Facebook News App ‘Paper’ To Shut Down

The Facebook news reading app, Paper, will be shut down indefinitely on July 29th following its failure to appeal to the average Facebook user.

The premise of the app was that it would transform the regular Facebook experience into a customizable newsreader, allowing users to view posts in different categories such as politics, technology or food. When the app was introduced in 2014, Facebook hired Mike Matas of the design firm Push Pop Press to develop the overall look and design of the app, this would be Facebooks first step towards a sleeker, more modern look for their apps.

One of the main aspects that was praised by tech bloggers was the smooth animation of the app and how they made use of the app more intuitive. For example if a user was to tap on a link it would unfold like a letter or if they were to pull down on a story it would fold back up and return you to the apps main newsfeed.

However Paper, despite its ease of use, did not appeal to the average user and has not ranked amongst the top 1500 downloaded apps since December of 2014. The app never even managed to migrate to Android and was solely an iOS based program, Facebook hadn’t even updated it since March of 2015 until its deletion date. Facebook has stated that they felt the Paper app was no longer needed as most of the features that it offered had been migrated into other Facebook apps such as their Instant Articles app.

Instant Articles has acted as the spiritual successor of Paper and combined many of the features of Paper that were so highly praised by tech bloggers with an easier to integrate design that fits in with the current Facebook apps.

Lucas Nolan is a Journalism and Media student at Dublin Business School and a regular contributor to Breitbart Tech. He can be contacted via Twitter here: @LucasNolan_