WSJ targeting loyal subscribers with new app

Shan Wang of Nieman Journalism Lab writes about the new Wall Street Journal application called “What’s News,” which targets loyal subscribers.

Wang writes, “The What’s News app, named after the front-page column of news briefs well known to regular Journal readers, will launch later this summer to subscribers and will feature a curated digest of 10 stories, refreshed regularly throughout the workday by a small team of editors dedicated to writing and updating briefs. The concept for the new app emerged out of a concerted effort by the news desk to ‘think digital’ and, more specifically, to ‘think mobile.’

“‘We were simply doing what all journalists are now doing, which is thinking about digital journalism, what our readers want, and how you experience news on your phone,’ said the Journal’s deputy editor-in-chief Matt Murray. ‘Somewhere we made the connection to the news digest already in our papers, What’s News.’

“The What’s News column started appearing in the print version of The Wall Street Journal in 1934, an innovation of the 25-year-old Barney Kilgore (who would later serve as managing editor and who is credited with turning the paper around from near bankruptcy in the 1930s to a thriving business by the 1960s). More than 80 years later, the column still appears in print — and on the web — in a similar format.”

Read more here.