Last week, Flipboard and Oprah Winfrey launched the official “Oprah” section on Flipboard, the world’s first social magazine designed for Apple’s iPad.
The branded section will curate content from Oprah herself, Oprah.com, The Oprah Winfrey Show, OWN, and O, The Oprah Magazine. Flipboard’s largest media partnership to date, Oprah’s section is receiving Facebook and Twitter social media status with a home on Flipboard’s opening page.
A first for Flipboard, Glenn Kaino, senior vice president, digital, OWN, said “This is a great way for Oprah’s audience all over the world to have access to and share content from Oprah’s various platforms.”Flipboard’s mission to fundamentally improve how people discover, view and share content across their social networks, has been well received. The innovative app curates social media content and reassembles it in a personalized and easy-to-navigate format with headlines and pictures similar to glossy, print magazines.
In many ways, the partnership is an expected next step for Flipboard. The company has successfully teamed up with other well-known publishers in the past. An explanation for Flipboard’s unique partnership with Oprah could be the app’s dynamic subscriber demographic. Early adopters of Flipboard had a tech feed focus. With time and exposure, the app now holds the attention of a broader audience giving way to mainstream business interest.
According to All Things Digital, Flipboard’s co-founder and CEO Mike McCue confirmed the company has received $50 million in funding at its estimated $200 million valuation. The bulk of the new second round of funding – Flipboard had previously raised $10.5 million – came from New York-based Insight Venture Partners. Although Flipboard has yet to record any revenue, its value is driven by a high-end customer base and the addition of the Oprah section, featuring her successful media ventures, will bring with it her dedicated audience and the opportunity to for both to benefit lucratively.
Ranked with Facebook and Twitter, the “Oprah Flipboard experience” will come pre-loaded on all Flipboard apps going forward. Users who aren’t interested in the Oprah branded app update can easily opt out.
Rivals and publishers, who aren’t interested in sharing revenues with Flipboard, have begun to build their own apps with a similar functionality. Flipboard states they have no future plans for branded partnerships, which leaves competitors like Tweetmag and Newsmix the opportunity to claim other successful brands
