After the publications aimed at Facebook, Apple launched its app for news: even in journalism, content is increasingly subject to algorithms and terms of service
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Yesterday, during the opening keynote of the Developers Conference, Apple introduced some new features to its software offerings. Among these, also News , a new application for reading news that will be available in a few months with the landing of 9 iOS in the fall.
The new app is the response of Cupertino to Instant Articles of Facebook , announced last March: as in the case of the service of Mark Zuckerberg, Apple also will offer publishers partner the ability to publish directly to their software, included by default in all the iPhone and iPad with the new operating system version. According to presented yesterday, publishers who will sign the partnership with Apple, will be offered a much better chance of publication formats.
News is not just a simple content aggregator like Flipboard or Zite, to be clear, but wants to be a publishing platform for all purposes that will ensure access to the publications to the attention of the holders of some of the gadgets technology the most successful on the market. Members who are also readers.
In the new application, the relationship between publishers and Apple will in fact be closer and pigeonholed in business relations share of advertising revenue. The ends, writes the Wall Street Journal , are offered two options : keep 100% of the proceeds of the publicity generated by their own ads or get 70% of what is collected through ads placed by Apple with its iAd platform.
Currently, the agreements have already been closed with 20 publishers for a total of 50 warheads and the service will be launched initially in US, UK and Australia. Other “publishing tools” , very interesting definition in this context, will be available later this year, always write the Californian company.
News , in fact, it offers publishers also new formats for publication designed to optimize yield content on mobile devices and in particular to those of Apple, an issue that is taking away sleep publishers, given the growing importance of the web on the move for the consumption of news. To this end, Apple introduced Apple News Format, a service that will allow you to create content in specific formats for News.
With the usual Apple style, Susan Prescott, Vice-President of Apple, spoke “best mobile reading experience ever” . Then Apple will offer a product that, at least on paper, seems to offer better solutions than those currently available in terms of access and user experience , a thing that publishers will appreciate.
The move is then a step further in the process of rapprochement of the Silicon Valley to journalism , a relationship that is becoming increasingly tight and symbiotic and sees the big digital companies to move quickly towards the completion of a course It started for some time and whose final destination is the transformation in publisher .
The definition is perhaps the most qualified in the case of Apple and Facebook, the first being mainly a manufacturer of hardware, but offering formats and publishing solutions to high profile to a user potentially endless, with News, Apple the fact is putting on the market a new platform , for which publishers will compete to be.
This will be particularly important if News will be able – and the starting point will help – to get a lot of attention from readers of news, to become a standard reading in mobility , at least half the users using iOS.
From the point of view of who makes them the papers, make a deal of this kind could be a good idea at first glance : direct exposure to a wide audience, packaging of news excellence and great business solutions. The crucial and most problematic, is but to the spaces journalism . As in Facebook and Instant Articles, is at least cause for reflection to see how the newspapers are a bit ‘at a time delegating to large companies tech the search for new standards of consumption news , thanks to the structural crisis in the sector and the well-known economic problems.
In the same speech also fits the recent agreement between Google and the publishers in Europe, for which Mountain View has made available over $ 160 million in an “innovation fund” valid for three years. To confirm how the Silicon Valley journalism interested, all right.
This process can not occur without consequences on the public space and the way in which the news are born, they circulate and come to us. In the highly complex relationship between digital platforms and information, the handle of the knife is more and more in the hands of the first, along with the algorithms – which also relies News, to provide content “custom” – and the rules of the online market.
Ryan Tate of The Intercept emphasized another key issue: content will have to pass the scrutiny of how Apple the app on iTunes? And on what basis? Things from this point of view, have not always been crystal clear from Apple:
Apple will then decide what will be published on the News? And what will happen if a news violates the possible “Terms of Service” (!) Application? Commenting on the launch of News Medium, Tim Carmody also raised a crucial question of the process in place: journalism is increasingly a simple utility for mobile operating systems, like already the music or maps. It would be to recalibrate the issue.
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