{"id":186,"date":"2006-11-12T20:59:24","date_gmt":"2006-11-13T04:59:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wapreview.com\/?p=186"},"modified":"2020-12-11T09:25:22","modified_gmt":"2020-12-11T17:25:22","slug":"read-your-local-paper-on-your-phone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/186\/","title":{"rendered":"Read your Local Paper on your Phone"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"LALocal newspapers are struggling, print circulation is dropping as more people turn to the web for news. Traditional newspapers are looking for ways to survive. Many are turning to the mobile web as an additional publishing platform. This makes sense as a sizable percentage of commuters read the paper on the train or bus. On my own commute, everyone’s face used to be buried in the San Francisco Chronicle, Oakland Tribune<\/em> or San Jose Mercury News<\/em>. Now about a third of my fellow travelers are doing something with their phones. A few are making phone calls but more are staring at the screen and pressing a key occasionally. While some may be checking email or playing games, I think at least a few are  reading news on the mobile web. A mobile edition gives newspapers a way to at least partially hold on to their readership. Advertising on the mobile site might even replace some of the print ad revenue lost due to declining circulation.
\nAnd more and more papers do have mobile sites. I’ve found 33 US local papers and linked to them from the News\/US Local by State pages<\/a> at Yeswap.com. There are several more in Yeswap’s News\/ International section.<\/p>\n

Crisp Mobile’s mLogic platform seems to be very popular with newspapers looking to mobilize their content. No less than 13 of the 33 US papers on the portal are using mLogic. The sites are very similar in design and layout suggesting a common template. There is nothing wrong with that especially when the template is a good one – which this one is. Typically, the sites include about 60 full-length news articles from the paper’s print edition arranged into a half dozen sections. Navigation is good and enhanced by the use of accesskeys. Small images, one per page add interest on most of these sites. Page size including images averages around 10 KB which is small enough to work with virtually any WAP2 phone. A standard feature of the template is an “email this story” form.<\/p>\n

This week I added 3 US local newspaper sites to the portal. As far as I know these papers are new to mobile publishing:<\/p>\n