Apple plans to open up advertising in News app to third party ad solutions soon, based on a new report for AdAge. Publishers would be able to use third party ad serving technology like Google DoubleClick to earn revenue from their content. Currently, Apple allows publishers to monetize their content in Apple News app by using the company’s own built-in advertising platform. Publishers get to keep 100% of the revenue from the ads they while 70% of the revenue from ads sold by Apple.
Apple’s foray into supporting content publishing is not new as they had launched an app called Newsstand with iOS 5, which was ultimately removed in iOS 8. There were big goals behind the app but it could not gain the popularity that was envisioned for it as it was only useful for those people who had their own apps. While newspaper and magazine apps still exist in the App Store, it is not feasible for most independent publishers to invest in apps. News has been Apple’s answer to this conundrum and we at iThinkDifferent have supported it since it was launched.f
While Apple News might seem like a ‘walled garden’ to most people as it only exists on iOS devices i.e. iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, it has been gaining popularity. Even though it is only available in United States, Australia and United Kingdom, News is the 15th ranked app in the United States and serves 47 million monthly users. Apple has been putting a lot of effort to increase its adoption and has been constantly adding features based on publisher feedback. Apple recently introduced support for serving third-party ads using their own ad serving technology. It also introduced detailed reader demographics to help publishers better understand their audience.
AdAge also speculates that Apple might introduce micropayments so users can pay to read content. Given that in-app purchases are so popular that all sorts of apps and games are moving on to subscription based revenue models, it does not seem far fetched that micropayments could take off in a big way. People already support content creators via different services like Patreon.
It would also help if Apple introduces Mac and web apps for News. Publishers always want the largest reach and currently, any user on other popular platforms like Windows, Android or even Mac cannot access News like they can in the iOS app.
Personally, it would be great if publishers like me could use Google’s AdSense in Apple News. Here is hoping that it happens soon.
