CNN Mobile's VP takes both sides of the mobile Web vs. native app debate

with Louis Gump, vice president of CNN Mobile

After an eight-year stint at The Weather Channel Interactive, where he most recently served as the vice president of mobile, Louis Gump joined CNN as its vice president of mobile in 2009. In the two years since he joined, CNN Mobile has launched apps for the iPhone, iPad, Android tablets and Android-enabled mobile phones. And Gump has propelled CNN Mobile into triple digit mobile ad growth from the first quarter of 2010 to the first quarter of 2011. In addition, Gump has served as global chairman for the Mobile Marketing Association.

FierceMobileContent: How has CNN's mobile strategy changed overall since you joined in the summer of 2009? What about in the past year?

Gump: Before I arrived, mobile was really a bit of a side business for CNN. It was something we had done for a long time. We launched our first mobile website in 1999. We had a pretty sizable group of unique users, but we hadn't really focused on building out with apps. We hadn't really focused on ad revenue and we hadn't really focused on the content as much. So what's been happening over the last couple of years: We have put together a very thoughtful strategy; we have changed from separate U.S. and international strategies to a comprehensive global strategy; we have been launching apps. We launched the iPhone app in September of 2009, the international iPhone app in July of 2010 and the iPad app last December. Android tablet app in February [and] Android phone app last month. So as you can see there is an acceleration in product launches.

And at the same time, mobile Web has really been improving each month. We believe that both mobile Web and apps are essential to the business.

And other dimensions I'd like to highlight is the revenue characteristics. When I arrived, the ad revenue was enough to be interesting but really not an area of focus. And we have had triple digit ad growth, mobile ad growth, from the first quarter of 2010 to the first quarter of 2011.

FierceMobileContent: How does CNN profit from mobile?

Gump: Advertising is the primary financial growth provider for CNN Mobile, and it is really that simple. We did launch a paid app on the iPhone in September of 2009 and it was successful. On the other hand, one of the dynamics of the app market is that free apps tend to draw a lot more users. Because advertisers are increasingly interested in the mobile platform, we actually had a stronger revenue pace of the ad-supported app than we did for a paid app at the core product level. And so what we are seeing is that advertising is to fund products across our portfolio.

I would also say however, if I interpret your question a little more broadly and more than just financial in nature, that mobile enriches the ways that consumers can access CNN. We can do things on mobile platforms that other people can't do. And I can give you a couple examples of that. One of them is about a week ago when the news came through about [Osama] bin Laden [when he was killed]. Sunday night 10-11 o'clock at night, a lot of people had turned off their TVs and were going to bed, they got alerts on their phones and immediately checked their iPads or phones, or Android devices or they went to their TV. And they went to tune in and they got their news sooner because of the unique capabilities of phones.

And the second aspect of this is that a major portion of what we price is our iReport. IReport is our citizen journalism tool. What happens is that we are getting incredible submissions via these mobile devices which are not only becoming a part of the iReport content community, but are used extensively on air on CNN. So not only is it enriching the consumer experience but it is also contributing content that we never could have had otherwise.

FierceMobileContent: The CNN mobile site was down after news of Osama bin Laden's death. Why did it go down and what were the page views during this time?

Gump: You know that's a great question. You know we are still on a path of continuous improvement, and part of that is seeing how high our page views go, and we had an extraordinary spike in traffic. Fortunately, the apps worked beautifully. We just had a very brief issue with our mobile website, and at the same time a planned infrastructure update that has been going on, so I would chalk that up to growing pace. Because we are seeing just such incredible growth and demand and are working rapidly to have the kind of infrastructure you would expect.

FierceMobileContent: What kind of traffic is CNN seeing? What are the most popular mobile platforms for CNN? Web? iOS? Android?

Gump: The last number that we published in terms of our ad base is 6 million apps downloaded, and I can tell you that it is growing very rapidly. We actually had just in the 10 days following events in Japan, we had more than one million downloads for our apps, which puts us over the 6 million mark in March. So that has been one of the things that the market has been interested in.

At the same time, mobile Web is critically important and the hub of our mobile business. In that area, according to Nielsen in February, the CNN digital network reached about 17.5 million unique users--so lots of usage. There are some different characteristics in that usage. Mobile Web often tends to be wide reach with a number of times per month. Apps in particular--our iPad app tends to be a little bit more immersive and have more pages views per month. And so we are kind of learning as we go. We rely heavily on metrics. We are using that kind of research to drive product development.

FierceMobileContent: What benefits do users have to downloading the CNN app rather than simply viewing the mobile version of the CNN site?

Gump: It depends on the app, but generally speaking we try to take advantage of the native functionalities of the devices. So let's take [a device]--you can pick either iPhone or Android--[and] you can do things like swipe among stories and you can save certain settings [and] also iReport is still in [the apps]. The video capabilities [of the apps] take advantage of the native video players in the phones. So we are really agnostic if people use mobile Web or apps. We're fine with it either way.

On the other hand, mobile Web is something where you can build once and serve many, so we have some sections up on mobile Web time from time that we simply don't build into our apps because of the transitory nature of those sections. So I think mobile Web is a little more flexible.

FierceMobileContent: What is CNN's position on mobile TV? Since the demise of Qualcomm's MediaFLO service, do you expect CNN to continue to provide mobile video services?

Gump: Mobile TV is here to stay and is here to stay in a big way. In particular with TV Everywhere, as Turner has stated--which is our parent company--we will be launching with the ability to tune in to the live CNN signal in the U.S. in the not too distant future. And the way to do that is to authenticate and say, "Hey, I'm a subscriber," by naming either your cable or telco or satellite distributor, and then you'll be able to go in and watch live TV in your app. That's going to be a very powerful and game-changing experience.

FierceMobileContent: CNN just issued a new version of its tablet app for Android. How are the larger screen size, multi-touch capabilities and other advances of the tablet format impacting how CNN presents and delivers news? 

Gump: For starters, we believe that mobile phones often are more of a snacking experience, and we believe that tablets are often more of an immersive experience. Now, obviously there are exceptions of that. I heard an example recently of someone who rides the train into New York City for an hour each day and catches up on news via CNN for that whole hour on a mobile phone. On the other hand, tablets can be great for a quick hit, but the tablets are great for powerful images, for consuming a story, for sitting down for 20-30 minutes and catching up on a lot of things.

We also have a featured section in the tablets, which we don't have on our phones. which are just things that our editors choose which we think are just really great content we think everybody would be interested in. And of course video is brilliant on these screens, which is a lot different than what you'd see on a mobile phone. On the other hand, phones are so convenient, they are in people's pockets, they are very powerful. We should not mistake viability here. Phones are here to stay in a really big way in the case of content consumption, but they are just different.