Electronic newspaper delivery platform

A method of conveying information to a user, the method comprising the steps of:

• preparing an edition of a publication, on a server computer comprising a processor and a non-transitory computer readable media, including defining a plurality of sections to include in the publication, preparing a plurality of stories and a plurality of advertisements, arranging the stories into sequential positions in the sections, where each story is represented by a thumbnail, and assigning the advertisements to sequential positions interspersed with the positions of the stories;
• finalizing the edition before publishing, where finalizing the edition includes verifying that each section includes a proper pre-defined number of stories, performing an automated error check, verifying that the stories include a diversity of format templates, checking a flow of stories and advertisements in each section, and verifying that all advertisements designated for the edition have been included;
• publishing the edition of the publication from the server computer to a suite of mobile applications configured to receive and display the publication, where the mobile applications run on mobile devices having a processor and a non-transitory computer readable media;
• and
• viewing the edition of the publication, by a user on one of the mobile devices running one of the mobile applications.

An electronic newspaper publishing and delivery system, the system comprising:

• a suite of mobile applications running on mobile devices of users, said mobile devices having a processor and a non-transitory computer readable media, where the mobile applications are configured on the media of the devices to receive a periodic edition of an electronic newspaper publication and enable a user to view and interact with the publication on the mobile device;
• and
• an electronic newspaper publishing environment running on a server computer having a processor and a non-transitory computer readable media, said publishing environment comprising software modules configured on the media of the server including;
• a content management system, where the content management system is a database containing content files which are also used for printing the publication, and where the content files include stories, images and advertisements,
• a story creator module configured with features including importing content from the content management system, editing and formatting stories and advertisements for publishing, creating an edition of the publication including defining a plurality of sections to include in the edition and assigning stories and advertisements to the sections, arranging the stories and advertisements into sequential positions in the sections, where each story is represented by a thumbnail, finalizing the edition and publishing the edition,
• a news service module configured for receiving the edition of the publication from the story creator module and autonomously compiling and formatting the edition for delivery to each of the mobile applications in the suite of mobile applications, and
• wherein the story creator module is further configured for performing post-publish activities, including publishing updates to stories and reviewing edition performance information, where the edition performance information includes a number of views and an average viewing duration for stories, and includes a number of views, an average viewing duration and a click-through rate for advertisements, and where the performance information is fed back to the story creator module via an account and profile service module in communication with the mobile applications and the story creator module, the account and profile service module being configured for management of an account for each of the users using one of the mobile applications.