The Guardian has redesigned its app to allow users more opportunities to interact and be part of the conversation by integrating the Guardian Witness feature.
The app is built around the principles of open journalism and aims to deliver a more engaging experience for readers and increased visibility for advertisers.
The new version aims also to deliver a more personalised Guardian experience across mobile devices, available on both iOS and Android.
“As more and more people consume their news on mobile devices we have brought our app bang-up-to date and are able to offer brands the most effective ways of reaching our progressive audiences who consume their news via our app,” Nick Hewat, commercial director at Guardian News and Media, said.
“As people’s habits change, both news organisations and advertisers need to adapt and meet our audiences where they are. The new app is beautifully designed and will provide ad options that you would expect from a world class digital offering.”
Building on the Guardian’s ‘Audiences not Platforms’ tool, the advertising process has increased in efficiency and flexibility for clients, with targeted audience planning, and responsive formatting meaning one ad unit fits all digital platforms.
According to Tanya Cordrey the decision to rebuild the Guardian’s app was made more than a year ago to ensure its readers had the best possible experience.
“We also wanted to help our journalists to tell their stories in the best possible ways, and so we looked into every nook and cranny to totally reimagine what our app should be like, and how our own technology can enhance our journalism,” she said in a Guardian blog post.
“Put simply, this is an app built for the Guardian’s future.”
The new app is free to download and is supported by integrated advertising.
According to the release, the app’s new and improved features include:
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Greater personalisation: Readers can tailor the types of articles they want featured on their homepage and create bespoke alerts to follow their favourite journalists, stories and football teams, as well as having region-specific editorial curation.
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Offline reading: Readers will also be able to save stories to read offline with fast and intelligent caching.
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New responsive design: The app’s flexible responsive format means that readers will have the best possible experience of the Guardian’s award-winning journalism regardless of which device they choose to view it on.
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More content and better visuals: The new app will include all the guardian.com’s content, improved photo galleries and, for the first time, interactives.
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New opportunities for brands: The Guardian’s digital team has used in-depth data analysis and technical expertise to develop effective new ad formats, such as mobile in-stream adverts and interstitial adverts on both mobile and tablet.
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Just in time for the World Cup: Beautiful new ways to display football data, matches, live-blogs, goal alerts, and interactive features.
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Easier reader interaction: The award-winning GuardianWitness platform is integrated into the app for the first time, allowing readers to post their comments, photos and videos more easily than ever.
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Flexible formatting: The app has undergone a complete redesign, and its flexible layout allows editors to curate stories according to their significance. This means readers are able to get an instant picture of the news agenda. Clearer design and navigation helps readers to discover new stories and writers with greater ease.
