Man, that video, typical marketing bullshit. First scene shows a guy writing on a typewriter, next scene shows someone hanging up Polaroid pictures. Seriously? Show me why this app is useful and why I need it, instead of trying to lull me into a world that doesn't exist.
Yeah, I used to love the iPod adverts with the hip, trendy silhouette dancing away. Then you would see the average user on the train. Spotty, not especially attractive, and definitely not cool. But I guess that image wouldn't sell much.
I would say that Apple's advertising has become far more relatable recently. Most people can relate to a christmas event with a detached kid, or calling home to Facetime with their family. Granted, the people are unrealistically good looking and well dressed, but it's far more down to earth than this Facebook piece. I found the overly-hip nature of the characters in this extremely un-relatable. I could feel the jealously and dislike inside me. I know that's horrible, and I suppressed it like a good social being, but it was there. Advertising shouldn't create those kinds of feelings. I don't know what the trick is to avoiding them, but many successful advertisers do.
"I could see the SQL injection happening; I pretended it wasn't happening, like a good developer, but it was there. Website users shouldn't create those kinds of problems. I don't know what the trick is to avoiding them, but many of users do".
I don't think I misread it; I was poking at you to illustrate that your internal feelings of jealousy and anger are not the responsibility of the advertiser to avoid triggering, and suppressing them is not "being a good person" (or a 'bad' person), it's "covering over a problem you have and pretending it's not a problem hoping it will go away".
Correctly functioning (neither judged as good or bad) humans don't get angry and jealous at seeing imaginary people's imaginary success, or real people's real success for that matter.
> your internal feelings of jealousy and anger are not the responsibility of the advertiser to avoid triggering.
They kind of are. I mean, for most other jobs, you're right--your emotions are your own responsibility. But advertising (inasmuch as it's more than simply "getting the word out") is all about harnessing peoples' irrationalities in profitable ways. And that means avoiding triggering irrationalities and biases people have that might scare them away from buying what you're selling.
For example, the last thing you want to show in a computer ad is a picture of the machine with an IDE open. Because IDEs are intimidating to a lot of people, reminding them of skills they lack ("I'm not good with computers.") And "intimidated" is not a buying mood.
(Also, as an aside, I'm not sure in which sense you meant "you," but to be sure, I wasn't the poster you first replied to.)
It's worth noting that the person you're replying to wasn't me. I don't mind being poked fun of. I often do it myself :)
Framing this as a "responsibility" is the wrong way to look at it. If an advertisement makes a significant number of people feel negative emotions, it won't be effective, and what good is ineffective advertising? Who cares who's right, wrong, good, or bad? Much less who is responsible?
I'm a flawed person. I openly accept that. I don't think my emotions in this situation are unique though, and I don't think they're basis to refer to someone as incorrectly functioning. It's what we do with those emotions that make us "correctly functioning" or not.
But what you're describing is "brand advertising". This approach is specifically for things people already use and already understand. If you are trying to sell a new experience people haven't had before, you do have to tell them what that experience is.
I guess the right word for that would be hipster. I say that without any judgmental purpose, but that's what I think when I see the vintage product + cheap&chic design + sun flare scenery.
Indeed. And the irony, is, the real hipsters already move beyond their vintage typewriters, and Lomo camera. What the promotion video just shows us some cliches what the team think is cool. Not me.
I have only seen a typewriter and used it once; and that was because it was my fathers and he wanted to show it off to me. I have never, ever, ever seen one in public.
Well, TLP has a number of posts on the subject. Beware that he drinks a lot of rum though, and some of his posts are more lucid than others. These are good:
I agree. Its become almost formulaic: cue hipster/light-hearted/playful music, show several emotionally engaging images with over-the-top DOF blur, narrate about how some mundane product that sucks us away from "real life" activities is tied to making the world a better, more engaging place.
I knew what your photo would be before I clicked on it, and thus your defense is also 'formulaic'. One photo meme doesn't adequately counter the massive psychosocial influence of technology, good AND bad.
I know I'm not adding anything of value with this remark of mine, other than give my acclaim to what you said.
However, I've long wanted to describe what you just said but haven't sat down to pull the right language from the recesses of my brain to describe how annoying these formulaic montages have become.
I'd actually be more inclined to like Facebook than Apple, for whatever that is worth. I have nothing against Facebook, just this style of commercial. :)
All tech companies/startups are starting to look the same. Maybe the same marketing/ad company has a contract with the entire valley?
