News+ a New Way to Read the News

After nearly half a year in development, Bonnier has launched News+, a daily newspaper platform for tablets. Soon available at Apple's App Store, first out of the starting gate will be Swedish morning newspaper Dagens Nyheter with DN+. Following in the upcoming months are southern Swedish daily Sydsvenskan and afternoon newspaper Expressen as well as business dailies Dagens Industri in Sweden and Børsen in Denmark.

"Of the hundreds of subscribers we've interviewed during development of News+, none of them have said they would stop their subscriptions and instead take News+," says Pontus Schultz of Bonnier R&D, who has overseen the development of the platform. "So we've taken the best from both print and the web and created something new. It's not a printed newspaper and not the web, it's a third product that picks up where the print newspaper leaves off."

The daily newspaper isn't just a supplier of news, it's a conversation starter, says Kalle Sandhammar, editor for DN+. What consumers buy is a social identity marker rather than the latest news, which can be found already for free on the Internet, he says.

"The point with a daily newspaper today is that an editor chooses what is important for me, that I can talk about with my friends and co-workers," Sandhammar says. "We believe people are sick of the noise of the net. News+ is a digital product that takes editing seriously, it's not a competitor to the Internet."

What does DN+ look like? What's in it? (Watch the concept video and see how News+ works here.)

"We took a newspaper and cut out all yesterday's news," Sandhammar says. "What's left is what's interesting for the new platform. A specially chosen mix of analysis, content that's updated but with a clear start and finishing point."

When the app is opened, the first you see is the continuously updated section - but even here the news is specially chosen rather than showing everything that's just happened. Then come articles, editorials and op-eds and other familiar sections of a print daily newspaper. Eventually, readers will be able to interact directly and easily with writers as well.

"Readers will recognize DN," says Sandhammar. "But there will be new possibilities, like including more photos than you can fit in a printed article, plus video. DN has one of the world's best photo desks and the photos will really shine on the iPad screen. And we'll be able to highlight specially chosen parts of the conversations that are already taking place between readers and the newspaper's writers."

You will be able to buy DN+ as individual issues or as a subscription. And although there aren't yet subscribers, advertisers are already eager to buy space.

"We've already sold out advertising space in DN+ for February," says Schultz. "It's a real surprise but a happy one! We're working now with setting up standards for advertisements."

Research done for the development of the platform shows that readers expect ads, but they are scared that they will be blinking banners, says Sandhammar. "So we're focusing on calm but interactive ads," he says. "You can click further and buy a plane ticket directly via an SAS ad, but you are still in the app and can easily close the ad when you're finished."

Readers of DN, both subscribers and non-subscribers, have been part of the development from the start. And that will continue.

"This is just the first step," says Sandhammar. "We continue to listen to readers' reactions and our development stems from that. The challenge for us is to create new habits for readers and pick up where the newspaper leaves off."

(You can find press contacts and photos here.)