The New York Times recently disclosed that they plan to make one of their apps a free product. Just a few days ago, the company officially announced that its NYT Now app now offers free digital content.
Previously, a user needs to subscribe under the NYT Now app, which gives users several dozens of articles per month for $8. But there's no need to subscribe and the chosen digital content of the paper are made available with a sub-headline, witty comments from Times editors, and a few key facts about the article.
Aside from the free content, the app is also updated to version 2.0. The design was revamped in a way that stories by Times and from around the web are displayed in one stream so readers can now easily catch up with the latest news.
However, The Verge reported that while NYT Now is free, the number of stories from the paper that goes into the app will be roughly around 10 stories. Meanwhile, the original app may only have a maximum of 25 stories. Other news from the web is still available.
Still, the free offering in the NYT Now app sounds far better than its nytimes.com counterpart and more ideal for people on the go. However, for it to succeed further, it must appeal to more people and convert new users into full subscribers.
The slimmed-down version of the NYTimes app, Capital reported, is already a year old but it's not considered a successful venture for Times since it was only able to garner about 20,000 subscribers.
Its main app, which currently has over 900,000 subscribers since it was launched four years ago is said to have remained stagnant, which is one reason why NYT Now became a free product.
A Times representative said the release of the NYT Now app helped in reaching a wider and younger market. Also, majority of the app's core subscribers had New York Times full subscriptions
Only available for iPhone users, the NYT Now app did brought the digital content of the paper beyond desktops and tablets. Android users, who are potential subscribers, are currently left out of the loop.
On the other hand, the main app of New York Times, NYTimes, is available for iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows phone, and Kindle. It's free to download but only subscribers get full access to all the sections and non-subscribers get free 10 articles per month from any section.
Times executives see that NYT Now has a potential to grow its mobile advertisement revenue which reached $182 million in 2014.
