This article was published on November 1, 2011

Kooaba brings physical newspapers online, including The Washington Post, Guardian


Kooaba brings physical newspapers online, including The Washington Post, Guardian

Last month, we reported on how Swiss startup Kooaba’s had launched partnerships with newspapers around the world, allowing users of its Paperboy app take a photo of an article and then share the online version with friends directly from the app, or archive it for later reading. Publishers can also offer additional online content related to a printed article, such as videos or image galleries, accessible through the app.

Until now, only 85 titles in Germany, Switzerland and Austria were supported, but from today hundreds of titles in the UK, US and Canada have joined the party. These include USA Today; The New York Post; The LA Times; The Washington Post; The Guardian; Daily Telegraph; Toronto Star, and The Vancouver Sun.

The project is a partnership with NewsPaperDirect and PressDisplay. The full list of titles announced today doesn’t just include national newspapers, some local and trade publications are in on the act too, with the likes of the UK’s Yorkshire Post and Logistics Manager joining better-known names.

So how does it work? Kooaba’s Marketing Manager, Tom Desmet, explains: “It’s automatically available for all newspapers that are connected with NewsPaperDirect, and our direct clients. Automatically every day, every page, every article. No QR or anything else needed.”

The service is monetized via what could be described as a ‘social paywall’. Once a reader has shared a physical newspaper article to Twitter, for example, their friends must then pay to read the online version (UPDATE: Desmet clarifies that the shared article is free to those who read it, there’s only a charge to read other content of that publication). Newspaper editors can add video, images and downloads to the digital version via Kooaba’s backend CMS.

The next phase of Kooaba’s rollout will see the service expand to additional Russia, parts of Asia, more of Europe, plus Australia and New Zealand. This is expected before the end of the year.

  

 

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