The kind of joy that comes from a daily dose of newspaper with a morning cuppa is unmatchable. We have all grown up seeing our parents follow this ritual, which used to energise them for the rest of the day. However, with digital taking over the world, these are the thing of the past as more and more people today rely on the news or Newspaper mobile apps to catch on the important headlines to find what’s happenings in their city and across the world.
In fact, the newspaper sales have went low ever since the concept of news mobile apps came into existence. There was a 7 percent drop registered in sales in the year 2015 and ever since its constantly increasing more and more.
Why Build A News Mobile App?
Today people’s interaction with their mobile phones is way much more and they are constantly cutting out from the physical carry things. Hence, it has become vital for the news mobile apps to provide content to the users on the medium they are most comfortable with and is easier to reach.
It is vital for a content distributor to have a source so they can reach more and more users and get benefits and their feedback. And what better platform can be than internet in today’s world to reach to the potential users to share the content.
Users spend 31 minutes each day on news apps.
ThinkWithGoogle
Today most of the prominent news media firms be it Washington Post, Fox News, CNN, USA Today, BBC, AAJTAK, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and many more, are using news mobile apps to expand their reach to the target audience and serve the users in a convenient manner. By getting the app developed, they get more interaction with their users. Today these media companies have a huge number of users who use their mobile apps and this way they are able to reach all of them instantly via a push notification.
Market Insights For News Mobile App
As per the Pew Research Center, a fall has been registered in the circulation and revenue of newspapers in United States and there has been a drop of 10 percent in the weekday. As per a report by Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC), even in India, a decline is see in the readership, and same is the situation in the European countries, like Germany, France and Britain. Statista states that turnover of retail sale of periodicals in UK went down drastically in last decade, like it was registered 3971 million in the year 2008 and then it fell down to 2718 in the year 2016.
If we analyse over the role of news apps & social-media forums in converting readership of global audiences, one of the available data states that 67 percent of American get news from the social media. Same way when the percentage of news app usage is perceived in countries around, then Sweden tops this list with 37 percent, and it is followed by South Korea & Spain with 33% & 27% respectively.
Digital News Purchases Worldwide As Of Feb 2020
What Are The Benefits Of Getting A News Mobile App Developed?
There are several, and few of them have been discussed below:
Higher Conversion Rate
As compared to newspaper or magazine, the conversions on the app is much higher as the app allows the users to communicate directly, while it is not possible in physical newspapers.
More Revenue
App’s revenue can be increased by integrating the functionality of advertising and marketing into the app.
Reach More Subscribers
With the app it gets way easier to reach more and more subscribers, thus increasing the readers to the news or content.
User Attraction
More than any newspaper or the physical magazine, the user attraction is much more higher in news apps. The apps allow the users to communicate directly and in case the users have any suggestion they can give on the app. This will also give idea to the app owners on how to enhance app’s likeability.
Better Reach
With news app, it is possible to reach more customers with less efforts and the content distribution gets easy. All of the app users can be notified instantly with just a tap on the mobile screen or system.
Personalization
News Mobile App allows to serve personalized content to the users as per their behaviour. The app owners can choose to serve content as per user’s preference as well as the advertisements can be served based on their interests. This helps to increase conversion rate and get more revenue.
Next, let’s explore the various types of news-based apps
Types Of News Mobile Apps
Mainly, there are two types of News Apps, they are:
News Aggregator Apps
In this app category, the app cover the happenings around the regional, national or international arena. This category of news app is quite popular among users as it allows them to be aware of the world’s news whenever they want. However, it is integral to present news content that the interesting and grabs attention instantly. Apart from the important news concerning politics, crime, business, sports and entertainment, and weather, users can also be informed regarding the upcoming events & exhibitions across various cities. The app can be accessed free of cost or paid, as decided by the app owners.
News Resources Apps
These mobile apps are for the news resources and it would benefit people who own newspapers & web media.
Monetization Strategies For News App
One of the main reason behind the making of mobile apps is to increase the revenues, and just with any other mobile apps, with News Mobile Apps too, the monetization strategy needs to be decided to gain more profits. Here we have mentioned few of the monetization models for News Apps:
Advertisements
Advertising is one of the most popular monetization models among the News mobile app. However, here the advertising is way different than the print newspapers. When in the app, there are various advertisement format like splash ad during app’s release and then there are other basic advertisements that are displayed on the app screen constantly.
