Financial Times joins Flipboard : Signals change for legal publishing

Jeff John Roberts (@jeffjohnroberts) of paidContent reports that like the New York Times the Financial Times is now making its content available through Flipboard.

Flipboard, a popular tablet reading platform for lawyers, enables users to draw on their social networks to assemble content from a variety of publications to create their own magazine-like experience.

The move comes as publishers realize how important it is to get their content to where people are consuming it and how they are consuming it.

The Flipboard partnership also reflects the fact that the FT and other publishers are keen to get their stories in as many places as possible at a time when readers are consuming more and more content on mobile.

From Rob Grimshaw (@r_g), the managing director of the Financial Times online:

I think the really interesting aspect to the platform is the way they’re giving readers the ability to create a bespoke user experience. I personally think this is going to be a strong strand in publishing and consumption of news in the digital space.

As with the New York Times, which started publishing on Flipboard last year, you still need to pay an underlying subscription to get full access to the Financial Times. Non-subscribers get a very limited view.

What’s the relevance to the law? Both law firms as well as traditional legal publishers (Wolters Kluwer, Thomson Reuters, ALM, LexisNexis) will need to start considering getting their stories and content where people are consuming content and in the format people are consuming content.

Neither law firms nor traditional publishers are going to be able to deliver content in an eloquent and effective fashion ala an innovative company like Flipboard can. Lack of resources for law firms, and lack of innovation for traditional legal publishers.

In addition, people consume content today in a curated fashion. It’s coming from people they trust via solutions like Flipboard. Articles and stories from one source appear right along side those from another source.

Do you think law firms are going to run content from another firm on their sites and publishing solutions? How about Thomson Reuters doing so for LexisNexis?

Strong relevant content in the law will be every bit as important. It’s the way the content is distributed and consumed that’s going to change. Change dramatically.