Some longstanding Twitter users have started to question what platform may one day replace it as the hub of journalism, sports, and politics amid the nearly two months of instability since Elon Musk took over as the new owner and CEO. On Tuesday, Flipboard, a social reading app, will roll out a new set of features designed to expand the program’s purpose beyond just reading and sharing articles and links.

With the new updates, posting to Flipboard, including sharing links, photographs, videos, and podcasts, will be a breeze. On many Flipboard displays, clicking the new pen-and-paper symbol button in the upper right corner will bring up a minimal window reminiscent of Twitter. According to Mike McCue, CEO of Flipboard, his company created the app so that users would publish short messages or queries to the community rather than lengthy articles or blog entries.

“You can’t establish community without people being able to communicate to one other,” McCue said in an interview.

For this reason, in addition to making notes, members of Flipboard’s topic-based communities will have a more streamlined way of commenting on one another’s links and notes. McCue claims that the software at his firm would prioritise comments from people you know and those that are assessed to be of better quality.

For this reason, in addition to making notes, members of Flipboard’s topic-based communities will have a more streamlined way of commenting on one another’s links and notes. McCue claims that the software at his firm would prioritise comments from people you know and those that are assessed to be of better quality. c Flipboard has always distinguished out due to its calmer design and friendlier look, showcasing groups of individuals who share interests in things like hiking, photography, and science. McCue explains that this is due in large part to the way in which his team promotes the behaviour of their community and the content that is promoted by Flipboard’s computer systems.

Flipboard’s staff created their app to emphasise must-reads from sources Flipboard has validated as responsible and trustworthy, whereas Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit have grappled with how to stimulate healthy dialogues on their platforms. Users of Flipboard are less likely to see items like outrage-driven headlines from dubious sites that might generate drama, furious comment threads, and other sorts of interaction.

McCue remarked, “You still have nasty actors,” but their numbers have decreased since the system is designed to deprioritize such actions. He also said the business had “no qualms” about removing users who are disruptive. He emphasised that “feature set” alone was insufficient. Simply said, “the tone.”

This strategy seems to be effective thus far. McCue has failed to update the 145 million monthly users his team estimated for the site last year, but he has pointed to statistics from analytics firm Parse.ly to claim that Flipboard is tied with Twitter as one of the top five traffic referrers on the web.

According to McCue, Google will have access to every user’s postings and comments. Like current-day contributions to subreddits and niche forums, they may eventually show up in search results.

Flipboard, McCue explained, is meant to be an alternative to the “town square” comparison of Twitter and Facebook, where users yell their opinions to anybody who would listen. He compared Flipboard to “hosting a dinner party at your place.” People are surprisingly chill when you get them together in small groups centred on a common interest and you establish the mood, as one participant put it.

Tuesday, January 2nd, the new features will be available on Flipboard’s website, and in January, they will be made available in the company’s free mobile apps for iOS and Android devices.