Paid Subscriptions
This again is a common app monetization strategy. However, often users doesn’t like this idea to pay money to subscribe for the news. Hence, two different app versions can be introduced at the time of app release, i.e. Paid and Free. Users should be offered ad-free experience on the paid app version along with the other personalized services.
Organize Events
When the app owners get a good response from their potential audiences, they can go for this monetization model as well. Often the app owners can organize few of the events and then advertise the app on these platforms.
Donations
This monetization model is not very commonly used and it only works when the app has a solid user following. Thus, the app can ask its readers to support the online magazine with the donations.
eStore Integration
Integrating a mini ecommerce store with a news website could also help you bring customers to buy products and stay engaged on the app for longer duration.
Most Popular News Mobile Apps
When choosing to enter into this market, it is vital to know about the rivals and explore more about the market. So here we are mentioning the most popular mobile apps:
The New York Times
This is quite a unique News App that has its own language style and it is known to address both the high society as well as the ordinary people. One cannot imagine The U.S. press sans The New York Times.
The mobile app offered by The NY Times sends notifications regarding latest news, and it offers daily tip sheets. The app offers The Daily 360, which basically is 360 videos from the Times journalists across the world. It also allows to save articles to read as per the convenience. Besides, it offers a lot of useful and exciting features.
Feedly
Easy to customize as per user’s likings, Feedly is a renowned app. In this app, the users simply have to find their favorite resources with the use of search bar and add them into the list. The app uses an extensive media base that can easily be supplemented with any of user’s favorite sites. It also enables the users to save articles to Pocket for deferred reading. However, the app has a few shortcomings as well, as to use the app it is necessary to have a Google account and only then the service can be accessed. Few users dislike this obligation, and one more such mandatory condition where the user has to visit the site to read entire article.
Newsy
This app offers short reports aiming at people who detest reading the long texts or articles. Through this app they get appealing video news with cute speakers reading them. Apart from that the video quality is excellent. This way the Newsy app is able to successfully captivate the user attention.
NowThis News
This app presents the news in form of short videos. Here it also presents the news in playful manner, so that it further entertains the audience as well. Among the most successful mobile apps, NowThis News app allows to add any video to saved videos section. Here, all the news is divided into various groups and significant ones feature in Top Stories or in a separate section. In the app, all the videos re in non-stop mode. This app is more about fun hence don’t expect it to use it to get the straight facts.
Also the sources used for the news here are The Guardian, The New York Times, and other established media houses.
News360
This app is known for showing only the kind of news liked by the app users.
News360 app allows to save article and read it later, even when offline. Also with the use Local News button and the Geolocation feature, the app allows you to find the happenings in your neighbourhood. However, the biggest con of the app is the procedure of adding the news sources. Here the similar sources can’t be grouped together and also the news can’t be ranked by novelty.
General Features Of News Mobile Apps
- User Registration & login via email & social profiles
- Browse News Categories
- Underline & save text
- Save news and quotes for reading later
- Machine learning based news on user preferences
- Social integration for sharing news
- Push notifications and news alerts via emails and SMS
- Search & filter news based on date, region, topic and category
- Comment & like on news
- View live broadcast of News & Radio channels
- Offline access for news
- Listen to news in Audio-format
- Participate in Poll & Ratings
News Feed API
One of the most significant aspect of any news aggregator app is the News feed API. You can create your own custom API or select from a broad range of news APIs and that can be integrated into a news app. Here are some of the most used News Feed APIs:
- News Feed API
- Mediastack
- Event Registry
- Bing Web Search API
- WebHose
- GeekFlare
- Bloomberg News API for finance based news app
- Dow Jones News API for financial news app
- ESPN API for sports news app
Advanced Features For News Reading Mobile Apps
It is integral for any app to be integrated with the basic functionalities, however often the app is also integrated with advanced functionalities so that it better serves the app users. In the News Mobile App, these advanced features can be used.
Push Notification
This is a vital feature for a News App as it helps to increase the user retention and also allows to send crucial updates related to news or other exciting offers.
Filtering
A news app can benefit with the smart news filtering functionality where it allows its users to segregate various news sections, comprising of business, sports, political, international, and more. The users can opt for filters like Breaking News, Most Popular, and more.
Night Mode
This feature for those who want to read news in the dark without squinting their eyes.
Search
Using this feature, the users would be able to find exact news/information they are searching by simply typing few useful keywords.
Constant News Update
The app should have the functionality to constantly update the news every few minutes or every hour. The admin must keep updating to keep the users aware of latest happenings around the world.
Smartwatch Integration
Now people can also read latest news on their smartwatches as well. It could be integrated and could prove to be an excellent advanced feature for techno savvy news app users.
Recently BBC experimented with presenting news by speed reading on smartwatches.
Audio & Video Integration
Often users are short of time to read the news, and here audio format can come useful, where the users can convert the news into the audio format and listen to it. Video Integration can also be introduced as often users prefer to watch news in video format.
Personalization
As per this functionality, the users will be displayed content as per their likings.
Voice Assistance
The news reading mobile app can also be paired with voice assistance features and this would help you gain benefit of voice based search trend. For example,
Google Assistant can now read Google News Stories out loud
Content Management System
A strong and robust Content Management System can also be offered for the backend development. It is vital that the content is managed systematically and often opinion polls can even be conducted for times when an important issue is for a survey.
Filtering System
In the news app, the users can be allowed to find news based on the category they choose. Like they should be able to choose content by topic.
Follow A News Topic
The app can offer a “follow topic” feature, where the users can pick topics they have interest in. Thus, as they open an app, their feed would be filled with new articles on only these followed topics.
Real Time Analytics
Delivering real-time analytics and historical reporting for news mobile apps and websites is a very beneficial practice that helps the news providers analyse which content fares well with the audience. The Google Realtime Content Insights does a very good job of providing insights into news based content performance.
Offline Mode
During the times of no internet connection, the users should still be able to use the app. For this, the app can allow its users to save articles to their smartphones or tablets and read even when there is no internet connectivity.
Augmented Reality Integration
Another integration that could make a news app interactive and more useful to users. The New York Times also use AR in their news app.
Social Media Sharing
This functionality will allow your app users to share news articles with a single tap on their devices.
Geo-Targeting
Using this functionality, the app will be able to know the location of users’ devices and send them news regarding events occurring nearby.
Loyalty Program Integration
A loyalty program offers its customers multiple deals in various news categories which lets them earn rewards and benefits.
CRM System Integration
Integrating CRM system in a mobile app allows sales, marketing and customer service teams to manage key information and data in real time.
Technology Stack For Developing A News & Magazine Mobile App
- For Application and Data: React, NGINX, CloudFlare, Google App Engine, Zepto
- For Utilities: Google Analytics, Twilio, SendGrid, UserTesting
- For Business Tools: G Suite, Intercom, Help Scout
- For Programming languages: Objective-C, Swift, Java, Kotlin
- For Toolkit: Apple Xcode, Android Studio & Android Developer Tools
- For SDK: iOS SDK, Android SDK
How Much Does It Cost To Create A News Mobile App?
To get an app developed is quite easy as all you need to do it find a good app development companies offering quality services and has a team of proficient developers, designers and QA testers.
As it comes to determining app development cost, there are several factors that are considered, such as:
Number of Platforms
The development cost increases as per the platforms the app is being developed for, like if the app is solely developed for Android or iOS platforms, the cost would be much lesser as compared when the app is being developed for both the platforms. After all, for one platform, one team of developers would be required, however, for two platform, two development teams would be needed. Meanwhile the app development team consists of:
- Project Manager
- App Developers
- App Designers
- Back-end Developers
- Quality Analysis Expertys
Hourly App Development Rates
Usually the hourly rate of app development varies as per region-to-region, like the hourly development rates are higher in the regions of USA and Europe, while much lesser in India. Hence the cost to develop would ultimately be much lesser if one chooses Indian app development company for the development of News App.
Design
More complex the design, more the development cost. Thus, when the app has simple design, it would take less hours to develop, hence lesser development cost, however, the complex app design would need more time, hence more development cost.
Features
When the app is being developed with the basic features, it would cost less, however, if the app is also integrated with the advanced features then the development cost would be comparatively higher.
For the app development cost, the one with basic features and for single platform is going to cost around $25000-$35000, and the one with the advanced features and for two platforms, would cost around $50000-$60000.
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