As most people have flocked in recent years to view websites and videos on their smartphones and tablets rather than on computers, many sites now get upwards of 90 percent of their traffic from mobile. That includes the social magazine app Flipboard, prompting it to announce two related programs today to help publishers reach more mobile readers and viewers.

Flipboard said it has seen an escalating number of publishers looking to get on its platform following a revamp in February that pulled in content from a wider variety of sources. Problem is, it no longer can keep up with its backlog. The company vets sites to make sure they’re a quality experience, not allowing adult or fake news sites, for example.

“That’s been a very hands-on process,” Flipboard founder and Chief Executive Mike McCue said in an interview. The ability for people to create more ultrapersonalized “Smart Magazines” led Flipboard to realize there were many more niche sites and blogs that deserved to be surfaced on the platform.

So today, Flipboard is announcing a self-service publisher portal where new publishers can sign up to add, edit and organize their content automatically on the app. “Any publisher can create art, add an RSS feed or multiple ones, and create a magazine” that’s automatically curated, McCue said.

Each publisher will still have to be approved by Flipboard first. Existing publishers can log on and add or manage RSS feeds. The new publisher program will depend on an existing team of curators around the world, who vet sites and monitor content. “This will be more proactive, rather than reactive,” McCue said.

Publishers also will get new tools to curate their feeds, in particular tools to allow people to follow sites and share buttons on articles. Later, McCue anticipates offering easier ways for people to subscribe to newsletters.

Reader-friendly rules

Another problem the mobile migration has caused Flipboard, which made its name with its elegant interface for mobile devices, is that too many mobile websites just aren’t very well-designed. So today, the company is also announcing what it calls its Reader Enhanced Display Bolt program intended to ensure sites are reader-friendly.

RED Bolt, as it’s called for short, is a red lightning bolt icon (pictured) that indicates a site loads in less than about a second, doesn’t use aggressive pop-up ads and doesn’t redirect to a different site. Sites that don’t pass will get notified with details on how the fix the issues. But McCue said it’s much easier to create beautiful mobile sites today, including programs such as the open-source Accelerated Mobile Pages originally developed by Google LLC; in fact, those that meet AMP will be fast-tracked.

Flipboard will launch starting today with 200 publishers in the Red Bolt program, but that number will grow quickly, he said, to 1,000 to 2,000 after the first week and tens of thousands by the end of the year.

Publishers on Flipboard keep all of their own advertising revenue. In coming months, he said, the company will be looking at ways to syndicate Flipboard’s magazine-style brand ads, such as from Rolex SA, Apple Inc. and Gucci Group on the websites of publishers that are interested. “Hopefully the mobile web will become a better place,” McCue said.

For Flipboard, the new programs are an opportunity to appear more definitive, McCue said, with deeper content on customized interests through niche blogs such as on vinyl records. That should also help Flipboard offer more international content, he said.

Image: Flipboard