Three years ago, Het Belang van Limburg launched their first app on iPad. Since then they moved from pure Replica apps to Twipe NextGen apps for optimized tablet reading. Now they restyled their apps with new templates called FLOW.
FLOW
Het Belang van Limburg developed the new template family FLOW on the Twipe NextGen Publishing Platform. The name speaks for itself, these “FLOW” templates display all text in flowing blocks. No more paginated blocks copied from the print newspaper, no more hidden content that requires tapping. “It is of crucial importance to listen to the needs of our audience, needs that in a digital world evolve quickly over time. Last year, we first adopted “NextGen” templates, referring to templates of the “next generation” that are developed and optimized for tablet screens. During that time, tablets were a new, an emerging technology. Our audience was looking forward to reading their digital newspaper, while experimenting with novel techniques; the fancier, the better. Today,the requirements changed tremendously. After a period of experimenting and learning the complexity of tablets, our digital readers are looking for simplicity, for rest, for control. Hence, we adapted our strategy accordingly and developed a set of templates that shows the full story in the most attractive, most simple, most readable way” says Wim Staelens, Digital Manager at Mediahuis. “By using smart template design we are able to place more articles on one page, we minimized the amount of taps needed to consume a page, managing as such the complexity of our digital edition. To provide a clear overview, a page depth indicator at the bottom of the screen shows you the remaining articles.” adds Ellen De Schepper, Business Analyst at Twipe.
An important step for digital newspapers
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The new template family is a big step forward for Twipe and for the digital newspapers industry. Never before have we seen a newspaper optimizing his print content for digital consumption up to this level. The digital newspaper industry is evolving in coherence with other large digital platforms such as Facebook or Twitter, who also show their posts as flowing text. An additional advantage of this FLOW template family: it is perfectly suited to publish on smartphones as well. “Smartphones are the rising star in online news consumption, we hope to publish our first NextGen newspaper on smartphones soon.”, concludes Danny Lein, Founder & CEO of Twipe.
About Het Belang van Limburg
Het Belang van Limburg is the largest and strongest regional newspaper in Belgium, with a reach of close to 90% of readers. It is published by Mediahuis one of the largest publishers in Belgium and The Netherlands.
Discover the apps
The apps are available for download through the Apple AppStore, Google Playstore or on Web.
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