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Sun - 19.05.2013

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mobile technology

Study finds Dutch youth not interested in mobile news or citizen journalism

A study carried out as part of an online survey by the research agency DECODE as part of an international benchmark project of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers in 2008, has found that Dutch youth (based on 1,000 people between the ages of 15 to 29) are neither interested in receiving news via mobile applications nor taking part in citizen journalism projects. They also do not find newspaper sections aimed at young people a compelling reason to regularly pick up a paper. They do, however, judge news media fairly positively.

Whilst initially surprising, the results of the study "Youth, news media and civic engagement," are in line with findings of a new study by IBM's Media and Entertainment Group, which shows that online news consumption has dropped among young adults, but risen among older consumers, calling into question the assumption that young people read more online news and older people favour printed publications.

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Author

Helena Humphrey

Date

2010-01-27 19:19

Financial Times to launch Blackberry app and micropayments

The Financial Times (FT) will launch a new mobile app for Blackberry in the first half of this year, and an app for Android is in the works, managing director of FT.com Rob Grimshaw told Journalism.co.uk.

The FT recently launched a series of travel guide iPhone apps. And the paper already has an iPhone app, which has been downloaded 200,000 times, but has rejected charging for the app. "The fact is you only get one hit from that and then after that the revenue stream dries up," Grimshaw said. "We thought it would be much more sensible and favourable to make it part of the subscription model."

The subscription model has been successful for the paper, which now makes more from content revenue than from advertising.

Non-subscribers can download the app for free but are limited to reading three articles per month. Grimshaw said that the newspaper receives new subscribers every week who wanted the app, adding that a feature may be introduced which allows users to subscribe via mobile.

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Author

Elizabeth Redman

Date

2010-01-22 18:49

WSJ launches mobile websites for Asia, Europe

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has launched a new mobile-optimised website for its Asia edition, and another for its Europe edition, allowing users to access regional news on any web-enabled mobile phone.

The Asia edition features updates from Asia.WSJ.com and includes text from the sections What's News, Markets, Technology, Opinion, Personal Finance and Life & Style, as well as additional market-specific news from China and India.

The Europe edition, from Europe.WSJ.com, features similar news sections, except with market-specific news from the UK and Europe and a section titled Europe In-Depth. It will update as often as the website itself.

The WSJ recently redesigned the Chinese version of its website. General manager of the WSJ digital network in Asia, Olivier Legrand, called the regional mobile site a "natural evolution for our product and a sign of our commitment in developing locally relevant products for our users".

"After launching regional sites, regional BlackBerry applications and local language sites, we continue to serve our readers with relevant products across all platforms," he said. The WSJ will continue to expand its digital network in Asia this year, he added, with plans for a mobile application for India and an iPhone application for Japan and China.

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Author

Elizabeth Redman

Date

2010-01-22 13:03

Financial Times launches travel guide apps

The Financial Times has launched a series of new iPhone apps for its FT-branded travel guides, Brand Republic reports. `

The newspaper publishes the Little Book of Business Travel series. Content from the guides to Beijing, Hong Kong, Macau and Shanghai will be available on the new apps. And their content will be primarily the work of FT journalists.
The apps are free to consumers, funded through advertising on BBC.com, BBC mobile and a number of mobile ad networks. They are available from the Apple and Blackberry stores.

The Financial Times launched an iPhone app last year, offering news, analysis and market data. It is also free to download, but much of its content is only available to paying subscribers. This has been a successful strategy for the business newspaper, which now earns more from content revenue than advertising revenue.

Mobile news may be an important future revenue stream for newspapers. Diversifying mobile offerings would seem to make sound business sense.

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Author

Elizabeth Redman

Date

2010-01-21 12:23

AFP launches paid iPhone app

Amid all the buzz about the potential to make money from mobile news, news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) has become the latest news organisation to launch an iPhone app.

The application also works on the iPod Touch and costs $1.99 from the Apple store.

"It gives access to the global news agency's multimedia content in English, Spanish, Portuguese and German, including breaking world news from wars and conflicts to politics, sport and entertainment, as well as the latest major developments in health, science and technology," AFP said in a statement.

The application also allows clients of the news agency to adapt it for their own use. Customers can then use it to distribute their own content, under their own masthead. French news organisation La Dépêche du Midi has just done so, launching a free app which contains its own news articles as well as video from AFP.

This is part of a strategy to cover all mobile news needs, AFP said.

