Mobile news done right

Filed Under Mobile

I have never been a big fan of reading paper newspapers for the latest news. I have, however, recently become a regular visitor to mobile news sites because of the iPhone. My most frequented mobile site has been The New York Times. The full version of their website has been used to showcase loading a regular web page on the iPhone Safari browser since it was introduced. It is great that Safari on the iPhone has the ability to load the full site without any changes, but I still prefer the mobile version when on the go to save on loading times and because of its simplicity. Here is why I think m.nytimes.com is done right:

The right text sizes and easy to read fonts.

The text used is large enough to read without having to adjust the phone distance from your eyes to bring it closer. This also saves a lot of work on the readers part because of not having to zoom in and out frequently like you would have to on the full website once its done loading (iPhone specific).

The right mix of photos and information.

When most sites introduce mobile versions, they usually strip all images and miscellaneous media to save on loading times and bandwidth. That’s not the case here because articles on the NYT’s mobile site usually starts with one related picture at the top. I think this is important because the photo keeps the content from being to dry. It also encourages me to read more to know the back story behind the photo.

Easy to navigate news sections and content.

The mobile homepage is presented in a very clear and organized manner with news topics in a larger, bolder text followed by several articles for each topic.

What I think is amazing is the fact that the New York Time’s has created a very similar look and feel of their newspaper across three different mediums (web, mobile, and print). They are adapting very well to the changing publishing industry.

Also, if you check email on your smartphone frequently and want to get breaking news alerts delivered to you, they also offer a service that sends news instantly. I subscribe to this service and find very informative. Just create an online account if you don’t have one already and then go to the Member Center > Email Preferences > then check the ‘Breaking News Alerts’ box.

Update: There is now a New York Times native application for all iPhone owners. The problem is, it takes too long to download the latest articles when it’s initially launched. The app is great if you need to be able to access multiple articles when you have no service (on the subway). But for now, I will continue to mainly use the iPhone optimized web version. They are also using Twitter to send out news alerts to almost 50,000 people (some of which have most likely opted for instance SMS delivery).