The future of news is mobile, technology-driven, reader-aware, insight and opinion. Understanding the limitations and opportunities of mobile news presentation and reader engagement is critical to success. Designing for mobile news is more than making a “newspaper for a phone.” It requires a fundamental shift in the mentality of the editorial staff, and an understanding of the Internet connected conversation cycle that is attached to every single news event. Here are seven factors to consider.
1. Editorial Thought and The Three News Cycles of Any Event
A smaller physical canvas to present news and information on forces editors to select only the best of the best information. This information should be the most current your organization can provide and the most relevant to the individual reader (See The Power of Local below). This information should not be fed in from an AP news feed that can be found elsewhere nor be the headlines from the print edition of the paper printed hours earlier. To have a viable product, present your biggest, most unique ideas and information first. For example, if there’s an important meeting at city hall, do you have (1) pre-meeting, (2) during meeting and (3) post-meeting analysis, commentary and perspective available? We believe every single news event has these 3 cycles, and you should have an editorial strategy to provide insight and be relevant at each cycle.
2. The Power of Local
New mobile devices pack the power of GPS and are further assisted by phone towers that help triangulate precise positioning of the device relative to geography. This presents an incredible opportunity to leverage information that local news media are in a unique position to provide. By trending the news product to local, you provide a unique product that only you can deliver. Place your unique product front and center on the interface, use your hyper-local information and stories to build a loyal, trusted readership.
The Power of Local can also be leveraged to gather news. By encouraging your readers to contribute to the story, sending text messages, twitter posts, cameraphone images and mobile video streams, you can create a new platform where news consumption and creation merges into one interface under your news brand.
3. News as Nuggets
Instead of a write-up of a sporting event after the fact, what about 140 characters of insight each minute: before, during and after the game? There may be a place for the formal summary and insight, but what many people want is a conversation when they are thinking about it. Do you want to be part of this conversation, or just sum up what everyone else already knows and can get elsewhere? News insight and reporting, broken down into nuggets of wisdom, provide more value more frequently and gives you a voice in a real conversation. The days of “the newspaper” telling people what happened is over. Now your news organization can take advantage of journalists’ insight moment by moment, and then provide the formal insight after the fact. How many more people will read the final column if they had a conversation with and know the columnist personally?
4. Video Delivery
Traditional television is similar to traditional newspapers. These products are one-way conversations with an audience. As your writers take on an active conversation with readers and as insights are broken down into moment by moment insights, be prepared to take your show to video. Shooting on-site video during a report, or receiving video from your audience, will require video editing and news package organization and storytelling skills.
5. Infrastructure and Social Media
Don’t believe you have to own the entire delivery channel. Become a part of other channels and create your outposts there. Establish your channels on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Be where the conversation is. Be relevant and insightful in those conversations and once that trust (which comes from your participation) has taken root, begin to link back to your product offerings and editorial insights. Bloggers are a threat to ‘traditional’ news outlets because they are active participants in online social conversations and networks. News reporters and organizations must play an active role in these networks. They are real communities, just like the neighborhoods beat reporters are supposed to understand. Reporters will gain story ideas, insights and contacts faster using social networks than almost any other way.
6. The One-Handed Design Challenge
If your mobile news site cannot be consumed with a single hand, your interface has failed. What does this mean? It means you need an interface that can be entirely manipulated by a reader’s thumb while they hold their drink, steering wheel, briefcase, hand rail, baby, purse or box with the other hand.
7. What About Advertising and Revenue?
GPS-enabled devices can serve classified ads where the location of the transaction is nearby. This means courting a different type of advertiser, where micro-geography matters. Consider the game developer who has developed a game that, with one click, the reader can purchase and download to their phone? Consider designing your own apps to give your audience. The 20th century comic strip and crossword puzzle might now be a $4.99 value add and new revenue stream for your company.
