Google Play Newsstand
 | |
|
Google Play Newsstand running on Android | |
| Developer(s) | |
|---|---|
| Initial release | November 20, 2013 |
| Stable release |
3.4.2 / July 15, 2015 (Android) 3.2 / July 14, 2015 (iOS) |
| Development status | Active |
| Operating system | Android, iOS |
| Size |
10.8 MB (Android) 13.2 MB (iOS) |
| Type | Digital newsstand, Feed reader |
Google Play Newsstand is a news aggregator and digital newsstand application developed by Google for the Android and iOS operating systems. Google Play Newsstand was launched for Android on November 20, 2013, through the merger of Google Play Magazines and Google Currents into a single product, serving subscriptions to magazines, web feeds, and server-generated topical feeds.
Priced news sources (news editions) and magazines can be subscribed from the Google Play Store app on Android or the Google Play website on any device, while free news sources can be subscribed from both within the app or from Google Play. All topical news feeds are free and can be subscribed only from within the app. Reviews and ratings can be submitted for all Newsstand content distributed through Google Play. All subscribed topics, feeds, sources and magazines are synced across devices signed in with the same Google account. All magazines offer a free 30 day trial, while the free trial period for news sources differs. For example, as of November 2014, The New York Times offered a 60-day trial while The Financial Times offered 14 days. Google currently accepts PDF and RePub (which is exclusive to Play Newsstand) file formats for magazine content.[1]
Play Newsstand featured about 1,900 free and paid publications at the time of its launch. The app automatically formats articles for reading on a phone or tablet, complete with images, audio and video inline. Articles are cached on the device for offline reading.[2][3] Most paid publications allow users to read up to 10 articles per month for free. Play Newsstand offers a peek into articles with a message at the bottom showing the number of free articles remaining in the month with options to see the rest of the article or to subscribe.
All articles on Play Newsstand are tagged with the name of a broad generic topic. Clicking on the tag leads to a page with more articles from that topic, with a plus (+) button at the top for subscribing to the topic. Subscribed topics show up as tabs on Play Newsstand's home screen.
Google Play Newsstand also supports RSS feeds. Feeds, however, are not displayed in the 'Explore' segment of the app. They can only be added by copying the feed URL and pasting it in the app's search box.[4] Graphic-rich RSS feeds do not render as perfectly as they do in other apps and many formats of RSS content are not supported.[5]
Play Newsstand allows users to bookmark articles for later reading. But since the October 2014 app update, articles cannot be bookmarked in offline mode unless they have already been downloaded for reading.
Play Newsstand's home screen (the Read now view) displays articles on the basis of the user's interests which, according to Google, the app learns quickly.
Play Newsstand was released for iOS in September 2014, as an update to the existing Google Currents app. The Verge noted that the user experience across Android and iOS was "nearly identical".[6]
In October 2014, Google released a major update for Play Newsstand on Android matching the look of the app with that of the newly released Android Lollipop. The update featured many aspects of Google's Material Design language with bigger images and lots of transitional animations. The reading experience for print magazines was also revamped.[7]
Play Newsstand Producer
Google Play Newsstand Producer (formerly Google Currents Producer) is a production environment for content publishers to include their website or blog on Play Newsstand. It enables publishers to customize the look and feel of their content, and make design decisions that automatically optimize the content so that it can be simultaneously delivered to smartphones and tablets of all sizes and orientations.[8] Publishers can include ads within articles using Google's DoubleClick for Publishers.[9] Google only accepts RSS feeds as the supported format for news editions.[1] Publishers can use Google Analytics to analyze aggregated readership data for their Play Newsstand edition.[10]
By default, editions are accessible through a private URL which the publisher may share with its customers. Only selected editions, which comply with Google's inclusion guidelines, are listed in the 'Explore' section of Play Newsstand.[11]
By default, editions are available to readers worldwide, though publishers can restrict access by either allowing or blocking specific countries. Publishers can set the primary language for an edition and choose whether they would like to enable automatic translation for readers in other languages. By default, automatic translation is enabled.[12]
Publishers can offer a discount for Play Newsstand subscriptions for users who have an existing print or digital subscription for that content. Google verifies the user’s print subscription with the publisher or print fulfillment houses before providing a discounted price.[1]
Availability
- Paid magazines and news editions
- Only free content
- Not available
Google offers the purchase of paid newsstand content in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Russia, South Korea, Spain, United Kingdom and United States.[13] The former Google Play Magazines was available in only four countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom and Australia. Availability of paid content in Italy was introduced in April 2014,[14] in France and Germany in May 2014,[15] in India, Netherlands, Russia and Spain in September 2014,[16] in Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico and South Korea in December 2014,[17] and in Austria, Belgium, Ireland, and Turkey in March 2015.[18]
See also
References
- 1 2 3 "Google Play Newsstand Program Policies". Google. Retrieved 14 January 2015.
- ↑ "Google Play Newsstand merges Currents, magazines and newspapers on Android today, iOS in 2014". Engadget.
- ↑ "Google Launches Newsstand For Android, Combines Google Play Magazines And Currents Into A Single App". TechCrunch. Retrieved 9 June 2014.
- ↑ Evin Ravenscraft (22 November 2013). "How to Manually Add an RSS Feed to Google Play Newsstand". Lifehacker.
- ↑ Mike Elgan (19 November 2014). "How Google Play Newsstand Could Rule the News". Cult of Android.
- ↑ Chris Welch (23 September 2014). "Google's Play Newsstand app comes to iOS as replacement for Currents". The Verge.
- ↑ Terrence O'Brien. "Google Play Newsstand gets a redesign and new magazine view". Engadget.
- ↑ "Google Play Newsstand Producer Overview". Google Play Help. Google. Retrieved 14 January 2015.
- ↑ "Welcome to Google Play Newsstand". Google Play Help. Google. Retrieved 14 January 2015.
- ↑ "Measure readership with Google Analytics". Google Play Help. Google. Retrieved 14 January 2015.
- ↑ "Gain readership". Google Play Help. Google. Retrieved 14 January 2015.
- ↑ "Distribute". Google Play Help. Google. Retrieved 14 January 2015.
- ↑ "Country availability for apps & digital content". Google Play Help. Google. Retrieved November 18, 2014.
- ↑ "Google starts newsstand service on Play store in Italy".
- ↑ "Google Play Paid Newsstand Content Now Available in France and Germany".
- ↑ Hitesh Arora (16 September 2014). "Google Play Newsstand Paid Content Arrives in India, Other New Countries". NDTV.
- ↑ Stephen Hall (December 12, 2014). "Google Play Newsstand comes to four new countries: Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, and South Korea". 9to5google.com.
- ↑ Thorp-Lancaster, Dan. "Google Play Newsstand expands paid content to Austria, Belgium, Ireland, and Turkey". Android Central. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
