NYT VR
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| NYT VR | |
|---|---|
| Information | |
| Type | 360-degree video application |
| Industry | Journalism |
| Developer | The New York Times, with IM360 |
| Operating System | iOS, Android |
| Supported Devices | Google Cardboard, Google Daydream, Samsung Gear VR, smartphones without a viewer |
| Release Date | November 5, 2015 (iOS and Android); August 3, 2017 (Gear VR) |
NYT VR (also written NYTVR) is a virtual reality and 360-degree video app from The New York Times for smartphones and mobile headsets. The Times announced it on October 20, 2015 as a project made in collaboration with Google, and supported the launch by delivering more than one million Google Cardboard viewers to home delivery subscribers with the newspaper on the weekend of November 7 and 8, 2015.[1] The first film made for the app, The Displaced, was produced by The New York Times Magazine with Chris Milk's VR company Vrse and follows three children displaced by war.[1]
The app carried the Times' VR films and, from November 2016, the Samsung-sponsored Daily 360 series of short 360-degree news videos.[2] The Displaced won the Mobile Lions and Entertainment Lions Grand Prix awards at the 2016 Cannes Lions festival.[3] A version for Samsung Gear VR arrived on the Oculus Store in August 2017.[4]
History
Background
The Times had shown VR work before the app existed. At its NewFront presentation for advertisers in April 2015 it screened Walking New York, a VR film made with Chris Milk's production company Vrse about the making of a New York Times Magazine cover. For that cover, the French artist JR photographed a recent immigrant and pasted a 150-foot-tall version of the portrait on the Flatiron Plaza in Manhattan; the film, narrated by JR, follows the process from the street photo shoot to the final helicopter shot.[5] The app's first slate of films included a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the Walking New York cover.[1]
Launch (2015)
The New York Times Company announced NYT VR on October 20, 2015. According to the announcement, the Times developed the app in collaboration with the VR studio IM360. It required iOS 8 or later or Android 4.3 or later, supported VR playback in Google Cardboard and touchscreen navigation of 360-degree video, and was to be free on the Google Play and iOS App Stores from November 5.[1][6] TheWrap reported that the app had a quiet release on Thursday, November 5.[7]
Print home delivery subscribers received a Google Cardboard viewer with their paper on November 7 and 8. Times Insider subscribers and a selection of digital subscribers were sent promo codes by email for a free viewer.[1] Engadget put the usual price of such a viewer at about $25.[8] Meredith Kopit Levien, then the company's executive vice president and chief revenue officer, said in the announcement that the project used "the print newspaper" and its distribution system "to deliver one of the most advanced digital storytelling technologies to more than a million people".[1]
Advertising was part of the launch. GE sponsored a film made by T Brand Studio, the Times' in-house content marketing agency, with Framestore's VR studio, and MINI supplied two short films, Backwater and Real Memories.[1]
The Displaced
The Displaced follows three children from South Sudan, eastern Ukraine and Syria who were driven from their homes by war.[1] TheWrap identified them as Oleg, an 11-year-old boy from eastern Ukraine; Hana, a 12-year-old Syrian girl; and Chuol, a 9-year-old South Sudanese boy.[7] The film was directed by Imraan Ismail of Vrse.works and Times journalist Ben Solomon.[9] Fortune described it as an 11-minute documentary that could be watched on a phone or tablet with or without a headset.[10] A 2-D version was also published on NYTimes.com.[1]
Later films (2016)
In April 2016 the Times said it would ship 300,000 more Cardboard viewers to its most loyal digital subscribers, judged by subscription length, to promote Seeking Pluto's Frigid Heart, a film built with the Lunar and Planetary Institute and the Universities Space Research Association from data collected by NASA's New Horizons mission. The film was scheduled for the app on May 19, 2016. At that point the company said the app had been downloaded more than 600,000 times on iOS and Android.[11] The Tribeca Festival's 2016 Virtual Arcade listing describes Seeking Pluto's Frigid Heart as a stereoscopic VR experience narrated by Dennis Overbye.[12]
The Fight for Falluja was shot in the summer of 2016 by Ben C. Solomon, who embedded with Iraqi forces as they pushed into Falluja to take the city back from ISIS, and carried a 360-degree camera rig he had researched and built for the assignment. The Times' awards entry says it was released in August 2016 alongside the magazine's long narrative Fractured Lands by Scott Anderson. The Online News Association named it a 2017 finalist for Excellence in Immersive and Emerging Technology Storytelling.[13]
The Daily 360 (2016-2017)
On November 1, 2016 the Times and Samsung Electronics America launched The Daily 360, which was to publish at least one 360-degree video every day. Samsung supplied Gear 360 cameras and equipment to Times journalists, and the videos appeared on NYTimes.com, the Times' mobile and VR apps, and Samsung VR. The first video, shot by photographer Tyler Hicks and correspondent Ben Hubbard, showed the effects of the war in Sana, Yemen.[2]
