HEARST ANNOUNCES PLAN TO LAUNCH "NEWS READER"
Software Offers Consumers a Superior Onscreen Reading Experience — In a continuing effort to expand the reach of its content, Hearst Corporation today announced …
Context & Ripple Effects
Hearst is entering a publisher-led reader-software push after The New York Times introduced its Times Reader for online and offline reading in 2006. Hearst frames its product as a way to extend the distribution of its content rather than merely publish it on the web.
Syndicated discussion centered on whether a reader tied to one publication makes sense and on the developer-platform contest around such products, signaling that the strategic question is control of the reading experience as much as interface design.
First-order effects
- Hearst gains a dedicated onscreen channel for presenting its content, giving consumers an alternative to reading that material through a general web browser.
- The New York Times' Times Reader faces a second prominent publisher-specific product competing for readers' desktop attention.
Second-order effects
- Publisher-specific readers make the reading experience a competitive variable for Hearst and The New York Times, not solely the reporting and brand carried inside each product.
- Software-platform providers seeking publisher developers have a clearer incentive to support news-reader applications as more publishers consider controlled reading environments.
Third-order effects
- If publisher-owned readers proliferate, digital news distribution may fragment into branded applications, with publishers exerting more control over presentation and access than in the open-web model.
The trend: News publishers are testing dedicated software readers to control the digital reading experience and broaden the reach of their own content.