News Portal App Development

The news industry is going through a transformation and the future is a bit uncertain. The old model of selling newspapers along with advertisements is dying. As such digital transformation holds potential although the news industry has not figured out the right revenue model and the right target audience. As such any entrepreneur that can provide news in an attractive way to the end-user and especially the young crowd can stand to benefit from this custom app development opportunity. 

There are multiple types of online news portals that are providing news through their own new reporters or syndication. As such online news portals apps that can present the news in a quick and attractive way can really stand to benefit. Traditional apps can also be created that aggregate the newspapers and channels. Newspapers serve a critical need in our society of keeping the citizenry informed and as such, they perform a critical function that is required by the society itself. About 25 million people read newspapers every day as per circulation numbers but the actual number must be higher considering that people get their news online these days and reading physical newspapers is a historic habit and not an actual practice amongst the young.

We will discuss some key points of the custom news portal app. 

Major Features

Advantages

How To Position Yourself & Monetization

Summary

Major features of online news portal development

Category-based news section

If you are looking to target global audiences and country-specific audiences, this feature allows users to select category-based news which they want to browse the news. This feature makes it effortless for users to read news for their choices.

Website search

This is a prominent feature for online news portals. With this feature, users can search for the topic about which they want to read the news. Since your site will have many news stories, columns, and articles, the site search feature is a good option for users to quickly find relevant news.

Seamless Navigation

With this feature, users can find and easily navigate whatever they want to browse. They can explore new stories, articles, and columns by navigating features and subscribing to your newsletters and updates.

Top Stories Section

This feature allows users to see the hottest news/latest/most trendy blog of the day, those have a get more likes.

Polls and quizzes

Under this feature, you can post polls and quizzes with a few clicks on the app, as well you can ask relevant questions for various options. The admin can create quizzes under this section and can check also the number of view participants from the admin section.

Space for Advertisement

There should be a dedicated space for showing sponsored ads. This feature depends on the revenue model you choose to go with. 

News Rating

Users can add ratings at the end of the post where they can share their rating experience with the apps. It will help you understand how users like your content.

Subscription

This feature allows users to subscribe to your newsletter by adding their name, email-id, or any other details. It will help you to convert newsletter subscribers to premium users.

Advantages of online news portal

News Alerts

People can get real-time new alerts on their favorite topics and all the latest happenings with the help of the app and push notifications. 

Select Topics of Interest

Users can select their topics of interest and keep updated with all the news for that interest that may be politics, business, sports, and so on.

Provide Emergency Updates

With the news app, you can tie-up with the local government and issue emergency notifications on schemes, weather, and any emergency news that the user may need urgently. 

Create a Viewership

With a news app, you can push custom content and create a loyal reader base and tap them for marketing and ad revenues. 

How To Position Yourself

As we said at the start of the article, focus on the young audience. The older audience still loves to read newspapers. As such, you should design your app to have a quick bites section where a short summary of the news along with attractive pictures is presented. A sober tone should be used for important stories while providing maximum information with short content. 

For monetization, you can opt for a revenue-based model based on subscriptions or go for ads. Ads need to be custom and relevant so as to not turn off the users from the platform. Secondly, you can use paywalls for premium articles and columns. This will allow you to deliver a large amount of content to your users and still earn revenue.

Tech Stack

The approximate technology stack of the app

• Kotlin for Android App
• Swift for ios app
• Node.js for back-end
• Cloud environment: AWS
• Online Payments: Paypal, & Braintree.
• Elastic email, email notifications
• Socket io for real-time notification
• Database: MongoDB, Hbase, Cassandra, Postgres, MailChimp Integration
• Google Maps
• Google Places
• Google Directions
• Card.io
• APNS
• Firebase
• Facebook SDK for Facebook login

Tech Stack and Team

The following team may be needed for app development

• Business Analyst
• Project Manager
• UI/UX designer
• Android/ios developer
• Back-end developer
• Quality Analyst
• DevOps

Summary

News websites and mobile apps are becoming more popular as more and more people choose to read/browse news stories online. The market size is massive because news is something almost everyone wants to read. Developing robust and intuitive online news portal apps, it will be surely a profitable business idea. If you have any planning to create an online news portal app, feel free to connect with our expert mobile app developers or drop us a line below.