Apple making tweaks to News app featuring human curated Top Stories, more stats for publishers

Earlier on December 8, Apple released its latest update to iOS, bumping the version number to 9.2. The new software also brought with it an update and shift in scope to Apple News.

Apple News was one of the new tentpole features within iOS 9, a service that would let users put together their favorite news organizations and sites into one place, hopefully making it easier to read through articles in dynamic ways. With the launch of Apple News, the stories were supposed to be highlighted based on the individual’s reading habits and tastes.

That won’t be changing, but Apple is making an important change: Human curated stories that will be put together in a new “Top Stories” section. Much like a newspaper, there will be stories that will be presented front-and-center, as reported by Re/code, which were hand-picked by Apple’s human curators. These top stories will be selected in the morning and afternoon.
Another major change for Apple News is meant for publishers. Apple has confirmed it will be turning on integration with Comscore, a Web traffic counter. As a result, publishers will be able to see how much traffic is being routed through Apple News, and earn advertiser credit for that traffic.
Apple is sticking with the 100 percent revenue stream for publishers that generate advertising revenue through their own content, and Apple will give publishers 70 percent of the revenue it sells for ads it sells on its own.
It’s a pretty big shift for Apple News, especially for the curation geared towards Top Stories, but one that will hopefully result in better traffic and more positive reviews for the fledgling app.
How often do you use Apple News?
[via Re/code]

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