It isn’t often that you hear a major news organization use the “word” regret when it comes to discussing their ventures in mobile marketing.
For USA Today, however, there is regret. And plenty of it.
Given the popularity of their iPhone app, USA Today regrets that they made it available as a free download.
Hoping to buttress their revenue by taking major steps into new marketing ventures, USA Today apparently feels that they have a gold mine… without the gold.
According to publisher David Hunke in an interview with the Associated Press,”I’m not sure we realized what we had. I think that’s a value readers will be willing to pay for.”
The iPhone app, which has only ben available since late December, has captured the essence of the print edition of USA Today (and is much cooler, by the way) and supplements ths paper’s news stream with a host of bells and whistles ranging from social media elements to GPS based features.
The announcment by USA Today may come as a lesson learned to other news carriers aiming for similar success in the mobile realm.