Lewis Dvorkin, chief product officer at Forbes, writes about the business magazine’s new application strategy.
Dvorkin writes, “Last week, we began to roll out the first in a series of vertical apps for passionate communities. At No.8, a hot club in New York City, we held a beta launch party for our Under 30 app. The app is a kind of social network for members of our Under 30 List, with activity feeds, member directories, messaging, notifications and a nifty little Tinder-esque networking feature. The app will be tied to an Under 30 channel on Forbes.com that is set to launch in October. Videos and posts produced by app members within the app will be featured on the Web channel, along with content from staffers and contributors. A second app launch party (again, sponsored by Cadillac) is scheduled for early August in San Francisco, with a full launch at our Under 30 Summit in Philadelphia.
“The Under 30 app is only the beginning of a platform of individual community apps that can also connect people across apps — all under the FORBES umbrella. Looked at from a business perspective, the apps offer our marketing partners targeted opportunities while the Web channels provide related audiences at scale. Both the apps and the channels work nicely with our BrandVoice native ad platform. Now, a marketing partner can participate in an integrated program that includes the Web (desktop and mobile), an app, an event and our magazine, too.
“FORBES is focused on the platforms consumers choose to use, which increasingly means mobile. To do that, we need to build new products, tinker with those we have now and make sure our powerful content-creation engine works for smartphone users.”
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