Philippe Jannet, CEO of Le Monde Interactif talked about that paper's mobile experience. Le Monde already has a paid for model online with a subscription scheme that sees some content published for free and other services, including the right to contribute UGC charged for. Jannet mused on the idea of charging users to write for the paper as he didn't invent the model but it works and ads sell for more on subscriber pages than free ones.
“On the issue of mobile I would say that the Internet version is not going to kill the paper (though it does pose questions) but mobile on the other hand poses more than questions – it poses a threat. It is portable and read on the move and we are cannibalising our web site with Android and iPhone applications.” The good news is that usage charts show that users go to the web site in different ways at different times using mobiles to and from work and the main site in between. The application combines offline reading with easy navigation (“the iPhone is idiot proof so our navigation must be too”), the ability to customise and 'push' news alerts. An innovative ad offer sees a pre-home page shown during the loading of the app and geolocalisation and expanding banners have already be sold for customers including Novotel. “Its' been a great success with 880,000 downloads, 15.6 million pages viewed a month and one iPhone in two in France has our application on it”. Of course it's not all easy. Jannet noted that there is nothing more demanding than an Apple user and explained that for some time there were no advertisers (he blames early days and lack of understanding) but that in the last two months all that has changed and there are now plans for a paid version of the application.” His conclusions? “You have to be very agile, you have to accept smashing up what went before and taking a risk with the business model. You have to be able to integrate technology and make technicians and journalists work together. The guys who sell ads have to be very at ease with the product so we gave them iPhones.” He did point out however that there are powerful animals ranging around in this world and that when they sell this content “Apple takes a percentage and knows who buys it. With Kindle Amazon takes a cut and knows who uses it; we don't. And with Android Google will sell ads on our pages and
Written by Steve Shipside
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