As If We Need More Evidence... Mobile News Now
Jinfo Blog

By Robin Neidorf

Abstract

Initial results of the 2012 iteration of FreePint's Survey on News Needs and Preferences demonstrates movement towards integrating mobile delivery into how organisations deliver news to users. Comparisons to previous years' results are dramatic. Read more, then take a few minutes to participate in the survey to get your own copy of the full report when published.

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Two years ago, information services managers had a difficult time imagining how there might be widespread interest in mobile content delivery (see FreePint Report: Enterprise Market for Mobile Content). In every conversation I've had with information services managers in 2012, however, urgency around mobile delivery is growing.

The early results on this year's FreePint Survey: News Needs and Preferences continues to make the case. Respondents to date report that availablity of mobile content has become increasingly important when they consider premium news providers.

Importance of Mobile Content Today

Figure 1 compares the early results of this year's survey with the results from the past three years in which we gathered comparable data. We asked respondents to rate how important certain types of content are when they evaluate news products. Each type can be rated from 1 = not important to 4 = very important. The bars show average ratings for each type.

Text content and audio content have remained stable across the years of data collection. Text-based news content has been and continues to earn the highest average ratings, with an average of 3.26 on the 4-point scale for 2012 results to date.

Video content seems to be edging upwards in terms of its importance, though these results could still shift as we continue to gather data.

But the average rating for the importance of mobile content has shot upwards, gaining a full half-point since the first year we asked this question (2010). 

Figure 1

Planning for the Mobile Future

Equally as dramatic is the data shown in Figure 2. We ask respondents to rate their agreement with a number of statements about their current and future strategies for news content. Respondents can rate their agreement with each statement where 1 = completely disagree and 4 = completely agree.

Figure 2

The first set of bars in this figure represents the average agreement ratings for the statement: "I expect demand for mobile news content to increase within my organisation in the next 12 months."

Average agreement ratings for this statement have jumped by more than half a point since the first year we used this statement (2010). 

To provide some comparison, average agreement ratings for two other statements are also shown in this figure: 

"I expect our use of free resources for news to increase in the next 12 months."

"Our use of free resources for news has increased in the past 12 months."

Agreement ratings for expectation of increase of free seems to be trending upwards, whilst reporting on the past 12 months indicates that respondents feel free news content has remained stable.

Participate, and Get the Full Results

These are only two of the many datapoints we cover in the Survey on News Needs and Preferences. Other topics covered include:

• Satisfaction with premium providers
• Integration of news products into intranets
• Interest in different types of business news content
• Understanding of user needs
• Importance of free sources in the news portfolio.

As this is the fifth year of data collection, our analysis increasingly can describe changes over time. (FreePint Subscribers can access last year's full report now.)

Take 15 minutes now to complete the survey, and you'll receive your own copy of the full report upon publication in November 2012. 

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