In 2020 CryptoBriefing, a cryptocurrency news website, commissioned me to conduct a competitive analysis of 17 news applications from the traditional, finance, and crypto sector.

The objective was to get strategic insights into what interface patterns established traditional and finance news apps have adopted, and what our existing competition in the crypto currency space is doing.

I analyzed competitors such as Bloomberg, CNBC, Yahoo Finance, Google News amongst others. Below is the full list of the applications I looked at.

In total I discovered 22 methods by which we can potentially increase our engagement, acquisition, and retention.

Below is a walkthrough of the 4 best insights I discovered.

Article Card - Add Context about the Stock being discussed

MooMoo and Yahoo Finance, include the performance of a stock as a label for applicable news articles to increase interest in the article. CryptoBriefing could incorporate the performance of a stock into the preview of news articles on their home page.

This could increase the likelihood of a reader opening the news article as they may be motivated to learn more about the stock.

Provide Search Suggestions to increase engagement on the Search Page

Rather than letting the search page just be a search bar, many news website used their search page to drive traffic to a variety of content.

For example:

1. Yahoo Finance suggests popular watch lists along with recommended premium research reports to read

2. The In-shorts news app suggests news categories and topics to read

3. New York Times suggests it's most popular articles and categories to read

Potentially CryptoBriefing could adopt this idea to drive readers towards their more premium "Simetri" reports for the month.

Include In Line Suggestions to Premium Content

In the CNBC app, readers are provided with recommend stock picks and investing trends from CNBC pro subscription, a pattern also seen on sites like Medium.com. CryptoBriefing can adopt a similar strategy of including their premium articles into an article being read.

This is a great strategy to acquire pro readers as it helps readers learn that there is premium insightful content on the website that can help them.

Highlight Premium Content on the Home News Feed

Multiple apps increased visibility of their premium reports by including them in the home page news feed. For example:

1. Hindustan Times includes a stock screener in their news feed to make people discover reports on stocks with best growth, payout, highest value potential etc.

2. MoneyControl, include large feature cards to highlight their opinions and expert advice stock reports by their premium authors

CryptoBriefing could adopt this method to make people to discover and read premium Simetri reports.

Enjoyed reading, and want access to the full report or want to chat about a project?

Message me on learnwithzosh@gmail.com or linkedin.com/in/zoshuacolah and I will be happy to share it with you.

P.S. That's what the full report looks like.