Apple is planning to adopt a subscriber-only model for its News app and will boost paid content to woo new publishers.
According to a Reuters source, Apple will soon deploy the subscriptions model for its native news app. The Apple news app was released back in September and was a replacement of Apple's Newsstand, which used to house magazines and newspapers. Now, according to the wire agency's sources, Apple is planning to offer consumers subscriptions to access paid content from publishers. This move will boost those publishers who charge for their content and also become a unique subscriber-only business model for Apple. Apple has yet not commented on the same and it is still unclear how Apple will approach new publishers to list their content on the News app. There is also no information on how users of the app will be charged to access paid content.
Currently, those publishers who have signed up with Apple's subscriber based model will be able to push out excerpts of their articles on the news app. The app will then redirect users to the publisher's own website for a complete access to the article. In October, Apple had announced that it had almost 40 million users reading Apple News. With this move, it looks like Apple is planning to take on Facebook's Instant Articles news service, which offers selective news content from publishers picked by Facebopok itself. Twitter also has a plan of going beyond the 140-character limit, to retain news-reading users on its own platform.
What is clear is that most tech companies, which have a content play in the market, want to retain as many users as they can on their own platforms. Quick read articles on these platforms are designed to keep current audiences engaged and attract new users as well. What is your favourite news service? Let us know in the comments section below.
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Adamya Sharma
Managing editor, Digit.in - News Junkie, Movie Buff, Tech Whizz! View Full Profile
