Build an App on Any Budget

With newspapers of all sizes scrambling to find new revenue sources, many are considering apps to help bump up the bottom line. The good news is that there are a variety of pricing options from developers, depending on what the news publisher is looking for. The not-so-good news is that apps are fairly new to the industry, so the track record is murky at best.

Diving In
Richard Connor, CEO of MaineToday Media, Inc., is a forward thinker. MaineToday publishes The Portland Press Herald, the Kennebec Journal, and the Morning Sentinel in Maine; The Times Leader and several weekly publications in the Wilkes-Barre, Pa. region; as well as a weekly business paper in Fort Worth.

All of his publications have apps for iPad, iPhone, and Android.

"We were the first paper in Maine to put out an iPad app, and the second in Pennsylvania," Connor said. The apps provide breaking news and weather, and allow users to submit news and photos, as well as post articles to Facebook and share stories with friends. Users can read the publications as they appear in print - with links, photos, and videos.

"Our newest apps for Go Lackawanna, our Scranton, Pa., paper, and The Weekender, an entertainment weekly, offer peer-to-peer social media - users can comment, post, and interact with one another," Connor said. "The choice to launch an iPad app, for example, seemed an obvious one, and yet we were only the second newspaper in Pennsylvania to launch one, and the first in Maine."

When brainstorming ideas for the apps' creation, Connor said each newspaper had to assess how it would monetize the app, what it wanted the app to do, and where the app fits in with the overall business strategy. Once those questions were answered, it was full steam ahead.

"Implementation was the easy part. We knew the requirements, we knew what we needed to do to make them work, so we did it," Connor said, adding that when researching, he realized there are few papers doing more than talking about developing apps at this stage.

Overall, Connor said the investment has been well worth the cost.

"No other medium allows you to stay in contact with the end user wherever they are. These apps put our news and content in people's pockets - just a tap away," he said. "And everyone can be a reporter for us. We constantly receive photos submitted by users, and they love seeing them online and in print."

In addition, apps are attractive to advertisers because they "offer an advertiser the unique ability to follow the user around. Advertisers can buy ‘push' messaging, or alerts, or landing pages in the apps. It's not just passive banner advertising; although that does play a part," Connor said. He said the apps will add significant new revenue growth to his companies this year, possibly an increase in the range of 5 to 10 percent of total online revenue.

Given the chance for a do-over, Connor said the only things he would have done differently would be to launch the apps sooner and be pickier about which features were included in the initial versions of the apps.

When it comes to price, Connor said that initially the app development cost thousands of dollars, but "now it's usually a one-time fee and affordable. We make our own deals so that is where those in the industry who decide to catch up need to make their own as well."

Apps for Under $10,000
One option for news publishers is PressRun, a tablet-device publishing platform developed by Mobile IQ.

For less than $10,000, a publisher can have an app up and running, according to Paul Danter, director of strategy and marketing for the company, which has offices in the UK and San Francisco.

PressRun software allows the publisher to repurpose print content using slide shows, video, audio, 360-degree photos, swiping, searching, zooming, and animation. This allows publishers to create a fully interactive experience without leaving the familiar environs of print production. PressRun uses HTML5, so content translates easily across iOS, Android, Windows 7, and RIM operating systems.

Mobile IQ also develops custom apps - "the most famous of which is the BBC News application, which was built from the ground up for iOS for both the iPad and the iPhone," Danter said. "It is branded for each customer, and additional functionality can be added as required. We ensure quality control and code control so that, as part of our service, apps can be kept up-to-date as operating systems change."

Choosing which devices your app will be compatible with can be difficult. Luckily, this is a dilemma that most app builders have already thought of.

"There are some interesting techniques that we have developed to help our customers deal with some of the challenges this presents. These include dealing with the different aspect ratios of usable screen size to dealing with rendering text as actual text, while honoring the layout intended by the designer," Danter said. "For custom apps, porting an app from, say, iOS to Android, does involve some duplication of effort. We have developed some efficiencies for our customers such that producing a custom app across platforms can save money if done in parallel."

Faster, Cheaper, and More Flexible
Boston.com, the website of The Boston Globe, currently has three apps available: a Boston.com news app, a real estate app, and an app for the Big Picture blog.

All are designed for the iPhone, and the Big Picture app is also available as an iPad app. "The high-quality photos of news stories are quite dramatic on the larger screen," said Michael Manning, director of product development.

The news and real estate apps are free, thanks to advertising, and the Big Picture is available for a one-time download fee of $2.99. Boston.com is trying to reach new users by providing different experiences on each platform.

"We purposely chose apps that have different uses and potentially different audiences in order to learn what we can about serving different needs and preferences in the marketplace," Manning said. "Our goal is to create apps that are simple and do a few things well, such as get news updates or view great photography, and that leverage the Globe's journalism."

