. Consider this. HN is a website community that you trust will post quality content. Similarly FB can also be that way, but the community is your friends. If I can filter this new app so that only I only see a subset of my friends (the ones that post quality content), then this app would be different and valuable, no?
- mr_spothawk 13y ago
  I come to HN specifically because I cant trust my friends and family to post interesting content on facebook ;)
baby 13y ago
If it's an upgrade, people rant, if it's a new app, it's hype.
3rd3 13y ago
> Brilliant in terms of monetization from the Facebook team. I wouldn’t call it brilliant. It’s a good move, but not brilliant.

cliveowen 13y ago

I have to agree, in fact I wonder why would they even bother marketing it as a way to share and collect stories instead of proposing it as a more visual alternative to the main app. I have the feeling that at Facebook they tend to half-ass things, like Home or the redesigned Newsfeed. They release an half-baked product and then let it rot for months with sporadic under-the-hood updates (I actually wonder why the hell every single day the main app needs a 10MB update to do what yesterday could do without problems, but that's for another time).

amaks 13y ago
>> I have the feeling that at Facebook they tend to half-ass things, like Home or the redesigned Newsfeed. That's their motto, is it not? "Move fast and break things". It's hard to expect anything well designed with an engineering attitude like this.

bydpark 13y ago

I agree with this, but I would also like to note how similar it is (or can be) to Tumblr. With the different layouts and themes, they can start selling themes like Tumblr has, creating a new market for that. This trend of Facebook taking other companies' ideas is evident from the hashtag being implemented into posts. Who knows, they might even try to take over Google's search function.

mandeepj 13y ago
> Who knows, they might even try to take over Google's search function. FB's graph search? Then there is Google's knowledge graph So at the end, we as consumers are winners :-)
- amaks 13y ago
  If only FB graph search worked as advertised. However, it's far cry from Google search and knowledge base.
  - canistr 13y ago
    Graph search is a solution in search of a problem.

kin 13y ago

While I agree with you that content-wise it's just your news feed w/ a different look and feel, it seems to be filtered to just articles vs status posts. Furthermore, there seems to be an interest-based category filter. Consider this. HN is a website community that you trust will post quality content. Similarly FB can also be that way, but the community is your friends. If I can filter this new app so that only I only see a subset of my friends (the ones that post quality content), then this app would be different and valuable, no?

mr_spothawk 13y ago
I come to HN specifically because I cant trust my friends and family to post interesting content on facebook ;)

baby 13y ago

If it's an upgrade, people rant, if it's a new app, it's hype.

3rd3 13y ago

> Brilliant in terms of monetization from the Facebook team. I wouldn’t call it brilliant. It’s a good move, but not brilliant.