The old saying goes "Evolve or die." One can't help but wonder if that phrase was echoing in the ears of NPR brass when they conceptualized NPR One - a product extension from their usual model that may end up altering the course of the organization forever.
Overall: 8.0
Vanity Fair Cocktail Hour
Vanity Fair has identified white space in casual conversation and made their play with Cocktail Hour, a late day newsletter designed to fuel discourse over afterwork drinks. With quality content and reader retainment potential, the product could be a home run.
Overall: 8.17
Financial Times Business Education
There's a new king of the hill. When it comes to generating revenue, Business Education does it better than any other product on our list. With a fantastic effort to retain readers with outside content to keep the cash flowing, supplemented by traditional ads, this product sets a high bar.
Overall: 9.0
ProPublica Data Store
ProPublica has been testing the market for the byproduct of its data journalism, and is seeing early success. Now, with market wisdom acquired and sales rolling in, how will the company grow its important new revenue stream?
Overall: 6.17
Traveler Gold List
Condé Nast Traveler goes for gold with its new Gold List app. The ambitious design comes with a learning curve and the revenue is average, so copper is the reality for now.
Overall: 5.92
Snapshots
User generated content with local flavor from the Sacramento Bee. This is a nice, simple, local product that encourages engagement via local content and social media. However, there seems to be some missed opportunities with revenue.
Overall: 6.83
WSJ Live
WSJ Live: With WSJ Live, you can watch the Wall Street Journal everywhere. A collection of radio and TV news coverage, this impressive app delivers well-produced content to WSJ readers. The design needs work, but revenue potential is high.
Overall: 8.33
NewsBeat
Billed as your personal news radio, Newsbeat is a useful app: create a customized news radio or have current news read to you by humanistic computers. Despite some UX flaws, the app has addictive qualities and potential for big earnings.
Overall: 7.75
Style Map
Stylemap is a solid product idea that can live on many platforms. The ads are well integrated to clean navigation, rounding out a product with good potential to drive dollars.
Overall: 7.83
Mental Floss
A collection of random, interesting facts & quizzes, Mental Floss is a big engaging product of lists, quizzes, and factoids. Not a news brand, but good examples of how to drive engagement with information.
Overall: 7.67