Boston.com has developed apps both in-house and out, "and both approaches have worked well," said Manning, who agrees with Connor that it's important to be able to change the app after launch.

"If I were to offer advice, I would point out the importance of having the capability of updating the app after launch, and of monitoring user feedback, responding to new operating systems or device capabilities, and of having the ability to integrate new content or advertising," he said.

Currently, Manning said, Boston.com is creating apps that "wrap" mobile-optimized HTML instead of creating customized native applications.

"This is the approach we used with our news app, and we feel it's been successful. There are some limitations to this approach, but with many apps the benefits - faster, cheaper, more flexible - tend to outweigh the limitations," he said.

Budget Basics
Speaking of quick, Chintu Parikh, co-founder and CEO of SachManya, said that his company offers options to make cross-platform apps "quickly and affordable, get distribution across various app stores, and monetize its content."

SachManya's primary product is called YAPPER. It is an online service for news publishers to create their own mobile-optimized, branded apps that work across iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, and other tablet devices without requiring any code writing.

SachManya, based in the San Francisco Bay Area, was founded in October 2009 by former engineers, managers, and executives from Yahoo!, SUN, NeXT, Organic, HP, and Apple with experience in mobile and publishing markets.

Parikh said standard app pricing for each mobile operating system includes a one-time setup fee - anywhere from zero dollars to $1,999. That cost includes building the app, submitting it to the app store, and a monthly subscription fee for hosting and maintenance. Any work on top of that is $100 an hour.

"Our least expensive offering (no setup fee and $9 a month) is an instant Web app that has an iPhone app-like look and functionality, but it serves via mobile Web browser, and it supports iPhone, Android, BlackBerry 6, and WebOS mobile devices," Parikh said. "The iPad app is the most expensive with a $1,999 one-time setup fee and $29 a month. Our customers build their apps once online on YAPPER and deploy it across mobile Web, iPhone, iPad, Android, and BlackBerry mobile OS."

Apps built with YAPPER come with standard features such as real-time news and multimedia content support, support for major foreign languages, mobile optimization, and customizable options that include the app icon, splash image, font, background, and navigation bar. Publishers can send push notifications for breaking news stories and monetize the app through paid downloads, in-app ads, or in-app subscription options.

YAPPER also provides customers with analytics from Flurry and submissions to the iTunes App Store, Android Market, BlackBerry App World, and Amazon Android App Store.

Currently, SachManya is piloting a new business model - the publisher pays no setup or monthly subscription fee but shares 30 percent gross revenue on ads and subscriptions.

A la Carte
Another potential solution for publishers when it comes to apps is Mediaspectrum Adrenalin.

According to Susie Dougherty, marketing and public relations manager of Boston-based Mediaspectrum, Adrenalin for tablet publishing was launched in September 2010. With Adrenalin, publishers choose from two news reader styles that can be customized to create a branded iPad application.

The first style is called Adrenalin News Reader and allows media companies to deliver news with interactive content. Stories, photos, and video content are managed by Adrenalin CMS, a content management system fed directly by the publisher using XML/RSS feeds. Adrenalin CMS updates the publisher's application based on parameters established by the publisher, such as content duration, order of appearance, and more.

The second style is Replica+ News Reader, which delivers a digital re-creation of print titles for iPad readers. This can be enhanced with additional content, including photos, video, and video advertising. And because Replica+ qualifies as circulation set by industry rules, Dougherty said, "it allows publishers to grow both readership and subscription revenue." Adrenalin also features an integrated ad sales system that allows advertising agencies and internal sales teams to schedule, target, and manage ad delivery.

Dougherty said Adrenalin has a few pricing models, depending on the publisher's needs. "Some publishers are simply looking for a mobile presence. In this case, we can get publishers quickly set up on mobile apps for Android and Apple devices, starting as low as free with revenue-sharing opportunities," she said. "Other publishers see tablets as a way to change their businesses and drive significant and meaningful new digital revenue. In these cases, pricing is more a la carte," as Mediaspectrum offers solutions for everything when it comes to apps - ad sales, ad production, content management, and publishing to the device.

Adrenalin handles advertising and editorial content for all devices. "Our publishers can use the platform to deliver their content to any mobile platform for a single fee. One of the most important aspects of these devices is ensuring you can monetize the apps, regardless of whether the device is or is not connected to the Internet," said Dougherty, adding that the platform allows for HTML5 ads.

Adrenalin Replica+ is currently being used by The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle.

Tim Sohn is a 10-year veteran of the news business. He most recently served as editor of LH! Weekly newspaper in northwestern New Jersey. However, the start-up newspaper folded in May. He is on the hunt for a new full-time job and can be reached at twcsu@aol.com.