The New York Times has announced that it is ending a partnership with Apple’s news aggregation app, and the company cites an increased need for a more direct relationship with readers.
Paper reported On Monday, in their own coverage of the Gray Lady’s unceremonious breakup with Apple News, readers will no longer see Times articles within the app on their devices, though the Times quoted its chief operating officer, Meredith Kopit Levien, saying in an internal memo to staff that paper would continue to work with Apple on other projects, including podcasts and apps. Apple told Gizmodo in an email statement that the newspaper “only offered Apple News a few stories per day.”
“We are committed to providing the more than 125 million people who use Apple News with the most reliable information and will continue to do so through our collaboration with thousands of publishers, including tThe Wall Street Journal, tThe Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Houston Chronicle, Miami Herald and San Francisco Chronicle, and we will continue to add great new media for readers, “Apple said.” We are also committed to supporting quality journalism through proven business models of advertising, subscriptions and commerce. “
As Apple indicated in its statement, the Times started to back off about the number of articles that served readers through the News app last year. Levien was quoted this week as saying that the core of a healthy relationship between the Times and other platforms “is a direct way to send those readers back to our environments, where we control the presentation of our report, the relationships with our readers and the nature of our business rules. ” Levien added that the Apple News association “does not fit these parameters.”
When it comes to sending readers to your site, Apple News doesn’t just redirect users to the site where the original article is hosted, as is the case with Google News. Instead, the entire piece is read through the Apple app. That’s not something that helps the Times, or any other publisher, develop the kind of strong relationships with readers that are essential to their survival. That doesn’t mean anything from the 30s either% A portion of the revenue Apple takes for in-app subscription subscriptions, as the Times noted. (Disclaimer: Gizmodo also appears on Apple News).
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Any when great technology is positioned as a kind of gatekeeper for readers it always ends going terribly incorrect for the publishers themselves. And the times will It would be fine without another busybody in the Silicon Valley broker trying to take a share of your winnings.
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