I’ve been beta-testing a great new iPad application called Flipboard for a while, and yesterday it was released to the public as a free app.

Flipboard creates a magazine that is customized just for you, based on content from your Twitter and Facebook accounts and from predefined news feeds. It presents it all in a unified and very nice visual design, with a user interface that is a perfect fit for the iPad—easy and a lot of fun to use. Flipboard also lets you comment, like and share items.

The application goes beyond just pasting these snippets of information together. It creates a more interesting magazine by including linked content and images that you would normally only see after following those links. I’ve discovered lots of new things from my Twitter and Facebook friends because they were presented to me upfront.

Images alone don’t do it justice, you really have to see the way Flipboard makes use of animations and the iPad’s touch interface for yourself. This introduction video comes close, however:

If you want to know more, see the Flipboard website, read its review at the Mossberg Solution or if you have an iPad just go download it from the app store right now.

Congratulations to the Flipboard team on a great release!