"We believe that it is our mission to offer our clients mobile-ready content and technological solutions, so they can expand their visibility and reach new audiences," AFP sales and marketing director Erik Monjalous said.

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Author

Elizabeth Redman

Date

2010-01-18 18:14

Thefanclub.com: Twitter for sports

The future of Twitter is mobile phone applications, says Jean-Sébastien Cruz, CEO of Netco Sports, France, speaking at the WAN-IFRA conference 'Using sports news to optimise your revenues'.

He points to some important trends in the areas of social networking and mobile applications. Newspapers that create pages on Twitter find themselves on the same level as any user, he says. The iPhone has the fastest penetration we've seen, and is rapidly changing the way we use the web, pressing buttons rather than using URLs. The Apple tablet is coming soon. Apple makes payment easy through the centralised App store, and provides a robust software development kit. And sports apps make up a substantial part of the massive growth in app downloads.

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Author

Elizabeth Redman

Date

2010-01-15 18:58

Guardian iPhone app could net £2 million a year, says paidContent

Income from iPhone apps is nothing to scoff at. The Guardian's app costs £2.39, and the UK newspaper announced it has sold almost 69,000 app downloads since the app's launch in December. At that rate, income from the app alone could reach £1.97 million a year, paidContent reported today.

In the first 48 hours after launching the app, the Guardian made £20,000. It is currently listed in the top 10 news apps on Apple's Web site. However, Apple does get a 30 percent commission, and these figures are before that commission is taken, paidContent pointed out.

For more on this story please see our sister publication www.sfnblog.com

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Author

Emma Goodman's picture

Emma Goodman

Date

2010-01-15 17:22

Overview of how newspapers are using sports to increase revenue

At the WAN-IFRA conference on how to optimise sports revenues, Stanislas Sabatier, a senior consultant at SapienS&Sapide gave an overview of ways in which newspapers around the world have used sports sections to increase readership and revenue.

He began by describing two websites which he thinks could inspire newspapers. ESPN has been launching local sites in the US - directly in competition with general local newspapers. The first was in April in Chicago, and the company has moved through major US cities, planning to launch in spring in New York, and it intends to come to the UK soon. These launches have been a great success for ESPN - the local audience in Chicago is higher than that of newspapers which were already there. Clearly the market wasn't already saturated, said Sabatier, it was an opportunity that local newspapers missed.

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Author

Emma Goodman's picture

Emma Goodman

Date

2010-01-14 21:55

L'Equipe: Case study

The mobile offerings of L'Equipe are profitable, says Sébastien Valere, VP Marketing and Operations of L'Equipe 24/24 in France, speaking at the WAN-IFRA conference 'Using sports news to optimise your revenues'.

91% of the French have a mobile phone, with the operators including Orange, SFR, Bouygues and Free. 25% of mobile subscribers access the network through 3G, which means easier access to mobile data and surfing. He expects that two years from now, 75% of the population will have a smart phone, up from 35% now. The iPhone has been successful in France, and more devices will arrive on the market. Unlimited access subscriptions are offered, with subscriptions available for around €60 per month. Smart phones translate into massive content use.

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Author

Elizabeth Redman

Date

2010-01-14 16:40

Monetizing sports content on mobile devices

Mobile advertising is not yet a source of revenue that publishers can bank on, according to Constantine Kamaras, CEO of the Greek sports portal Sport.gr, speaking at the WAN-IFRA conference 'Using sports news to optimise your revenues'.

His publication Sport.gr has around 500,000 unique users per month, with about 15000 registered users. Advertising makes up 77% of their revenue, and mobile 8%. He says that users are less reluctant to pay for mobile content, but warns that mobile advertising will make up at best 6% of interactive advertising in 2010 globally, and will be only 2% in the US, lagging behind social media and online video.

"It's not news that drives the uptake of smart phones," he warned, pointing to other important trends such as search and online communities.
In Greece, there is a high penetration of mobile, and a low but fast growing penetration of smart phones, with very few paid applications. The best-known application, for Greece's leading daily newspaper, has had 15,000 downloads. Mobile is a secondary medium to the web, Kamaras says.

He hypothesises that smart phones will reach basic mass in mid-2010, but will not yet be at critical mass. "Paid applications will be the exception, not the rule," he said, adding that mobile advertising will not take off until mid-2011, when the national economy starts growing again.

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Author

Elizabeth Redman

Date

2010-01-14 16:33

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