Dive Brief:
- Forbes.com is launching a new mobile site with a user experience intended to mimic Snapchat Stories, according to MediaPost. Snapchat was chosen as an inspiration for the redesign because it remains one of the few mobile-only social networks and its Stories are unique to the service rather than simply being re-purposed desktop content, the publisher said.
- The publisher's new, Snapchat-like storytelling format is called Cards. The redesigned mobile site intends to feel more like an app than a traditional publisher page, with articles that are swiped through or swiped up to view a longer version of the story.
- Forbes beta-tested the Cards format and found it doubled engagement for power readers and tripled engagement for casual readers, per MediaPost. Salah Zalatimo, SVP of product and technology at Forbes Media, told MediaPost the new approach is a response to how readers are changing the way they consume content.
Dive Insight:
Forbes' latest project is built on Google’s Progressive Web App (PWA) technology, which other publishers have utilized, although Forbes believes it is the first digital news publishers to use PWA for its main mobile site, per MediaPost. The site also has an in-house advertising format called Fluid, which is designed to load quickly — purportedly in eight-tenths of a second.
Amid an ongoing battle with technologies like ad blockers, publishers are searching out new ways to monetize their content. While native advertising is top of mind for many, trendier, more dynamic methods of storytelling like Forbes' Cards might encourage visitors to tolerate ads more than they do on desktop or other, more traditional mobile sites.
Cribbing from Snapchat has become a popular practice in the social space, as the upstart app has captured the attention of young audiences and helped redefine how businesses and users think about video messaging. Facebook has been liberally borrowing ideas from Snapchat both on its core suite of products and especially with Instagram Stories, the latter of which might actually be eating into Snapchat's user base.
Now, it looks like more publishers are following suit in an attempt to replicate parent company Snap's massive success. Last month, Huffington Post rolled out a new storytelling format called "storybook" that, like Forbes' Cards, liberally takes design elements from Snapchat Stories with a series of swipeable or clickable vertical images and videos.