There's no choice between web and apps

Journalists like to talk about mobile web vs. apps like it’s a cage match. Which is better? Where should we place our bets? Which will win?

The answer is both. Prioritize both.

News organizations like to hope that the web will win.  That’s because the web is familiar, and apps are extremely costly. 

But the cruel truth is apps are dominating the mobile web in time spent by a 85% to 15% margin (Comscore).  Apps are even projected to eclipse the desktop web by the end of the year (Comscore).  And news apps are under-performing as a category, growing a third as fast as the average app (Flurry).

Oh, so people don’t like news apps, right?

No.  It’s because most news apps are built for pennies, and they suck when compared to snazzy aggregators like Flipboard and social experiences like Facebook.  The lack of investment is a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Well, maybe news orgs should just focus on the web, because Flipboard and Facebook send us traffic, and that should be our mobile strategy?

No. If you punt on apps, you’ve just disrupted yourself.  Remember the argument about Google back in the day?  That it became the entry point of the web and monetized on top of everyone else’s content?  Apps are the mobile entry point.

But HTML 5 will come on strong and take market share from apps, right?

That’s not how it’s trending right now, and besides, are you willing to bet your news organization’s future on that assumption?

Let’s stop making excuses as an industry.  Poynter should stop writing about it.  We should stop asking the question in journalism conferences.

It’s no more web “vs.” apps.  It’s both.