FT Plans New Blackberry App, 24-hour Pass to Web Site

The Financial Times is planning a new Blackberry app, has an Android app in the planning stages and is looking at offering a 24-hour pass to its Web site in 2010, according to a story on Journalism.co.uk.

Judith Townend writes, “The newspaper mobile sector has seen a ’step change’ in the past 18 months he said, with around 200,000 downloads of the FT iPhone app to date.

“The FT rejected a paid iPhone app model, like the Guardian’s: ‘We looked at the two models side by side and maybe we could have got away with putting quite a high price point,’ said Grimshaw.

“‘But the fact is you only get one hit from that and then after that the revenue stream dries up. We thought it would be much more sensible and favourable to make it part of the subscription model.’

“The FT receives new subscribers to its tiered system every week because they wanted the app, he added. The iPhone app can be downloaded for free, but non-subscribers are limited to viewing three items per month.”

Read more here.