News outlets are in a race to win the mobile device audience, which has exploded in size. Smart phone sales outstripped PC sales worldwide for the first time last year, according to market research firm Canalsys. Shipments of smart phones grew 63 percent in 2011. Tablet sales soared 274 percent.
Those eye-popping gains have prompted many to conclude that mobile device readers are the future of the news business. A recent Pew Research Center study seems to bear that out. The survey found that people use mobile devices for news more often and for longer sessions.
The all news radio station WTOP, based in Washington, D.C., has become a digital news organization so it can reach people on all different platforms, said WTOP reporter Neal Augenstein.
WTOP's new mobile site, launched in the middle of last year, has grown fast, attracting 1 million page views a month, said Jim Farley, vice president of news & programming at WTOP. That compares 18 million page views for its long-standing website.
"If we want to get the younger people we've got to get them on mobile devices," Farley said. "People who listen to radio are 30 and older."
HOW TO ATTRACT MOBILE DEVICE USERS REMAINS AN OPEN QUESTION
There's a debate among mobile developers over whether it's best to have a website or an app, and if an app, which kind, said Rob Malda, chief strategist and editor-at-large for WaPo Labs, a division of the Washington Post that is experimenting with media and technology.
"There's a hundred interest decisions [involved] ranging from who creates the content to how it's curated to what the user interface looks like to 'Do people want to sit down when they read this?' or 'Do they want to listen to it as opposed to read it,'" he said. "This is what media people try to figure out."
Farley said he knows one thing: people are clamoring for apps. And that's what WTOP plans to give them.
The Washington Post has iPhone apps for Trove and Social Reader, which both aggregate content. The paper's Social Reader app has taken off like wildfire, Malda said, with millions of users. The newspaper is also available on an iPad app. Another iPad app has just political news.
Whether to develop apps for android and Windows phones is a question the Washington Post will eventually need to consider, he said.
ANOTHER QUESTION FACING NEWS ORGANIZATIONS IS WHAT KIND OF CONTENT TO OFFER
The Washington Post is seriously thinking about which kinds of content work best on smart phones. That's one of the things Malda is working on. "The younger kids that are used to carrying phones in their pockets, they consume information differently," he said. "It's very much an experiment. We're trying things."
Malda has been analyzing about how the experience of reading information on a phone is different to try to figure out what content to have.
WTOP doesn't produce any special content for mobile device users, Farley said. They can see the WTOP traffic cams on their smart phones between their work and home, just like on the WTOP website.
START-UPS ARE ON THE CUTTING EDGE WHEN IT COMES TO MOBILE DEVICE STRATEGY
"They're experimenting with different ways of displaying and aggregating information," said Malda. Traditional media has better content, however. Traditional media may end up buying the start-ups, he said, though there's a lot of different ways things could play out.
"Everyone want a piece of this stuff because it is the future of media."
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