A new website offering content not available to aggregators is part of a rebrand of newspaper content distributor NewspaperDirect as PressReader.
Chief executive Alex Kroogman says the website – “designed to address the changing state of the media industry” – will be modelled on its own PressReader app, with an enhanced browser reading experience.
It will be accessible on tablets or computers, with extra tools and technologies promised to provide a platform for discussion.
Kroogman says a new vision of connecting people through news is just the first step in the company's mission to become the world's largest digital news marketplace: “As the media industry has changed and grown over the years, our company has developed new technologies and products to better serve our customers and our partners," he says. “By unifying all of our products and services under the PressReader name, we feel we are better representing who we are today and where we are going in the future."
As a partner to thousands of publishers, PressReader now has more 30 million users worldwide. “Through the years, the media landscape and news consumption patterns among consumers have drastically evolved and migrated from print to digital platforms,” Kroogman says. “The transformation helped fuel our technological innovation, award-winning products, new markets and explosive growth, and the time has now come for the company to align itself and its solutions with its new vision of connecting people through news.”
Under the new brand, PressReader will embrace a reader-centric approach and invest in development of new reading technology, he says.