Facebook will enter its second decade by starting over entirely.
The new beginning comes courtesy of Paper, a standalone iPhone application for reading and writing the news, which will launch February 3, the eve of Facebook's 10-year anniversary.
Metaphorically, Paper is the 2014 version of Facebook, unencumbered by the rigid walls erected over the past 10 years, yet supported by the foundation of 1.23 billion people.
More literally, Paper presents News Feed's standbys -- photos, videos, and articles -- in new formats designed for enjoyment on smartphones. The app also comes with newspaperlike sections such as sports, entertainment, food, and even cute (for adorable animal pics) that you can add to your personalized zine to gather news on the topics you care about.
Back to the lab
The app is the first of several singular applications to be developed and released by Facebook Creative Labs. The unit is a startup-like group separated from the operational strictures that come along with a company of Facebook's size. The team has been granted, by none other than CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the freedom to do its own thing so that people like Product Manager Michael Reckhow and Product Designer Mike Matas can come up with radically different ideas.
The team checks in with Zuckerberg for guidance, of course, but the group mostly answers to its individual creative whims.
The company's 10-year anniversary seems as good an opportunity as any to trot out Creative Labs and set the tone for what's to come in the years ahead.
Recomposing Facebook With Paper, Facebook has deconstructed the network into little bits and put a few of the pieces back together to make something else entirely. As a standalone app, the ad-free Paper can only hurt Facebook if it becomes so popular that people dramatically cut back on their usage of the main app, where Facebook needs a large audience to make money from ads.
The reconstruction effort started with cosmetic surgery to the tools that pump blood into Facebook's most-viewed body part: News Feed. News Feed is the source for all that is happening in your network, but it's not exactly designed for elegant storytelling.
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