Edit: Changed "Silicon Valley" to tech...since this common feel is more about the latest trends, than geographical boundaries. Though the joke no longer makes sense.
> All tech companies/startups are starting to look the same.
I think it's more that they are just starting to advertise the same way that all other companies do. More and more they're evoking emotional responses from the ads' viewers, rather than listing technical features and productivity measures.
I, for one, thought the video was pretty well done. If I had a Facebook account that I frequented, I would certainly be interested. Hell, it makes me a little envious of people who have genuinely interesting things pop up on their Walls (do such people exist?).
Right here. Couldn't help but think it as I watched. It seems like facebook has tweaked sharing algorithms, and I'm getting a lot more memes from pages my friends "liked" and updates from people I don't know, interacting with my friends. Not to mention pictures of food, dogs, and other stuff that I should be a little more active in culling.
If they have smart integration with news sources / blogs (they showed BBC and the Atlantic I think) that could show me news that matches my interest but isn't spammy, this could be a reversal for them; I might not go to Facebook for friends, and Twitter for news/ more intellectual stuff.
Also, why do these videos always use a 'shakycam' effect? It's clearly a cinematographic choice, they can afford a camera stand or a steadycam. Do they really feel the need to give the impression that each scene was shot on a handheld camera by some stalker hiding in the room?
I think the idea is that it feels more human. It feels more like a home video - you feel that there is a real person behind the camera, and real people (not actors) in front of the camera.
Interesting fact: they wanted to go for this effect in Firefly, but the camera guy they had was so good that his freehanded shots looked like steadycam shots anyway.
I got as far as the Polaroid pictures before I closed the window with an annoyed sigh and went here, hoping that someone had described what the app (or whatever it was) did. Then I read your comment, which was the most upvoted one, and had to laugh. Glad to see I'm not the only one.
I don't think you can get away with this type of marketing when you're a little know startup. Perhaps because the Facebook name is there they can, because that's made me interested enough to sit through the video. Otherwise, just tell people what you do in a few seconds.
I disagree. A startup's goal is to share their mission and product in a way that is shareable. A pitch video that is pure product features is nothing more than boring advertising.
I know it's just tv but Don Draper's monologue on the Kodak Carousel is a great example of this. It was a powerful emotional appeal with very little information about the product.
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.
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).
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.
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?
At first, I thought Facebook had acquired 53's Paper and revamped it for its own purposes. So yeah, definitely confusing. I would think that "Paper" is too generic a word for 53 to claim exclusive use of it, but look at the Apple vs. Apple dispute.
I can't see that being confusing at all. A little bit sloppy from Facebook to be honest, it seems like they've gotten around it as Paper (by 53) is iPad only and Paper (by Facebook) is iPhone only.
If anyone from Facebook is reading, Paperbook. Problem solved.
EDIT: There's a Universal app called Paper as well.
5 letter common words can be used freely by anyone, in my opinion. If you want your brand to be distinctive and searchable, pick a distinctive and searchable name.
There was an article a few weeks ago about an internal struggle going on inside Facebook about what their product should be. Some executives are worried that it's primarily shallow (in their minds) content. They want to get rid of the memes and have people sharing more "quality" content. This is a step in that direction. They want Facebook to become the replacement to the daily newspaper. Hence Paper.
Do you mind linking that original article? I'm interested in reading that.
I wonder what sort of quality content Facebook execs are looking for. If most people are like me, I work a day at the office, go home, have dinner with the family, take the dog out for a poop, futz with the computer for an hour or two, then off to bed. Rinse and repeat M-F. Weekends are more interesting with family activities, but it's not a constant barrage of me skydiving, taking pictures at the beach and all that week-in, week-out. Nor do I wax philosophical because it just feels so pretentious.
I agree that common words should be used pretty freely, but if you're Facebook you can do a bit better than the name of an App that's garnered a reasonably large amount of press.
Although I'm not particularly familiar with the latest in US trademark laws, in most European trademark cases it can be argued that the name "Paper" is too descriptive to be defended.
At the same time the fact that both are in the general category of "apps for the curation and creation of content", the confusion in the market is definitely going to be there.
