The new WP Politics iPad app, which launches Monday, marks The Washington Post’s most significant attempt yet to charge readers for digital content.
The Post’s website and most everything else it does digitally is free (ad-supported). The company tried charging a nominal $1.99 a year for its main iPhone app when it debuted in 2010, but made it free about a year ago. Its main Android app is free, along with Social Reader, Trove, and niche apps for Redskins news, D.C.-area transit and entertainment. (The only exception is a monthly fee to download Post stories to an e-reader.)
The new politics iPad app is also free to download and mostly free to use, supported by a persistent banner ad across the bottom of the screen. But users (even print subscribers) must pay $2.99 a month to access premium sections.
“We wanted to try a new business model for premium mobile content and kept the monthly fee low, leaving most of the in-depth content on the politics app free,” Beth Jacobs, the Post’s general manager of mobile, told me by email.
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- The Insider’s Corner, which aggregates all the Post’s political blogs, is one of the sections that requires a $2.99 monthly subscription.
Free sections are top news, a candidates and issues guide, interactive maps with polls and voting results, historical election results and TV ads by state.
“The freemium model offers us an opportunity to engage a large audience of habitual users and present them with premium tools and features over time,” Jacobs said. “We believe that those who are passionate about politics will find value in our premium offerings.”
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/media-lab/mobile-media/164435/washington-post-steps-into-paid-content-with-ipad-app-for-politics-news/
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