Mobile apps: Are newspapers ready to be innovative?

According to findings from research carried out in May by Digital Media Test Kitchen, "few mobile news apps have pushed the creativity envelope." The report stated that "compared to the innovation that's rampant in the non-news mobile app world, the news apps we reviewed seem behind the curve."

Six newspaper apps were reviewed: USA Today, The New York Times, THE Associated Press, the Guardian, Politico, and the Huffington Post. "Most of the news applications that have been created by single news brands do not do enough to encourage interactivity, customization, or creativity...there is an overall lack of interactivity compared to the news brands' regular Web sites." Regarding creativity, these apps generally stuck to the same pattern of pairing headlines with thumbnails photos. However, these thumbnail photos can usually not be enlarged when clicked on, "a disappointment when the image was too small to discern adequately." As for interactivity, while most of the apps permitted sharing on social networks, only the HuffPost app allowed users to comment.

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