“More than 700,000 people use the Financial Times’ Web-based mobile application to access news and other content, making it more popular than the version sold in Apple’s App Store,” Jennifer Saba reports for Reuters.
MacDailyNews Take: Oh, really? That’s interesting; can’t wait to see the proof.
Saba reports, “The FT was one of the first major publishers to reduce its dependence on Apple Inc and go out with an HTML5-based mobile application that can be read by any browser, thus bypassing the App Store. FT.com Managing Director Rob Grimshaw told Reuters that the new Web-based app was drawing more traffic than the version that was sold through the App Store. ‘People who are using the app are spending much more time with the content,’ he said. ‘They are consuming about three times as many pages through the app as they are through the desktop in an average visit.'”
MacDailyNews Take: Wait, what? Wasn’t the version that FT offered in the App Store pulled around the time Apple launched their subscription service? Yes, it was, as Saba reports in her full piece (and we do mean piece).
Also how long were the App Store app and the current Web app available? For the exact same amounts of time; you know, for an accurate comparison as to which one was actually more popular? Highly doubtful. Even if the time spans matched, they don’t have and have never had a comparable App Store app featuring subscriptions with which to measure the so-called success of their Web app against. Therefore, no proof, just a claim.
A claim nonetheless reported as fact by Reuters’ lazy and/or incompetent and/or willing accomplice of a “reporter” under the headline: “FT Web-based app more popular than app sold in Apple store.” Par for the course in too many media outlets today, sadly. Also: Comparing time spent with the Web app vs. time spent on the FT site on a desktop browser has nothing to do with Apple’s App Store, just to be perfectly clear.
Saba reports, “Apple takes a 30 percent cut of subscription revenue from users who sign up for apps in the store. More problematic is that Apple wants to control subscriber data — valuable demographic information used by magazines and newspapers to sell advertising — from people who sign up for the app in the store.”
MacDailyNews Take: Problematic for whom, Jenny? For the publishers, that’s who. Not for the consumer. With App Store subscriptions, Apple’s on the side of the consumer yet again. Anytime you read differently, it’s highly likely coming from a publication (sometimes via a friendly and/or gullible reporter) that wants to continue to be able to force your name, address, telephone number, email address, credit card number, credit card security code, job title, job responsibility, and industry from you at the time of subscription. We’d rather have Apple closely hold the data than have it strewn among multiple media companies for them to sell to marketeers.
Saba reports, “”App stores are actually quite strange environments,” Grimshaw said. ‘They are cut off from most of the Web ecosystem.’ A simple message on the top of the FT’s Web site has been an effective marketing tool, he added. ‘The world outside the App Store is not cold and desperate. Discovery is no problem at all.'”
Full press release – Think Before You Click™ – here.
MacDailyNews Take: Discovery is no problem at all when you can get your talking points reported as fact by Reuters. Free propaganda, hooray! Show us the numbers, Reuters, or apologize and retract the article. Reuters and their so-called reporter Jennifer Saba should be ashamed.
To complain, contact Reuters via Web form http://reuters-en.custhelp.com/app/ask
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Financial Times hopes against hope they can skirt Apple’s iPad app subscription rule – April 4, 2011
Financial Times owner Pearson threatens to go ‘somewhere else’ over Apple’s iPad app subscription rules – March 1, 2011
The Independent foments ‘discontent’ over Apple, but presents precious little evidence – February 22, 2011
App Store subscriptions: Apple’s on the side of the consumer yet again – February 17, 2011
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