Open Spirituality: Flipping out over FlipMags

So excited that I made an 'Issuu' out of it and started this post at 01:24am (GMT 00)

My sweet wife who works at homlesslink was working from home today researching web 2.0 and social media related content with regards to how these could be deployed effectively in the third sector.

I was finishing a blogpost about a free PDF writer, when she excitedly told me about the Free Issuu flipmagazine publishing platform. I got so overwhelmed that I decided to do this post instead, although the articles are kind of related as you shall discover.

Issuu Turns your PDF into a flippable eMag that can be embeded almost everywhere - for free!!!
Issuu gives anyone the ability to upload a PDF document and publish it as an online flippable/page turning magazine. Their tag line ‘Read the world, Publish the world,’ is based on building within the platform a community which shares commonn interests and 'reads'. But what's really, really powerful about Issuu is that you can 'embed it' into social networks/platforms like FaceBook, MySpace, orkut, Blogger, Friendster, TypePad, LiveJournal, or or on a webpage of your choice, either as a mini or as a link to a cutomized & larger version.

Other Free embedable 'enhanced PDF viewers' don't stack-up
Some may argue that Scribd and DocStoc offer poorer possibilities. But I must confess that I'm completely won over by Issuu's well thought out design, navigation and layout of the whole platform. But if you need your bases all covered, you've got the other two and if you have a teen market you want to reach you could check out Flip.

Well, afterall it appears that you will need a good free PDF writer to output your magazine design work...stay tuned. Meantime, check out the samples below.

Below is an embedded mini-mag to give you an idea...

But that's not all check out the quick tour that follows, to give you a better idea about how it works.

Image one Issuu magazine before zooming in...