Not a lawyer, but I think you're more or less right about North American trademark law as well. Trademarking a common word is fine (so long as it's not inherently descriptive of the actual product – i.e. trademarking "Paper" with respect to reams of paper would never fly), but FiftyThree would still have to show that "Paper" is sufficiently distinctive in the software market that anyone discussing "Paper" in terms of mobile apps instantly thinks of their product, the same as "Apple" being distinctive in the computers / electronics industry. As big as their app is already, as others have noted other apps have that name too, so 53 would have difficulty claiming exclusivity on "Paper".
Just did a quick USPTO search and it looks like 53 hasn't attempted to register a trademark for "Paper" itself – but they have registered "Paper by FiftyThree", which would more easily pass the bar of distinctiveness: http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=85622666&caseType=SERIAL_N...
Having said that – I do wish Facebook had picked a name that wasn't already associated with such a well-known app.
Disclaimer: I have a dev friend who works at FiftyThree but their IP strategy is not something we've discussed.
That seems overly broad too and I suspect courts would distinguish between creation vs curation. The 53 app is about the former whereas FB's is the latter.
Also think about someone searching for an app to draw and paint. It's unlikely the FB's Paper would show up in the results. Even if it did, would most people confuse it for a drawing/painting app?
I don't think anyone will ever refer to this app as simply "Paper"..that already exists with 53's app. My guess is that people will refer to it as "Facebook Paper" as they have with "Facebook Messenger".
And yet, pages / applications like this using a lot of CPU should be plenty of incentive and test cases for both web developers and browser developers to optimize their respective applications. Like how 3DMark and high-end video games like (at the time) Crysis push the GPU manufacturers and driver programmers to achieve more performance in those respective applications for its PR value.
'50% less CPU usage on the Facebook Paper page' is a nice line in a browser's changelog.
Wandering on the site, CPU goes back to normal after some time, but I couldn't find what the problem is with simple inspection (JS profiling says 99% idle).
Bug reproduced on Chrome.
Safari, which uses mp4 instead of webm, works fine :-)
The mobile version is unusable. The sideways scroll nav gets stuck between slides. The videos are corrupted or over compressed. The transitions lag and are so janky they only get about 3 frames rendered in time. The page doesn't even contain very much useful information about what Paper does.
Then there's something wrong with either Firefox or your drivers; latest Chrome on a 4 year old machine (Windows 7 x64, Core i7, 12GB RAM) with a newer graphics card (GTX670) needs barely 10% CPU on a single core.
Well it's a 2011 Model. But calling a 1.8Ghz Dual Core 'top of the line' is a stretch, especially compared to the previous commenters 100% used octo-core.
On Firefox/Ubuntu it pegged all cores on my Sandybridge i5 and the video never makes it past the envelope while the audio keeps going. Its hovering at about 40% CPU usage before the video even starts.
This is why WebM failed: on my (old) 2010 MacBook Air Firefox uses 100% CPU on two cores and it's still barely hitting 1fps with stuttering audio. Safari uses the native hardware-accelerated H.264 so it plays back perfectly at 15% of one core. Chrome's sandbox implementation appears to be less efficient so it's 80% but again, still perfect.
The vp8 developers clearly made some attempts at optimization – profilers show a lot of time being spent in an SSE3-optimized decode path – but that's a long, slow game trying to catch up with years of significant software and, later, hardware optimization.
I watched the video. I don't understand what paper is.
Actually, the only reason I watched it was because I somehow confused myself into thinking this was Amazon.
When I was done with the video, I finally realized this is Facebook and it all made sense.
I still don't know what "paper" is of course.
Now I need my coffee.
One feature I think was not as prominent as could be was the addition of non-Facebook stories in the app. You could see they guy add "Headlines" into his feed. I think it pulls from some news agency. I think this is Facebook's response to Flipboard (Flipbook?).
You've got to understand things in context. The world of web design and of app design has typically been a cluttered and ugly mess where typography and clean design have been pushed to the wayside in favor of trying to cram more stuff into user's eyes (often in service to advertising dollars). In that world boring design that has little going for it other than cleanliness and good lines becomes "beautiful".
I'm excited to give this a spin, and that's saying a lot considering I haven't touched FB in a few years now. It's nice to see them innovating with new ideas and products, instead of iterating on their existing main platform.
What's interesting is that their mobile strategy involves grabbing as much of your screen real estate as possible, with the FB app, FB Messenger, Instagram, and now Paper. I guess that was obvious when they tried the whole Facebook phone thing.
