Flipboard tests new business model

Flipboard, ‘the world’s first social magazine’ – a iPad app that allows you to create your own digital magazine from shared links – is conducting an ad test with publishers.

The Flipboard Pages trial allows the company to pull together publishers’ content in to the app and surround it with a big full-page ad especially designed for the iPad, according to Advertising Age.

Flipboard plans to share advertising revenue with its publisher partners, which include ABC News, News Corp’s AllThingsD, Conde Nast’s Bon Appetit, Hearst’s San Francisco Chronicle and The Washington Post.

The current trial will see Flipboard selling the inventory, but publishers may end up taking control of the selling eventually. “The first priority is to test new ideas that help brand advertising traditionally reserved for print expand to the publisher’s digital content,” said Marci McCue, who heads marketing for the firm.

If publishers sign up for Flipboard pages, the app will be able to feature entire stories and features with a customised layout, as opposed to the first few lines and a link as it currently does.

Advertisers who have signed up to participate in the test include Pepsi, Gatorade, Infiniti, The CW, Showtime, Levi’s, Dockers, Hilton Worldwide and GE.