Long Island Wave has been our regional title for Nassau and Suffolk for years, read by more than 20,000 people a month on the web. As of this month it is also an app, on the App Store and on Google Play, free, with no account needed to read a word of it.
It is not a website in a wrapper. It is a native app on each platform, Swift on iPhone and Kotlin on Android, built by the same in-house team that runs the publication and the platform it sits on.
People on Long Island read on their phones, on the train, at the beach, in the ten minutes before a meeting. A mobile website is a compromise for that reader, and we did not want to ask them to settle for one. The app is the publication the way it should feel in your hand: fast, clean, and built to be read.
Keith Tucci, Principal & Agency Director, Wave Agency
What readers get
The day, at the top. Local news the moment it publishes, with a filter for the section somebody actually came for: news, business, food and drink, health, beauty, lifestyle and events.
Stories made to be read. Articles are typeset for the phone rather than squeezed into a browser. Readers pick the text size their eyes agree with, and light, dark, or whatever the phone is set to.
Save it for the ride. A saved story is kept on the phone, so it opens on the LIRR, on the beach, or anywhere the signal gives up.
What is on this weekend. The events calendar for both counties, laid out day by day, from village fairs and tastings to concerts and openings.
Every story ever published. The whole archive, searchable by place, business or subject. Handy when you half remember a restaurant or a road project.
Signing in is optional. It takes a six-digit code sent to an email or phone, there is no password to invent, and it simply lets saved stories follow a reader to a new phone.
Why this matters to advertisers
A local advertiser buys attention from a specific audience, and the app gives that audience a better room to be in.
The same campaign, on both screens. Sponsored placements in the app run on the same first-party ad system as the website. An advertiser on Long Island Wave does not need a separate buy, a separate creative, or a separate report to reach the app audience. It is one campaign.
Clearly labeled, never disguised. Every placement says Sponsored. Readers trust a publication that is honest about its advertising, and that trust is exactly what an advertiser is paying to stand next to.
No ad networks, no tracking. Long Island Wave sells and serves its own ads. There is no third-party network deciding what appears beside a story, and no advertising tracker following readers around. What appears in the app is a local business chosen for a local audience.
A reader who came back on purpose. Somebody who installed a Long Island publication on their home screen is the most engaged reader it has. That is the audience advertisers are buying.
An ad on Long Island Wave has always meant a local business in front of local readers, with nobody in the middle. The app keeps that promise and gives it a better stage. An advertiser’s campaign now reaches the people who cared enough to put us on their home screen, and that is the best audience a local business can ask for.
Keith Tucci, Principal & Agency Director, Wave Agency
If you want to put your business in front of that audience, the advertising and sponsorship page has the details, or book a call and we will walk you through it.
Built on our own platform
Long Island Wave runs on Wave Publisher, the publishing platform we built for our own titles and now offer to other publications. The apps are part of it: one set of stories, one events calendar, one ad system, served to the website, the iPhone app and the Android app at the same time.
Most publications that want an app get a template with their logo on it. We built ours from the ground up, on the same platform the publication already runs on, so nothing lives in two places. When an editor publishes a story, it is on the web and in both apps at once. That is the kind of thing you only get right by running it yourself.
Keith Tucci, Principal & Agency Director, Wave Agency
Get it
Long Island Wave is free on the App Store and on Google Play. Search for LI Wave, or open longislandwave.com/app on your phone.
And if you are thinking about an app for your own business, the relevant page is mobile app development. The team described there is the same one that shipped this.
