News

9 highlights from the February Pugpig publisher check-in

Catch up on the highlights from this month’s Pugpig publisher check-in, including product releases, customer news and more.

28th February 2025

On Tuesday 25th February, we kicked off our brand new initiative – the Pugpig monthly publisher check-in. Taking place on the last Tuesday of every month, the check-in gives Pugpig customers the chance to stay up to date with the latest Pugpig product updates, customer success stories, and industry insights. Each month, we’ll focus on a specific topic which could be anything from new partner integrations to industry reports or a major product release.

Alongside product & customer updates, we’ll be sharing an exclusive preview of our upcoming 2025 State of the Mobile Publishing Market report. Click the button below to secure your seat (there’s no need to register again if you registered for February’s check-in).

rsvp to the march check-in

If you missed the first check-in, don’t worry. We’ve pulled together the key takeaways so you can get up to speed on the latest product developments and news from Pugpig HQ. You can also watch the full recording of the session if you’d prefer.

Pugpig customer team update

Welcome to Jonathon, our new Customer Success Team Lead

We welcome Jonathon Wigmore-Hall, our new Customer Success Team Lead who joined us in November 2024. Jonathon joins us with over 5-years experience in the digital publishing industry and emphasised his focus on understanding each Pugpig customer’s unique definition of success.

Advance Local launches 23 titles on Pugpig Bolt

Advance Local, one of the largest U.S. media groups, launched 23 mobile apps on Pugpig Bolt, driving their digital transformation after ceasing print operations across a number of titles. With an ambitious timeline, we rolled out the apps in three phases from December 2024 to January 2025, while X-Cago streamlined PDF conversion for a seamless reader experience.

The Oregonian’s front page was revived using Bolt’s Timeline Layouts. Blending print-like design with digital flexibility allowed for twice-daily updates on the day’s front page stories and the flexibility to refresh morning stories in afternoon editions. Advance Local plans to expand this feature across more titles in the near future.

Pugpig Product Team update

Recent releases and upcoming features on Pugpig Bolt

Pugpig Product Director, Emillie, provided an overview of the latest product developments and what’s coming up on the roadmap. Recent improvements include enhancements to the web app, storefront improvements, and search filter updates.

Upcoming features include the Bolt Follow function (in customer beta phase), SDK 18 changes, Parse.ly integration, subscriptions module changes, two-step paywall, tooltips, and experimentation features.

read about our 2025 product roadmap

Emillie also discussed the implications of iOS 18 for Bolt, including the shift of the bottom tab bar to the top on iPads, as well as our ongoing exploration of AI features and Apple’s App Intents.

Customer poll: Apple’s App Intents & user-facing AI features

To better understand customer interest, we did a quickfire poll focusing on Apple’s App Intents and user-facing AI features. Check out the results…

Do you think App Intents could be valuable to your users?

Are there any use cases you’d be keen for us to explore?

Are you exploring user-facing AI features for your website?

What kinds of features?

Monthly focus: Introducing our brand new Viafoura SDK

We then heard from guest speaker Dalia Vainer, VP of Customer Experience at Viafoura who summarised the importance of community engagement for publishers, followed by a demo of the brand new SDK from Pugpig Head of Product, Harry Phillips.

Why is community engagement important for publishers?

The publishing industry’s focus is on converting known audiences, with a current global average registration rate of only 0.35% of active users. Community engagement can double registration rates and increase subscription likelihood by 31%. Users engaged in community are 2.5 times less likely to churn and have a five times greater likelihood of returning if they do churn.

Viafoura’s community-centered operating model focuses on driving registration/subscription, revenue/retention, and first-party data enrichment. And the SDK integration shows significant increases in user engagement, with app users commenting 8.4 times more than desktop users and registering nine times more than web users.

Pugpig Bolt’s Viafoura SDK demo

Harry walked us through the Viafoura SDK integration in a Bolt app using the Canberra Times as an example. Key features of the SDK include a mobile-first UI with smooth integration into articles, along with easy access to comments and community features throughout the app, including from the home screen.

He highlighted in-app moderation capabilities, a personalised news feed showing relevant comments and active conversations, profile views and following functionality.

The SDK looks just as great when using dark mode, and the integration is a fully productised integration, meaning it requires minimal setup for customers already using Viafoura.

In the full session recording, skip to 31 mins to watch the SDK demo in full.

Upcoming events & next month’s call

Where you’ll find us during this year’s conference season!

As conference season kicks off, here are the events you’ll catch us at over the next few months. We’d love to see you there!

INMA Subscriptions Summit, 10-14th March, Amsterdam
MEGA Conference, 14-16 April, Orlando
WAN IFRA World News Media Congress, 4-6 May, Krakow

What’s on the agenda for the March publisher check-in?

Next month’s check-in will be on Tuesday 25th March at 11am EST/3pm GMT. As well as customer and product updates, the monthly focus will be an earlybird preview of our upcoming 2025 State of the Mobile Publishing Market report. You don’t want to miss out!

rsvp to the march check-in