Does it add value? Will it enrich a subscriber’s experience? These are the questions we always come back to when discussing new features for apps. Up until recently, that experience was mainly contained within that icon on your mobile device. With the exception of the occasional push notification (a virtual “hey I’m still here”) you were left to rely on the strength of your brand in a sea of other brands.
2017 will serve as a coming-out party for media companies looking to capitalize on recent innovations built to engage app audiences. With the release of Apple’s latest version of iOS and the rise in partnerships, we are finally seeing some legitimate creative capabilities surface for app developers and editors that will allow for compelling experiences outside of the traditional app.
Here are three ways apps will evolve in the coming year:
Your mobile lockscreen is the prime real estate — it’s the gateway, and the place apps battle for your attention. Until recently, the standard notification — targeted at 131 characters or less — was the only way to compete in that space. With the debut of iOS 10, we’ve been given a whole new set of tools to experiment with in the notification universe. With one flick of the finger/3D touch, readers can be exposed to expandable, dynamic notifications that can feature bold visuals — from photos to video — accompanied by a more in-depth story summary. These tools are allowing us to embark on a whole new form of storytelling with very little cognitive overhead. I see a near future where your favorite story or digest arrives each morning in the form of a notification that expands, allowing you to swipe through reading a synopsis for each story, with the ability to read the full story right there.
Apple has made another interesting advancement with iMessage apps. We’ve now reached a point where the media has a more seamless opportunity to integrate into your personal conversations. If you are messaging with Mom about the latest Trump controversy, you are able to, with one or two touches, access your Washington Post iMessage app and insert a relevant story link. No longer do you need to leave iMessage → open your news app → find story → click share or copy → then work my way back to my conversation. It’s all there with minimal effort. Right now, we have recognition for emoji in our keyboards (type “happy,” get a smilie), and soon we could have the same for news. For example, entering a certain phrase in a conversation, such as “Did you hear about the shooting in Orlando?” would provide options to insert relevant content directly into your conversation.
Media companies will continue to pursue partnerships that can add value to their app users experience. Recently, my colleagues at the Post integrated Uber with our classic app. The result allows our readers the utility of having an in-app trip progress bar, so they can continue to browse while also monitoring their journey. These types of integrations are not only a convenience, but also smart way of letting the reader know that we respect their time.
At the end of the day we are here to inform, surprise, and delight. I believe these new developments will allow the industry to make exciting progress to that end.
Christopher Meighan is director of emerging news products at The Washington Post.
Reyhan Harmanci Bear witness — but then what?
Asma Khalid The year of the newsy podcast
Lam Thuy Vo The primary source in the age of mechanical multiplication
Burt Herman Local news gets interesting
Megan H. Chan Cultural reporting goes mainstream
Jon Slade Trusted news, at a premium
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen News after advertising may look like news before advertising
Rebekah Monson Journalism is community-as-a-service
Adam Thomas The coming collaboration across Europe
Aja Bogdanoff Comments start pulling their weight
Umbreen Bhatti A sense of journalists’ humanity
Liz Danzico The triumph of the small
Michael Oreskes Reversing the erosion of democracy
Lee Glendinning A call for great editing
S.P. Sullivan Baking transparency into our routines
M. Scott Havens Quality advertising to pair with quality content
David Skok What lies beyond paywalls
Hillary Frey Forests need to burn to regrow
Annemarie Dooling UGC as a path out of the bubble
Sydette Harry Facing journalism’s history
Kawandeep Virdee Moving deeper than the machine of clicks
Liz McMillen The year of deep insights
Tracie Powell Building reader relationships
Mike Ragsdale A smarter information diet
Steve Henn The next revolution is voice
Helen Havlak Chasing mobile search results
Ken Schwencke Disaggregation and collection
Javaun Moradi What can we own?
Michael Kuntz Trust is the new click
Tanya Cordrey The resurgence of reach
Vivian Schiller Tested like never before
Samantha Barry Messaging apps go mainstream
Cory Haik Navigating power in Trump’s America
Dan Colarusso Let’s make live video we can love
Scott Dodd Nonprofits team up for impact
Gabriel Snyder The aberration of 20th-century journalism
Christopher Meighan Unlocking a deeper mobile experience
Guy Raz Inspiration and hope will matter more than ever
Kathleen Kingsbury Print as a premium offering
Mira Lowe News literacy, bias, and “Hamilton”
Errin Haines Chaos or community?
