Like many folks, I suspect, I’m a creature of habit in the morning.
At least until the coffee kicks in and the dog is walked.
I like doing some reading for my own purposes. I’ve always done this and tucked the best of the stories away for future reference. My Diigo account is the perfect place. The stories are there for later research and also my first place to go when I need to do a search on a topic since I’ve already vetted the content.
For the longest time, Zite has been my go-to reading application in the morning. A while ago, it was acquired by Flipboard but it’s still alive and well giving me my morning reads. However, as noted in the blog post, it’s not going to be around forever. I always lived in fear of the day that the other shoe would drop and I’d have to change things.
Zite is an application for the iPad and Android. For my morning reads, I grab my coffee and sit in my chair and do my reading. Like many iPad owners, I’m frustrated with the state of the wifi and the recent iOS upgrade did nothing to fix it. The problem is well documented and the chain on the Apple Support Forums is the longest that I’ve encountered when I turn there looking for a solution. I’ve tried all of the suggestions there but there are, quite frankly, days when I can’t use the iPad because of problems. It’s not that it’s a long distance from the WAP to the iPad (maybe 25m?) and I do have a technique for at least a partial solution by orienting it in a particular direction but that’s not always successful.
However, there’s good news! I’ve always known that I’ll have to move to Flipboard but that move may be sooner rather than later.
I logged in and poked around. This really looks promising.
All my created content, of course, is there.
It’s not that I’m new to using Flipboard. All the topic areas that I would normally follow on the iPad are there and ready to read.
The presentation is a bit different. Rather than flipping through the stories like you would on the iPad, it takes advantage of the infinite scrolling ability of a modern browser. I’ll need the discipline to set a limit on the amount of scrolling time rather than testing out the definition of infinite.
Most importantly, I’ll be able to ditch the iPad for reading and just use a laptop instead. It doesn’t suffer from the wifi woes.
I am excited about this movement. Zite has promised to incorporate some of its searching technology into the Flipboard product as part of the acquisition. This promises to give the best of both worlds and, without the wifi frustration, what could be better?
That’s just about me. This might be the tipping point for schools as well. Rather than trying to maintain a webpage with new content, the school’s web person could create a Flipboard magazine for the school and flip resources and content there for parents. With both mobile and web options, a Flipboard solution become readily available to everyone.
doug -- off the record 
Please share your thoughts here. I’d enjoy reading them.