It looks like a different interface on the concept that Flipboard is built around, using Facebook content instead of select news sources.
It's a neat interface, and I hope it's light enough on the hardware that it'll be as fluid as in the video (on my iPhone 4 and One S the standard Facebook app has become slow and laggy).
But, it looks like an interface that distances the user from the content, enforcing a more consumption-focused model of interaction than producer, which seems a little antithetical.
This looks like a direct clone of Flipboard! Flipboard supports fetching from your personal facebook feed, and this new facebook thing seems to support fetching from various public "interests" feeds too.
It's exciting to see them developing the platform but I feel like they are moving in the wrong direction. The success of recent startups (eg snapchat) has shown that we're moving to a more ephemeral and brief form of communication among our peers rather than sharing entire stories.
I see this as more an iteration than true innovation. It looks as though they're taking your existing Facebook content and putting it in a different wrapper. A pretty wrapper, to be sure, but in the end I think it will still be filled with things like "pg said If I get 50 million likes I can be on the front page of HN."
I think the direction Facebook is going with splitting the services in to apps that solve different use cases is a good thing. Let the user use their social graph in the specific ways they want/need to.
Personally, I mostly use FB for private messages from family members, some private groups, and their group event planning. I don't use it for the feed consumption.
I agree, it seems that new facebook strategy is to spread the use of their platform using mobile apps. This will increase their mobile ad presence. But, I'm curious if this is an indication of the weakness in their mobile ad exchange because other mobile apps which use facebook platform doesn't seem to satisfy them.
Pretty. I like the UI innovative touches for flipping through content, panning pictures, etc. The video does a good job of selling it. Alas, not for me.
It seems to me a type of app better suited perhaps to the tablet format. Personally I'm over consuming content like this on my phone. In most cases I may skim something quickly and if it really catches my attention then I'll wait until I'm on a bigger screen to explore it further.
The Share section tries to make the point of "the most important stories… your own" and it's a good one, well presented. From my own personal experience though I believe that most of the people I follow online, whether prolific or not, will not dedicate a lot of time to "production" work as in selecting headlines, backgrounds for those headers, more than a couple of beautiful pictures (they never really come out as good as presented), etc. to create a flip-book like these. This will be a good medium for… commercial producers? as shown, the CNNs, Time magazines, of course the Verge, Engadgenet, etc, and that's what I'd end up consuming only to finally uninstall.
What a bunch of grumpy old men. I bet everybody sitting here taking shots at this app 1) have never created anything nearly as cool 2) would not have understood Apple in its hayday 3) spend too much time reading and taking shots at other people's work.
I'm all for being cynical and questioning what's out there but you have to let the good stuff through. The design here is first class. The Facebook guys have outdone themselves. Yes, it's a culmination of a large body of work that's come before with a few novel improvements. That's how art works. Quit bitching and do something useful.
Yeah, it's getting kind of old scrolling past 1200 pixels of cynical foot stomping and grumbling before getting to anything relevant to the post. Yes, we needed all of that insightful talk about how bad hipsters suck and how marketing grumble grumble grumble.
I'm not convinced that I like Facebook or any of my friends content enough to want ANOTHER channel of absorbing it. However, the app seems to be beautifully executed and the marketing page is pretty flawless. Some of the memory concerns aside, I love when companies create those kinds of landing pages. Like this one: http://www.knocktounlock.com/
Unrelated comment, but why is it becoming a design trend now to hide the scrollbars on websites? Luckily I accidentally hit the space bar, so I saw there was more content there, but without that I would have had no idea there was more information. I've seen this happen on a number of sites, so I don't think it's just Chrome failing to render the site. I just don't understand what possible reason there could be to deliberately hide the scroll bar.
I agree, I hardly use Facebook anymore. But I'm still open minded enough not to disparage everything the company does on some kind of misguided principle.
Based on what they present, the concept highly depends on the content. This poses an issue that is not touched upon at all in their presentation. So mentioning / discussing it on HN is in my opinion relevant.
With the number of comments about never having seen/used a typewriter before, I'm guessing they're mainly grumpy young people.
I'm not at all a fan of facebook, but the design here is really solid and the marketing sells it quite well. I wonder if the Instagram team worked on this.
Of my 300+ Facebook friends, one guy consistently posts the stereotypical millenial thing described here of "beautiful hike on the coast with Sharon". If someone else started doing that, I'd probably have to cut one of them off.
