The Okinawa Times, a local media in Japan, like many media organizations, has been grappling with a decline in newspaper subscribers, whose population is gradually aging. This trend results in fewer touchpoints with younger generations and individuals who do not read newspapers.

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, Okinawa, a subtropical archipelago located in southwestern Japan, saw a surge in tourism and has seen a significant increase in visitors, reaching approximately 8.5 million in 2023, 25.9% increase compared to the prior year. The Okinawa Times identified an opportunity to deliver the wealth of content held by newspapers to a wider audience and embraced a mission for the Okinawa Times to contribute to the local community through its deeply rooted, community-based reporting. However, the perception of the “Okinawa Times” as a rigid news organization made it seem less relevant to potential users interested in Okinawa's tourism and culture. To overcome this, the Okinawa Times sought to create a flexible platform that could showcase the fun and exciting aspects of Okinawa from a fresh perspective to attract new readers to explore a new revenue stream.

To address this challenge and connect with a wider audience, the Okinawa Times embarked on a new app development project. The Okinawa Times selected the Flutter News Toolkit (FNT) for its ability to seamlessly integrate with their existing CMS and streamlining operations, lowering the barrier for entry to build an app. By adding app distribution to their existing workflow for delivering editorial and tourism content to their website and external media, the Okinawa Times significantly improved efficiency. Additionally, FNT's built-in best practices of UX, which have been globally validated by Google, enabled the team to design an effective app without extensive trial and error. "Relying on professional insights was more efficient than starting from scratch. This allowed us to focus on delivering the best possible content to our users." It was an effort that achieved both efficiency and quality, as they say.

As a next step, Okinawa Times intends to leverage their extensive data across various content verticals and incorporate diverse methods of expression, including videos, to drive deeper community engagement. Adapting their data and information to be more app-friendly and bridging the gap between data and the end-user experience will be a key focus moving forward.

The vision of the Okinawa Times extends beyond simply providing information; it aims to create experiences that connect with app users' behavior. As a foundation to support this vision, they have high expectations for the efficient operational framework provided by FNT and the extensibility of Flutter. As a local media outlet, the Okinawa Times believes it has an unique opportunity to connect people with their community. This initiative represents a significant step forward in fulfilling that opportunity. The Okinawa Times will continue to innovate and explore new possibilities for the future of information dissemination.

A detailed playbook guiding News Publishers on how to leverage Flutter News Toolkit (FNT) to build a newspaper app is available here: https://anymindgroup.com/news/press-release/gni-fourm-202408

(The use of FNT in this case is just one example, and the cost, process, and development period of app development vary depending on the project.)