TechCrunch.com is the #1 source of breaking tech news. With 6.5 monthly uniques and 13 million followers and fans, the site drives 21 million monthly page views. The readership are true tech news junkies. 19% consider themselves influential. 44% earn an annual household income of 110K+ and are 110% more like likely to read TechCrunch content on a tablet. They are not just interested in breaking news, but also highly value the backstory (the companies, people and products behind the news).

As mobile traffic was increasing, desktop traffic was declining. This clearly aligned to the shifting technology preference of their tech savvy readership. With the lack of an optimal experience and advertising strategy on the mobile platforms, TechCrunch revenues were declining even though their overall audience was growing.

At the same time, third party readers like Flipboard & Pulse were benefiting from the optimized delivery of TechCrunch content through their mobile platforms. Flipboard alone was seeing over 13+ million monthly flips from 1+ million users reading TechCrunch content. Without an optimized mobile or tablet experience, TechCrunch was not fully realizing the value of their own content.

The TechCrunch business turned to the AOL Mobile Product group for help. Our analysis of the audience behavior led to the following recommendations which resulted in the development of native iOS and Android apps:

Provide a beautiful optimized reading experience for TechCrunch content.
Connect TechCrunch content with the backstory by pulling more information from companies, people and products from the CrunchBase (TechCrunch’s own leading platform to discover innovative companies and the people behind them).
Make it easy for readership to also view related third party content within the app.
Monetized the experience with co-branded sponsorship.

The Newsfeed

At a glance view of the top tech news, trends, and social commentary.

Article

Beautiful reading interface along side the

Sharing

50% of the readership are more likely to share. 19% consider themselves influential.

Explore the backstory

The power of CrunchBase at your fingertips. With one tap, you can explore the companies, people, and products directly related to the news article.

As a result, TechCrunch began to effectively monetize it’s own content on mobile. The iOS app was rated the #1 news app on iTunes one week after launch and received a 2013 Webby for best news app. The readers were rated the app five stars with reviews like this:

“Amazingly simple highly usable and a pleasure to use. I prefer this app over the TC site! I wish I could force all my blog apps to use this UI.”

“I love this app! Awesome UI, works flawless and great content!”

“And I don’t even like TechCrunch… but this is a well made app.”

TechCrunch Mobile App