How Forbes’ new story format caters to the Snapchat crowd

Linda Tucci of TechTarget.com writes about how Forbes’ new mobile website and story format caters to the Snapchat crowd.

Tucci writes, “In its ongoing quest to remain viable, Forbes, like many of its media peers, is taking an intense interest in Millennial readers, Howard said — in particular, the way in which they access digital content (with their mobile phones), what platforms they’re drawn to (social media sites) and what Forbes can do to make their consumption of its content as familiar and frictionless as possible. (Of the 60% of readers who come to Forbes via mobile devices, the vast majority, or 80%, is between 24 and 34 years old.)

“An important step in forging that relationship, Howard said, is the reconstruction of its mobile website as a ‘progressive web app.’ A progressive web app is a Google-backed web hybrid that functions more like a native app and loads pages in a quick 0.8 seconds. (Progressive web apps work on all mobile devices but have added functionality on Android devices; users can download the app to their home screens, receive push notifications and work offline.)

“The new back-end architecture comes with a new front-end look. The mobile site (in beta at m.forbes.com) boasts a Snapchat-inspired ‘card-based‘ design. Card formats feature bold visuals and are designed to be interactive. Readers swipe up to get into the text of a story and swipe left or right to get to related content. A pull-down menu, accessed by tapping on the card, gives readers a full list of the site’s topic categories that are labeled, Twitter-style, with hashtags — #TopStories, #Trending, #Trump, #30Under30 and so on.”

Read more here.