Pitchfork Launching Weekly Magazine As Mobile App

Pitchfork continues to expand its media portfolio with the coming launch of Pitchfork Weekly, an iOS app that will combine content from Pitchfork and Pitchfork.TV. In addition, Pitchfork staff will produce podcasts available exclusively on Pitchfork Weekly. An Android version is expected to follow in early 2014. It's a long overdue development for a media company that has been noted for its recent online experiments while its mobile presence has lagged behind.

Pitchfork yesterday announced the upcoming launch of their new iOS app expected any day now. Pitchfork Weekly will be a multimedia magazine in app form that combines exclusive editorial content and programming from Pitchfork and Pitchfork.TV with podcasts "ranging from talk about the week in music to mixes of notable tracks."

Launching with the support of Lexus, Pitchfork Weekly:

"offers an opportunity for readers to have a totally immersive experience with Pitchfork’s original content in an offline environment. It will serve as a 'weekly magazine' version of the site, drawing inspiration from the design of a print publication with enhanced photos, graphics, and long-form features and cover stories."

"With the pace of the web, it can sometimes be difficult to slow down and engage with great writing, and the sheer amount of words that we publish each week can be overwhelming. Pitchfork Weekly allows for a more focused reading experience, while at the same time taking advantage of the multimedia possibilities tablet and mobile apps provide."

Pitchfork worked with Stinkdigital to create the app. You can check out their portfolio of projects for such brands as Red Bull Music Academy, Adidas and Dick's Sporting Goods.

Pitchfork used to have a Pitchfork Weekly YouTube series. They've also had a couple of apps for the 2013 Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago and Paris.

But this is clearly a very different product and the first real mobile app for Pitchfork focused on editorial content. Pitchfork Media President Chris Kaskie stated:

"We've gone through different iterations of building an app before…We never did anything with them because they never felt inspiring enough and an accurate enough representation of what we were doing online."

Definitely a timely move, especially given that their website is not responsive and the mobile web version that appeared on my iPod Touch kept crashing the browser. I understand the situation of legacy sites like Pitchfork, or Hypebot for that matter, but these days mobile solutions are not an optional feature.

A weekly updated app actually has a lot of appeal. You can send out notifications once a week, if desired by readers, and it creates a mini-event in contrast to the never ending flow of the web.

[Thumbnail screenshot of Pitchfork Weekly app via Pitchfork.]

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Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (@fluxresearch/@crowdfundingm) also blogs at Flux Research and Crowdfunding For Musicians. To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.