How Apple plans to make 'Apple News' popular

Apple released its Apple News app without much fanfare – or success – last year. But a rollout of new initiatives plan to target readers and publishers alike. 

|
Shizuo Kambayashi/AP
In this Sept. 19, 2014 file photo, a customer shows off the new Apple iPhone 6 and 6 Plus at a store in Tokyo. Apple Inc. on Thursday, Jan. 8, 2015 said that its App Store customers set a record for billings by spending nearly half a billion dollars on apps and in-app purchases during January's first week.

Apple's news-aggregation service has been running since last year, but only a handful of iPhone users actually use the app. But Apple hopes to change that. 

After launching Apple News last year, CEO Tim Cook said that about 40 million people were checking Apple News daily. But with over 100 million iPhone users in the US alone as of July, Apple sees potential to grow in the publishing field – especially considering the News app is an automatically installed, undeletable app on the world's billion of iPhones with iOS 8. Regardless, Apple admits that its News user data is unreliable and probably inaccurate due to a software bug. 

Apple plans to roll out a number of new initiatives in hope of making Apple News "a thing."

Residents of San Francisco, Chicago, and New York will see billboards for Apple News in the coming months, and the rest of the country will see similar advertisements online. The ads feature an iPhone screen displaying a news article from any number of sources with the simple tagline, "Find it on your home screen," written next to an image of the app.  

While Apple promotes an ad campaign to hopefully grow the number of Apple News-reading regulars, it is simultaneously looking to become more attractive to those on the other side of the market: publishers.

Apple already partnered with over 100 major content publishers (such as CNN, ESPN, The New York Times, The Atlantic, Business Insider, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post) at the time of its initial release six months ago. The Christian Science Monitor is also available on the service. And starting this week, Apple will allow any publisher, no matter how small, to partner with the app. 

“This could be anyone from an individual with a blog to a local newspaper or magazine,” writes The Washington Post’s Hayley Tsukayama. “Opening up the platform to publishers of all sizes gives Apple far more variety to offer to its readers, who may want to turn to the app to get caught up on the news.” 

And for old and new publishing partners alike, Apple plans to make article performance easier to understand. 

Apple News publishers have been provided information such as how many people are reading an article, how long they are reading it for, and whether or not they choose to share it with others. But publishers repeatedly complained about lagged results, and sometimes even incorrect data. And now, says Apple, a revised statistics dashboard will make all of this information easier for publishers to read and understand.    

Apple News will also feature a new ad format for sponsored posts as of March, yet another revenue-generating initiative to lure in publishers.

With the new format, sponsored ads will be displayed directly in users’ content feeds, alongside authentic news articles. Except for a small "sponsored" tag, the sponsored ads are “intended to blend in with their surroundings,” explains Apple

“The new ad format would clearly label branded content in the app, as well as give publishers a new way to sell and promote sponsored posts, although it would come at a cost: Apple keeps 30 percent of the revenue it produces through iAd, a mobile-advertising platform,” explains Business Insider’s Kif Leswing. “The updates are another sign that Apple is working on providing ways for publishers and advertisers to monetize the new content platform.” 

Apple’s less-than-stellar initial reports six months ago were surprising considering news aggregators as a whole seem to be doing well. Facebook, Flipboard, and Snapchat all offer users a central platform to organize content from a variety of sites. 

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to How Apple plans to make 'Apple News' popular
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2016/0315/How-Apple-plans-to-make-Apple-News-popular
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe