socialmedian: Europe’s biggest newspaper decides the iPhone browser isn’t welcome

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Europe’s biggest newspaper decides the iPhone browser isn’t welcome

Source: TechCrunch

Nov 06, 2009

Summary

So much for the coming mobile nirvana of free mobile content – at least for iPhone users in Germany. Today Europe’s biggest newspaper, the German newspaper BILD-Zeitung intends to use, in effect, brute force to force users buy its new iPhone app. The paper tabloid is to block anyone using an iPhone browser from accessing its website.

Now, readers will not only have to pay for the dedicated BILD iPhone app, but they also need to pony-up recurring fees for new articles. The same is planned for Axel Springer’s quality paper Die Welt. Users of Nokia, Blackberry, HTC or other smartphone brands will not be blocked – but only for as long as it takes for Springer to develop an app for each device.

Guinea pig: BZ Berlin for iPhone

Until now, Bild.de was Germany’s second most visited news site with 5.6m unique users and 1.36bn page impressions per month. It’s catching up fast with the market leader Spiegel online which is only on 20,000 unique users away. But this growth could suffer a setback as the site’s holding company, Axel Springer AG, plans to implement this pa

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