Last September, we reported that the UK’s Guardian newspaper was launching in the US, kicking things off with a new American website. Today, at the Guardian Changing Media Summit in London, the publication announced its first Google TV app, letting US audiences view Guardian content on a big screen.
Viewers with a Google connected TV will be able to access the Guardian’s picture galleries, multimedia content and, of course, its standard text-based articles, in a TV-tailored format. This makes the Guardian one of the first newspapers to create a Google TV app.
“Since announcing our digital-first strategy last year, we have been experimenting with different ways of delivering our content on new digital platforms, allowing us to open up our journalism to new audiences,” says Janine Gibson, editor-in-chief at Guardiannews.com. “With our US operation underway, the launch of our Google TV app is a small but positive step towards connecting these new audiences with the Guardian’s journalism on an expanding platform with such a huge potential.”
The Guardian is certainly one of the more experimental UK newspapers, as we reported back in October when it launched its N0tice project, something which promises to shake up the local newspaper market. Back in September, the Guardian launched a Facebook app at the social network’s f8 conference, which subsequently saw the newspaper notch up 4m installations in just two months.
This latest launch onto Google TV is another small but significant step into the digital realm, as it reportedly seeks to – one day – become a digital-only publication. The app will integrate ‘eyewitness’ images on its opening screen which change each day, whilst it will have all the latest news articles from the publication, as well as HD videos.
The Google TV app was built using the Guardian’s Open Platform service, which launched back in 2009. It gives third parties access to its content API, constituting a database of more than 1.4 million articles.
“The app we’re releasing today was built in HTML5 and hooks directly into our open content platform,” says Stephen Folwell, Business Director, Multimedia and Brand Extensions, Guardian News & Media. “We’ve started with a design and experience that is clean and simple and which allows us to experiment in real-time. The app is a beta product at this stage and we welcome feedback to help shape our final product which will be rolled out at a later date.”
The app is available now in the US. To use it via Google TV, type ‘http://gtv.guardiannews.com‘ into your Chrome browser, and for more information on the app click here.
Meanwhile, monitor all our coverage from The Guardian’s Changing Media Summit here.
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