What Is Headlines

The Lifeline & ACP Program

The Lifeline Program in the USA provides low-income families with discounted or free telecommunications services, often accompanied with free mobile device to help bridge the digital divide. It is complemented by the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), which offers further subsidies for broadband access. Both programs ensure essential communication tools are affordable for all Americans.

• Lifeline Subsidy: Free or up to $9.25 monthly discount on phone or internet services.
• ACP Subsidy: Up to $30 monthly towards broadband, and $75 on qualifying Tribal lands

While mobile carriers offer devices for free to subscribers, they bear the distribution costs. To sustain this model, generating additional revenue is crucial.

Integration & Distribution

Sliide integrates its apps seamlessly across devices using a versatile approach that adapts to various technological environments and partner requirements. By working closely with Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) and Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), Sliide ensures efficient access and integration into devices.

• Over The Air (OTA)
• Firmware (FW)
• Software Development Kits (SDK)
• Android Open Source Project (AOSP)

Product Evolution

As part of our commitment to continuous improvement, we made the strategic decision to move from Headlines Classic to the next version, Headlines 2.0. Starting from scratch, we conducted a series of stakeholder interviews, including user feedback, to guide the development of this new version. Headlines 2.0 offered a significantly enhanced experience compared to its predecessor, serving as a strong foundation for future iterations. This migration marked a pivotal point in the product’s evolution, setting the stage for continued innovation and growth.

User Feedback

Through a series of user interviews and tests, we identified several pain points that guided our redesign of Headlines Classic. These insights allowed us to make targeted improvements, ensuring the app aligned closely with user expectations and preferences, creating a more intuitive and enjoyable experience.

• Customisation Options
• Native Unlock Mechanisms
• Lock Screen Shortcuts
• Enhanced UI
• Accessibility Support
• And Many More...

Re-Designed UI/UX

We undertook a comprehensive UI/UX redesign with a strong emphasis on content cards to optimise user engagement and monetisation. A key part of this process involved conducting multiple A/B tests to experiment with different card layouts. These tests had a significant impact on our KPIs, helping us identify the best-performing designs. The refined content cards led to higher user interaction and improved monetisation metrics, reinforcing the importance of data-driven design choices in shaping the product’s success.

• New Content Cards UI + A/B Testing
• New Content Verticals
• Android Native UI & Features
• Native Wallpaper Support
• White Labelling Support + Custom Flows

Carousel Swiping

We introduced a swipe-able carousel, allowing for a smoother, more intuitive browsing experience. The new UX/UI enables users to easily swipe through content in both directions, enhancing usability while increasing monetisation opportunities. A key focus was to make the interface friendlier and more accessible for Tier 2 users and partners. Utilising technologies like lazy loading, we created an infinitely scrollable carousel, boosting content delivery efficiency and refining our overall content strategy.

Content Cards

The Flick MVP is built around five core content verticals, ensuring a streamlined and user-friendly experience. This structure allows for easy integration of future verticals, enhancing the app’s adaptability and scalability. Current content includes:

• Editorial Content
• Video Content
• Sponsored Content
• Display Ads
• Native Ads

Future updates will introduce new features to enhance engagement and meet evolving user needs, including affiliate links, localised weather, grouped news topics, location-based offers, MNO alerts, and more diverse content providers.

On / Off-Boarding

For Flick, we completely revamped the on and off-boarding experience to adopt a more user-centric approach. Aiming to maintain high opt-in rates and achieve key metrics, we implemented a multi-faceted strategy with customisable options tailored to partner needs. From user testing, we identified the importance of flexibility, allowing for unique onboarding and off-boarding experiences. Additionally, a new re-engagement feature provided multiple opportunities for users to sign up, leading to significant KPI improvements across the product.

App Deep-Linking

As our product suite grew, multiple Sliide apps often coexisted on a single device, allowing for unique interactions that boosted user engagement. A key innovation was introducing app deep linking from the Lock Screen, seamlessly connecting user actions to other apps in the ecosystem. This strategy kept users engaged across our products, improving transitions and significantly increasing monetisation and engagement metrics. By maintaining engagement both on and off the Lock Screen, we saw higher retention and usage, showcasing the power of deep linking in creating a cohesive app experience.