Fewer friends seem to have real pictures of themselves and more have cartoons, cats and memes.
This format looks great for presenting what people imagine as a great Facebook post. But I actually think the majority of people don't use Facebook for this - the hippest are already off Facebook and, well, good riddance.
Putting aside the marketing-blather tone of your post, what is this "more"?
Who would create this "more"?
The nice thing about my existing news feed is that it is created by the people I either know or have a rather specific affinity to. Either way, they create stuff that actually is interesting specifically to me. And only about 5-10 of them are capable of producing video or the equvilent. Most produce essays, quips, collages and cat-pictures - not stuff with huge production values or stuff with a cinematic or whatever tone. Just relevant things.
So what would be added? Ipso facto irrelevant stuff.
When you get to play with it next week, you'll understand. Newsfeed is one section, and you can choose from a variety of others to flip through. They will be curated and high quality. See recent posts like: http://recode.net/2014/01/27/facebook-is-seeking-editors-for...
Will the curators be as obtusely disconnected from their readers as your replies to my posts have been?
I mean, my argument is that there is fundamental difference, a wide gulf, between a feed of friends' posts and a curated stream of news article, even if some friend's posts contain some links.
A friend might, say, object to my argument using a counter-argument whereas, for example, a marketing bot would respond with a stream of text all of which is synonymous with "don't worry, it will be great".
If all you want is a feed of your friends posts, then you have the Facebook app.
I'm not a marketing bot... I work on the Parse team. You asked two questions in your response, I answered them.
All I said originally is that it's more than just newsfeed. It was not my intention to argue a point, simply to clarify. Oh, and don't worry, it will be great.
I've been blogging for over five years. I'm also an avid Facebook user in that I try to post statuses that are interesting and relevant to my audience instead of just the usual "I ate a grilled cheese for lunch and now I feel feelings about it". I also, as of recently, ironically own a typewriter and I am working on a novel. Basically, I love creating content.
Theoretically, I am the target market for this product because it's supposed to lure me into divulging more longform-ish content to Facebook and creating narratives about it.
I was completely repelled by the ad, not only because I still don't see how this product differentiates from Facebook_regular, but because of the vast array of hipsters doing things that have nothing to do with actual Facebook. If you like photography and animation and writing in the Real World, why would you want to move that content to Facebook? If you create content digitally, why would you want to do it on anything except for a platform you own?
Moreover, I was horrified to see that woman not only Facebooking ("Papering?") in the bathtub, but sharing pictures of her fetus, which could then be enlarged by anyone who cares enough.
Lots of people put ultrasound pics of their future kids on Facebook. It's not even that weird, considering the emotional intensity that picture must have for the poster.
I agree that lots of people do it, and they do it to foster an emotional reaction, and that sharing ultrasounds with people close to you is a very positive experience.
But I feel uneasy that we're encouraging this kind of privacy invasion from the very beginning, that leads to things like this[1]. The piece is, of course, reductio ad absurdum, but not completely out of the realm of the ordinary.
I don't have a source, because most of the young kids whose lives have been shared without their consent have been having their lives shared for less than 10 years (Facebook started in 2004 and was rolled out to the general public in 2006 [1]), so we'll have to wait before academic studies start coming out on the topic of oversharing.
I am coming at the topic anecdotally (where sites like STFUParents[2] exist for people who are tired of overshare or people who have been fired or arrested for things they shared on social networks come into play.)
If anyone has links that either prove or disprove that sharing pictures of small children/sonograms is beneficial, I would be really interested in seeing them.
I just tend to skew towards guarded when it comes to sharing private medical information and pictures, especially of minors who don't have a say in whether you do or not.
Not in enlarging, but in sharing. Why are we sharing ultrasound pictures? Should we be? What if something goes wrong and the woman has a miscarriage? Who's keeping these pictures (outside of FB)? Who's sharing them with others? At what point is it ok/not ok to share pictures of kids/future kids?
My point is that it's an interesting philosophical question that has a lot of implications, and I personally don't like the fact that Facebook is casually encouraging the action through their commercial, which I'm sure pushes it further into the realm of acceptable social norms.
If something is shared publicly (i.e. willingly) with "the Internet" as you put it, we have a right to question it. If it's being shared on the Internet and I am a recipient, why can't I question if it's appropriate? I.e. If someone is sharing a picture on Facebook, they are explicitly soliciting feedback/approval. The give and take of this is that I, even as a passive recipient, can have an opinion.