Matt Karolian AI improves publishing
Emily Goligoski Incorporating audience feedback at scale
Richard Tofel The country doesn’t trust us — but they do believe us
Libby Bawcombe Kids board the podcast train
Nicholas Quah Podcasting’s coming class war
Nushin Rashidian A rise in high-price, high-value subscriptions
Ariane Bernard Better data about your users
Claire Wardle Verification takes center stage
Jeremy Barr A terrible year for Tiers B through D
Nathalie Malinarich Making it easy
Ashley C. Woods Local journalism will fight a new fight
Amie Ferris-Rotman Вслед за Россией
Amy O'Leary Not just covering communities, reaching them
David Chavern Fake news gets solved
Zizi Papacharissi Distracted journalism looks in the mirror
Doris Truong Connecting with diverse perspectives
Sarah Wolozin Virtual reality on the open web
Francesco Marconi The year of augmented writing
Geetika Rudra Journalism is community
Maria Bustillos “It’s true — I saw it on Facebook”
Keren Goldshlager Defining a focus, and then saying no
Carla Zanoni Prioritizing emotional health
Molly de Aguiar Philanthropists galvanize around news
Alberto Cairo Communicating uncertainty to our readers
Melody Kramer Radically rethinking design
Carrie Brown-Smith We won’t do enough
Elizabeth Jensen Trust depends on the details
Laura Walker Authentic voices, not fake news
Mario García Virtual reality on mobile leaps forward
Rachel Schallom Stop flying over the flyover states
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Truthiness in private spaces
Ryan McCarthy Platforms grow up or grow more toxic
Robert Hernandez History will exclude you, again
Andrea Silenzi Podcasts dive into breaking news analysis
Sam Ford The year we talk about our awful metrics
Ole Reißmann Un-faking the news
Anita Zielina The sales funnel reaches (and changes) the newsroom
Sara M. Watson There is no neutral interface
Andrew Haeg The year of listening
Andrew Losowsky Building our own communities
Emi Kolawole From empathy to community
Almar Latour Thanks, #fakenews
Joanne Lipman The year of the drone, really
Juan Luis Sánchez Your predictions are our present
Dannagal G. Young The return of the gatekeepers
An Xiao Mina 2017 is for the attention innovators
Andy Rossback The year of the user
Renée Kaplan Pure reach has reached its limit
Mandy Velez The audience is the source and the story
Rachel Sklar Women are going to get loud
Juliette De Maeyer and Dominique Trudel A rebirth of populist journalism
Jonathan Hunt Measurement companies get with the times
Amy Webb Journalism as a service
Moreno Cruz Osório The year of transparency in Brazilian journalism
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Earn trust by working for (and with) readers
Mathew Ingram The Faustian Facebook dance continues
Pablo Boczkowski Fake news and the future of journalism
Dan Gillmor Fix the demand side of news too
Erin Millar The bottom falls out of Canadian media
Swati Sharma Failing diversity is failing journalism
Jonathan Stray A boom in responsible conservative media
Tim Griggs The year we stop taking sides
Erin Pettigrew A year of reflection in tech
Sarah Marshall Focusing on the why of the click
Bill Keller A healthy skepticism about data
Olivia Ma The year collaboration beats competition
Eric Nuzum Podcasting stratifies into hard layers
Margarita Noriega From pinning tweets to tweeting pins
Priya Ganapati Mobile websites are ready for reinvention
Corey Ford The year of the rebelpreneur
Dhiya Kuriakose The year of digital detoxing
Alice Antheaume A new test for French media
Julia Beizer Building a coherent core identity
Millie Tran International expansion without colonial overtones
Alexis Lloyd Public trust for private realities
Caitlin Thompson High touch, high value
Matt Waite The people running the media are the problem
Mary Walter-Brown Getting comfortable asking for money
Taylor Lorenz “Selfie journalism” becomes a thing
Mary Meehan Feeling blue in a red state
David Weigel A test for online speech
Sue Schardt Objectivity, fairness, balance, and love
Andrew Ramsammy Rise of the rebel journalist
Cindy Royal Preparing the digital educator-scholar hybrid
Tim Herrera The safe space of service journalism
Tressie McMillan Cottom A path through the media’s coming legitimacy crisis
Peter Sterne A dangerous anti-press mix
Ray Soto VR moves from experiments to immersion
Ståle Grut The battle for high-quality VR
Katie Zhu The year of minority media
Jim Friedlich A banner year for venture philanthropy