AI Content

In our Lock Screen Apps, we leveraged AI-driven summarisation to deliver concise, engaging news summaries from multiple sources directly to users. This feature allowed users to quickly stay informed without needing to leave the lock screen, enhancing user engagement and accessibility. The AI summarisation offered different levels of content detail:

• Short Summary: A brief overview capturing the essence of the article.
• Large Summary: An expanded version with more in-depth coverage.
• Full Article: Access to the entire article for comprehensive reading.

Lock Screen Consumption

Building on our AI-powered summaries, we could now deliver these concise news updates directly on the lock screen, offering users instant access to the most relevant information at a glance. Users can explore articles further through deep-linking to other apps within our portfolio, balancing quick insights with the option for deeper engagement.

User Feedback

To enhance our advertising strategy, we integrated interstitial ads into our apps, strategically placing them at natural transition points. This approach has significantly boosted both engagement and revenue compared to traditional ad formats. By adopting interstitial ads, we maximise user attention during key moments, optimizing the effectiveness of our monetisation efforts.

Responsive Design

Our responsive design for the lock screen ensures a seamless, non-intrusive experience that encourages high user adoption. Users can easily glance at content and widgets for quick updates, with options to expand for more information when desired. This flexibility allows users to stay informed with minimal disruption while providing a pathway to dive deeper and access related apps directly.

Smart Ai Widgets

We harnessed AI to deliver timely, context-aware widgets and notifications directly on users’ lock screens. This “just-in-time” approach ensures users receive the most relevant information exactly when they need it, enhancing engagement and convenience without the need for app navigation.

• 'JIT' Alerts
• Live Widgets
• Transparent Design
• 3rd Party Integration

User Customisable

To personalise the user experience, we introduced Custom Topics, enabling users to fine-tune their news feed by selecting specific categories and interests. This feature allows for a more tailored, relevant experience, enhancing user engagement by delivering precisely the content they care about most. By offering users control over their content preferences, Custom Topics optimises engagement and fosters a deeper, more personalised connection with our apps.

• Custom Categories & Topics
• Like / Dislike Algorithm
• Lock Screen Shortcuts
• Customisable Layouts

Native Notifications

For our premium product, we prioritised creating a seamless, native notification experience that closely mirrored the familiarity of a device’s built-in notifications. User feedback indicated this was a critical area, so we focused on enhancing the Lock Screen without removing any core features. By deeply integrating with the Android operating system, we ensured that notifications felt intuitive and familiar, allowing users to interact naturally. This approach maintained the Lock Screen’s functionality while adding value, improving the overall user experience without compromising key updates and alerts.3rd Party Integration

New Real Estate

Our responsive design for the lock screen ensures a seamless, non-intrusive experience that encourages high user adoption. Users can easily glance at content and widgets for quick updates, with options to expand for more information when desired. This flexibility allows users to stay informed with minimal disruption while providing a pathway to dive deeper and access related apps directly.

Content Feed

The -1 screen was designed to provide users with a personalised content experience directly from their Lock Screen. This feature enabled users to customise the type of content they wanted to see, making it easy to access what’s most important with a simple swipe. It was a dynamic way to engage with a wide range of content, all tailored to user preferences for quick and convenient access.

• News Content
• Video Content
• Device Search
• App and Games Downloads
• And many more…

Widgets

The +1 screen introduced both native and custom widgets, giving users quick access to essential information directly from their Lock Screen. This included familiar, native widgets and custom options that allowed for deeper integrations with partners and MNOs. The custom widgets opened up a variety of possibilities, making the experience both informative and engaging.

• Partner Widgets
• Sliide apps upsell and engagement opportunities
• Third-party & affiliate monetisation
• And many more…

Tablet Opportunity

Our responsive design for the lock screen ensures a seamless, non-intrusive experience that encourages high user adoption. Users can easily glance at content and widgets for quick updates, with options to expand for more information when desired. This flexibility allows users to stay informed with minimal disruption while providing a pathway to dive deeper and access related apps directly.

Orientation Support

Our responsive design for the lock screen ensures a seamless, non-intrusive experience that encourages high user adoption. Users can easily glance at content and widgets for quick updates, with options to expand for more information when desired. This flexibility allows users to stay informed with minimal disruption while providing a pathway to dive deeper and access related apps directly.

Lock Screen Consumption

Our responsive design for the lock screen ensures a seamless, non-intrusive experience that encourages high user adoption. Users can easily glance at content and widgets for quick updates, with options to expand for more information when desired. This flexibility allows users to stay informed with minimal disruption while providing a pathway to dive deeper and access related apps directly.