If you're not interested in other peoples' opinions of your content, and that's entirely your right, then I would argue that you shouldn't share it in a public forum.
this looks like an idea that was tried so many times and people just don't care. I think about smart tags in GMail here, or circles. Most people simply don't micromanage their data flows according to topics. Maybe I simply don't get the difference here, but if I am right, then I am deeply disappointed and frustrated to see people spend money and smart developers' time into ideas that already failed years ago.
I think the difference here is that Facebook will categorise all the content. in effect they will manage what goes into the Tech or news or Creativity buckets. You just say which you want to see by default.
I understood that part as if there will be content especially for Paper, categorised (by creator) and readable for everyone. If they actually think they can categorise the stuff that is now my Facebook experience and get anything close to what is seen in the video, I'd be pleasantly surprised.
Some beautiful design and thoughtful UI in the app here, and this is also a lovely microsite - I love the use of the video full screen. It'd be great to see some of this sort of thoughtful design go into the UI of web browsers on mobile platforms (which are also platforms for reading and sharing stories).
Is it really all that different from some of the iconic ads[1] from the 1950s? Seems like it's mostly the same story-telling technique but slightly tweaked to take advantage of video and interaction. I wonder if it won't really change (apart from new tech which makes it just routing similarly-structured stories directly into your brain or something) because the kinds of stores we react two isn't really evolving that quickly either.
Regardless of the FB hate that seems to be spreading in this forum the app itself has a lot to appreciate. Im not a facebook user, and I'm not sure how much of this will really get used by the average facebook user. However, this iOS app appears to be very well done, and if it behaves as well as the demo shows is a nice benchmark for mobile app UX. It actually makes me want to start digging into the new iOS 7 APIs.
It's funny they choose to tease it, instead of aving an 'get it now' call to action from day one [edit: I would have tried it now as I see it for the first time, I'm not sure I'll care for another content feed app in 3 days, especially as it will have discussed to death in meantime]. And I don't get the link between the name and the app. Is it paper as in newspaper ?
Happened to me as well. Can't understand why huge companies with a wide variety of visitors use techniques that deliver sub-par experiences so often. I'm running the latest version of Firefox with a $2k Macbook Pro.
I tried three different browsers. Opera was very laggy, Chrome just showed one frame and Firefox was moderately laggy. Resizing the tab helped a bit. Audio was choppy as well. My HW specs are far from low (though it is not a gaming machine either).
I couldn't pause the video, fast forward it or even see any indicator of progress. I didn't even expect volume settings.
Considering all this, the page is simply horrible. It might look nice (on paper perhaps), but the UX is the worst. Visuals alone don't make good sites.
Garbage like this actually has an effect on me that's the exact opposite of what's intended: I will, under no circumstances whatsoever, ever use any product from Facebook with the name "paper" in it.
Is it me, or is it just facebook with news feeds and a nice big handful of gestures. Their must be a massive increase in RSI due to hundreds of apps/interfaces with different gesture controls. I don't know if my muscle memory has anymore room for this app. Im going to end up loosing important things, like konami codes...
Yeah, he's actually talked quite a bit about how Facebook constantly takes out startups and you never know when you're going to be next. What tragic luck! Hope he pulls through.
The underlying assumption at FB seems to be that people are interested in (something like a) magazine but one curated not by professional journalists, designers and advertisers but rather curated by uncle joe, grandma bessie, etc. I know which magazine I'd rather read.
As a new frontend programmer, what kind of libraries did Facebook use to create a page like this with full screen video/the "explore" page which has thumb moving on it? Was it a type of JS? Was it Flash? Just wondering...
So, for one, I had to watch the video twice to try to figure out what the app actually does. Though, I suppose maybe that's just my own ineptitude. Because I'm still not sure what it does.
Secondly, what is the market for this? I can already make my own "paper" type thing with Flipboard or the myriad other options on the market. Considering this seems like something I need to not only download, but take time to customize, does Facebook expect people to switch right on over to them?
Why can't I just go on Facebook or Twitter and see what stories my friends are sharing? That's the point, isn't it? I don't get it.
Funny, my feed is becoming a mini-reddit with mostly memes and I was thinking "if the news for this app comes from my friends, I may need other friends". But I think news from friends is not the entire purpose of Paper, so there's hope for me. Then again, I have an Android and apparently even the biggest company's do not there do double-launch.
