Urban Airship Powers Subscriptions for the Guardian Mobile App

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“We continue to see momentum around the subscriptions model for app monetization,” says Scott Kveton, CEO of Urban Airship.

Portland, OR (Vocus/PRWEB) January 21, 2011

Urban Airship, the engine behind thousands of the world’s most successful mobile apps, is powering the subscriptions capability in the latest app from Guardian News and Media Limited. The Guardian's latest iPhone app is now available in the App Store.

The U.S. version is advertising-supported and offered as a free download. Outside the U.S., the iPhone app is a subscription-based service offered without advertising. Users can opt to subscribe full access for £2.99 (roughly $4) for six months and £3.99 (roughly $6) for one year. Initially, non-US Guardian app users will download the "intro" app, which appears in the "free" category and offers the option to subscribe for the full service.

The Guardian integrated Urban Airship's subscriptions library, which is built on top of Apple's In App Purchase. Urban Airship's Subscriptions enables end users of the app to purchase and pay for subscriptions via their iTunes account. Urban Airship also powers the subscriptions function in popular apps from Newsweek and The Daily Mail, among others.

Jonathon Moore, Product Manager, Mobile & Emerging Devices, Guardian News & Media, explains the move to subscriptions on the Guardian blog “With the new app we'll be launching more frequent updates, offering a broader range of content and bringing you a better experience. This means ensuring we can meet the associated development costs. The best way to provide this in the longer term, we believe, is to move to a subscription model - and at £2.99 for 6 months and £3.99 for 12 months, we believe the new app represents excellent value for money.”

In compliance with Apple’s In App Purchase guidelines, Urban Airship’s solution provides the infrastructure to deliver the subscription content to multiple devices associated with the end user, a recovery flow for previously purchased content in the event a device is lost or reset, tracking of subscription expirations, and a method for reminding customers about renewals via rich push notifications.

“We continue to see momentum around the subscriptions model for app monetization,” says Scott Kveton, CEO of Urban Airship. “As publishers seek to earn revenue from their content on mobile, they are looking to in-app purchase and the subscriptions model. We see this as an extremely interesting opportunity not only for traditional publishers but also for any app. At Urban Airship, we are working with developers across industries to make subscriptions integration even easier.”

About Urban Airship
Urban Airship powers the world’s most successful mobile apps. Providing breakthrough technology, Urban Airship makes mobile marketing far more engaging, effective, and efficient. Top brands depend on Urban Airship to ensure their mobile app initiatives are scalable and profitable. Newsweek, the Daily Mail, the Guardian and the Atlantic are just a few of the thousands of companies that utilize Urban Airship's innovative subscriptions platform to reach and engage target audiences - and increase app revenue streams. Urban Airship puts the power of influence in marketers' hands through push notification, rich messaging, and in-app purchases. The privately held company is based in Portland, Oregon. For more information, interested parties can visit urbanairship.com.

Press Contact:
Jessica Davis
Urban Airship
C: 503.756.8908
jessica(at)urbanairship(dot)com

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