PressReader is an innovative app that connects readers with more than 2,400 newspapers in 57 languages. The app can auto-deliver content, save articles, and share via social media. Earlier this year, the company released an interesting graphic of the top stories of 2013, along with facts about how and when people read.
Nikolay Malyarov, EVP, Chief Content Officer and General Counsel at PressReader, kindly took the time to answer some of my questions about the app.
S.R.: When was PressReader founded?
N.M.: PressReader was founded in 1999 and quickly established itself as a leader in digital publishing by creating innovative technologies to power the world’s largest global print-on-demand newspaper network. The first solution was used to print local newspapers through Print-On-Demand in hotels to global travelers.
During the past decade, the digital revolution has radically changed the world into a hyper-connected social community. This transformation has helped fuel the company’s technological innovations and expansion into new vertical markets. The company transitioned from print distribution into the world’s largest aggregated digital marketplace for magazine and newspapers. Today, the company has more than 30 million users worldwide and a collection of more than 2,000 publications.
S.R.: How does PressReader work?
N.M.: PressReader delivers the world’s newspapers and magazines to millions of readers the way they want to receive them – in print, online, or on their mobile device, tablet or eReader – wherever they live, travel, work or play. The content can be accessed through an app or through pressreader.com.
PressReader’s proprietary technology, like SmartFlow and SmartZoom, was designed to maximize reading enjoyment for all types of readers. With additional features like social integration through Facebook and Twitter, commenting, sharing and voting, PressReader is changing how people read, share, discuss, and connect people through news.
PressReader is supported on the most popular iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows and Mac OS X platforms and devices. This includes but is not limited to the iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Samsung Galaxy family, Asus Transformer family, Microsoft Surface with Windows RT, Blackberry Z10, Kobo Android-based tablets, Kindle Fire, Google Nexus family.
S.R.: How does PressReader’s Netflix-like subscription model work?
N.M.: Like Netflix, you pay a monthly subscription fee and then have access to all of the newspapers and magazines. For a monthly fee of $29.99 USD per month, you get unlimited access to over 2,000 newspapers and magazines from around the world. So instead of paying for individual monthly subscriptions for every newspaper and magazine, you pay one monthly fee to get access to all publications on the PressReader network. You can also decide to subscribe to the pay-as-you-go plan if you are a casual reader.
Like Netflix, you can also customize your settings and get the news you want when you want by choosing the language, country and publication that you want.
Whether you’re a casual reader or a serious news lover, you will enjoy the new unlimited reading experience that the home news feed offers. This new feature, available on PressReader.com and will soon be available on the PressReader app, offers full-content access to a collection of top stories from the world’s best journalists and news sources presented like one seamless SmartFlow format.
For those more traditional readers who enjoy the original printed format, PressReader offers a digital replica of newspapers and magazines with its Page View option. This allows the reader to get the same reading experience on a computer or device as they would in print, with advertising and editorial in its original format, and sections indexed in thumbnail format to quickly jump to specific sections. We have a solution for every budget.
S.R.: How does PressReader decide which publications to include?
N.M.: We strive to appeal to readers with diverse interests around the world – we want to represent as many countries, languages and interest areas as possible so our readers can go to PressReader for all their news. Currently, our publications represent more than 100 countries in nearly 60 languages.
With more than 14 years’ experience in the industry, we know what people want, and we’re constantly pushing the bounds of innovation. Together with our partners, PressReader is establishing new standards for excellence in the field of digital publishing. We’re always ready to work with industry leaders whose capabilities and strengths complement our own. Together, we’re changing how the world reads.
S.R.: Of the 2400+ publications on PressReader, how many are newspapers versus magazines?
N.M.: We provide access to more than 2,000 beautifully digitized same-day newspapers and the most current magazine issues. Currently, we have approximately 77% newspapers and 23% magazines in our database, and we’re adding new publications all the time.
S.R.: What is the most popular platform for readers using PressReader?
N.M.: The most popular platform for our readers is iOS. Most of our users are on apple devices and and because PressReader is also available in the Apple newsstand, naturally we sell more subscriptions to Apple users. The web is the second most popular platform for PressReader. With 3 web properties – PressReader.com and our legacy product, PressDisplay.com and Library.PressDisplay.com, and our established network of users in the B2B segments – we do have a number of web users as well. Android is expected to increase in popularity in the coming years and because we offer our platform for a variety of operating systems, we can capture a large portion of the market including the Windows and BB10 users.
