Inshorts Story
I was 11 when I got inspired from my father to read newspaper, and what attracted me the most was the front page because it was the only thing which is colorful, slowly I developed the reading habit, that reading news paper became part of my daily routine.
Years after during my preparation for CLAT I got to know about the Inshorts app which provides news in 60 words, and this concept and content of inshorts helped me to stay informes and since 2017 I’m one of the retained user of Inshorts.
And being a product enthusiast it attracted me to delve deep into Inshorts back story and business strategy.
Inshorts Overview
It began as a Facebook page and was formed by 3 IIT dropouts in 2015, it specializes in information access and distribution. Inshorts was founded by Azhar Iqubal (Co-Founder and Chairman), Deepit Purkayastha (Co-Founder and CEO), and Anunay Arunav. Seeing the challenges young people face in keeping up with daily news, they created a Facebook page with news summaries in the “Shorts” format as a minimal viable product (MVP).
Newspaper and Magazine Market
The digital newspaper and magazine market in India is anticipated to grow rapidly, with revenues predicted to reach INR 1,079.00 million by 2024, according to a Statista report. This shows a positive trend and offers the industry a significant opportunity.
Inshorts App
One way that the dynamic news app Inshorts sets itself apart is by curating the most relevant and recent news from both domestic and foreign sources. The app is a go-to source for fast and useful information because of its personalized content delivery, which keeps users informed without the cumbersome nature of traditional news consumption.
Inshorts Strategy Analysis
People desired an effective application that could give more news in less time without sacrificing quality, as social media sites such as Facebook were not very good at providing trustworthy news.
With this problem in mind, the InShorts team set out to create a platform that would allow consumers to get one sixty-word story at a time without being inundated with multiple news items at once.
To boost the amount of views on each article, the InShorts team opted to send out multiple push alerts to end users shortly after it launched. Even while it would sound good, InShorts’ situation did not turn out well.
The number of views per article for InShorts had increased, but the rate of user retention had significantly decreased. The user’s annoyance at receiving dozens of notifications during the day was the direct cause of this situation.
According to Deepit Purkaystha, the success metric of InShorts is the number of screens a user views in a given day — roughly 80 tales for the typical user.
They have placed a strong focus on user interaction and meeting the use-case of delivering succinct, factually verified news updates without being influenced by virality.
Factors that drive Engagement
The top three elements that InShorts has found to be incredibly effective are -
- Highlighting how much time a user spends scrolling through news articles, which has aided in fostering shareability. InShorts has accomplished this through visual communication, offering logical and captivating graphics associated with every news article.
- Counting how many stories a person views in a single session. This statistic offered insights into how to increase end-user screen time over several sessions rather than all at once.
- InShorts has made an effort to present interesting stories together with other noteworthy events. Instead of inundating a user with notifications, InShorts’ prediction models generate customized story prompts.
Revenue Model
- Types of Advertising: Brands employ sponsored content and display ads on Inshorts in addition to other forms of advertising to diversify their revenue streams.
- Performance metrics: The effectiveness of an advertisement is measured by factors like as impressions (views) and interactions (likes and shares). Advertisers are compensated based on the performance of their campaigns.
- Annual Contracts: Advertisers sign annual contracts with Inshorts to ensure a steady and predictable revenue flow.
Challenges
As one of the first adopters of vertical video formats, alongside industry major competitors like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, inshorts faced difficulties. The increased demand for this type of advertisement created unique challenges despite the significant first-mover advantage. When Inshorts first tried to develop widely without making timely debuts, they found it difficult to innovate.
They thus invested a year in creating a product that was never released or sold. This strategy isolated them from the dynamics of the market, highlighting the need of striking a balance between development objectives and customer expectations.
Therefore, as part of its expansion strategy, Inshorts is working to improve its news offerings while also expanding to include more regional vernacular. Inshorts is positioned to gather more views since it understands the potential for more ad income from a wider user base and a more diverse language range.