When the girl in the bath came on screen I remembered I was watching a video of a bunch of people who are addicted to their f'ing iPhones. And then I felt like I was watching an episode of Black Mirror.
Can't we wait for it to exist and then talk about it?
Who knows whether it will be intuitive or not. Can't tell from that video. My phone isn't as still as the one in the video,
I don't like too much swiping of little bits and pieces all the time. Tap, swipe, all day long.. just show me the content and stop making a zilion forks in the road. You're making me put my hand in front of the screen every 2 seconds, it looks like hard work to me... all that swiping and endless mashup of random stuff.
According to The Verge not only is this iPhone only - it's US ONLY! Seriously a news reader app limited by location. Can anyone come up with a half sane reason they are doing that?
Is this a native app or a web app running in a browser? I watched the video (at work, so without sound) and I can't tell. If its browser based then I'm extremely impressed.
Anybody know how they kept the phone so still in those videos? The hand holding it doesn't move. Is there a pole underneath attaching it to a surface we can't see?
On the first time, I wondered how the Paper creators manage to create a Facebook page without the Facebook branding, then realized it is Facebook's thing :-)
Why name it Paper since it is just another UI for a subset of Facebook's features? You can comment, like, view posts, and only the new thing is categories. It is almost everything you do on Facebook, once you can upload something, it can be called a new UI for Facebook, replacing the old one. Why confuse with Paper? Now I have two apps for Facebook, one for reading one for writing, great.
Reading the (few) details, it seems pretty poor at algorithmic level, in the sense of how it choose the stories for you.
I wonder what the best strategy is, while in the past we had ugly interfaces with interesting algos (e.g., reddit), now it seems there's just UX/UI... my question is: is this a viable solution? Can you build UX first, and then complete it with better algos?
This reminds me of drop.io - a company Facebook purchased several years ago. I suspect Lessin, one of the founders and a writer played a role in this very polished storytelling metaphor for what amounts to content integration and sharing utility. If they carryover the phone, chat and other mediums from drop.io they may have something.
Facebook is trying get in the market of successful concepts like Flipboard and Pulse. Why wouldn't Facebook like to mine what people (and their 'Friends') 'like' and show them relevant news when Flipboard and Pulse connect to your Facebook, churn what you shared in the past and show you news which you might like.
It looks beautiful - which is what I have come to expect from the designers over there at facebook. I love how Mike and Sharon's trips are used in their marketing materials, it is a nice personal touch.
The facebook timeline is starting to feel extremely stale - if facebook can make it so its users can tell better stories then I am all for it.
Quick suggestion: a reminder that this app is coming. Rather than tell me to share it, remember that February 3 is days away and I'm not really inspired to put it on my calendar. would have been great to see a request to get notified on launch via my choice of social network / e-mail.
From that article: "Paper is the first product from Facebook Creative Labs, where we’re crafting new apps to support the diverse ways people want to connect and share." -> Put things a bit in perspective for me.
This looks like the work of Mike Matas and the rest of the team from Push Pop Press. Nice to see them be able to work on a full experience like this after being acquired by Facebook.
Agreed. A lot of the interactions shown matches previous Push Pop work (some almost exactly -- page to image to full screen). But I do find it odd that it'll take them close to four years (from acquisition) to get this to market.
Being able to deliver rich, full-screen stories to you implies being able to deliver rich, full-screen video ads to you. And that's where the money is.
Why announce now if it's not available till February? I suppose if the news sites inundate me with more articles about this app, I'll remember to try it out.
So if you share something on Paper would it also show up on Facebook? I can't tell if Paper is a new platform/app or just another way of browsing Facebook.
Facebook will always need a home page if for no other reason than to manage who you friend and what you are reading. They are interested in creating more stand alone apps ala Messenger. Paper is just another stand alone facebook app - and looks to be a very good one to me.
Wonder how much the experience would degrade with a lesser internet connection. Even WiFi probably won't keep up with that, but perhaps enough. But 3G?
I think this is another prime example of building a vitamin instead of building a medicine. Do I really need this? How is this different from FlipBoard?
I clicked that link and my web browser gave me a type of popup I didn't think it could, declaring: "This is a next generation website that is best viewed in an advanced web browser such as Apple's Safari. You will be able to view the site using this browser but the performance may be poor."
Then my browser nearly died before I could close the tab.