After the first year, Digiday reported that the series had been shot in 57 countries with the help of more than 200 Times journalists, and had gathered 94 million views on Facebook and 2 million on YouTube; the Times did not share view counts for its own properties. Marcelle Hopkins, the Times' executive director of virtual reality, told Digiday that viewers watched for longer in a headset than in the mobile app. The Samsung arrangement was due to wind down at the end of 2017, after which the paper said it would keep producing 360-degree video.[14]
Gear VR and Daydream (2017-2018)
Oculus announced on August 3, 2017 that NYT VR was available on the Oculus Store for Samsung Gear VR, with the Times' full library of VR films and a selection of Daily 360 videos. The post quoted Varun Shetty, the Times' executive director of strategy and business development, saying that a home for its VR journalism on the Oculus platform had been "a top priority for The Times in 2017".[4] Engadget, citing the Times, reported that most users could watch the films in 4K resolution, that the app had reached 1.2 million downloads, and that it was also offered on Google Play for Android and Daydream and on the iOS App Store.[15]
The Android listing, as archived by APKMirror, described the app as "Daydream enabled" with downloadable or streamed films, alerts when new films launch and spatial audio. Its latest archived version is 2.5.3, uploaded on June 25, 2018.[16]
Features
The app streamed or downloaded 360-degree films. Viewers could watch in a Google Cardboard viewer, which shows a stereoscopic image, or in a smartphone-only mode with touchscreen navigation of the 360-degree view.[1][16] Later versions added Daydream support and spatial audio, and the Gear VR version ran in the Oculus mobile store.[16][4]
| Platform | Availability | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| iOS | From November 2015 | iOS 8 or later at launch[1] |
| Android | From November 2015 | Android 4.3 or later at launch; later listed as Daydream enabled[1][16] |
| Google Cardboard | From November 2015 | Optimized for Cardboard V2 according to the Android listing[16] |
| Samsung Gear VR | From August 3, 2017 | Oculus Store[4] |
Reception
Fortune reported that tens of thousands of viewers used the free headsets on the first weekend, and that many iPhone users had complained of double vision and headaches when the stereoscopic image did not converge in their viewer; its reporter hit the same problem on his iPhone and found the video unwatchable. A Times spokesperson said the company was "actively working on" the problem, and the app at that point held an average rating of four out of five stars on both app stores.[17] Writing for Fortune, Rick Broida called The Displaced a strong proof of concept while noting that its thin narrative thread at times left the viewer feeling like a tourist looking around.[10]
| Year | Award | Work | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | AICP Next Awards, Most Next (best in show) | The Displaced | Won[9] |
| 2016 | Cannes Lions, Mobile Lions Grand Prix | The Displaced | Won[3][18] |
| 2016 | Cannes Lions, Entertainment Lions Grand Prix | The Displaced | Won[3][19] |
| 2017 | Online Journalism Awards, Excellence in Immersive and Emerging Technology Storytelling | The Fight for Falluja | Finalist[13] |
The Entertainment Lions jury president, Jae Goodman of CAA Marketing, called The Displaced "worthy of the first-ever Entertainment Lions Grand Prix".[3] The Entertainment Lions results credited the work to Vrse.works Los Angeles, with The New York Times as client and NYT VR as the product, and also listed two Silver Lions for it, in the Excellence in Production and Distribution Strategy in a Brand Experience and Innovation in Brand Experience categories.[19] Hypergrid Business, reporting the Mobile Grand Prix, gave the newspaper's figures of 1.3 million Cardboard viewers distributed since November 2015 and about 500,000 app downloads; it also noted that Vrse had since been renamed Within.[18]
Research
A 2019 book chapter by Adriana Paíno Ambrosio, Maribel Rodríguez Fidalgo and Yanira Ruiz Paz of the University of Salamanca used qualitative and quantitative content analysis of the pieces the Times published in the NYTVR app between 2015 and 2017, to identify their main characteristics and what this immersive format added compared with traditional journalism.[20]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 The New York Times Company (2015-10-20). "Press release: The New York Times Launches NYT VR; Delivers Over One Million Google Cardboard Viewers". Hypergrid Business. https://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2015/10/new-times-times-gives-out-1-million-cardboards/. Retrieved 2026-10-21.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "The New York Times to Produce and Publish 360° Video, Made Possible with Technology from Samsung". Samsung Newsroom U.S.. Samsung Electronics America. 2016-11-01. https://news.samsung.com/us/the-new-york-times-nyt-produce-publish-360-video-made-possible-technology-from-samsung/. Retrieved 2026-10-21.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 "Cannes Lions Entertainment Grand Prix Bestowed Upon NY Times' "The Displaced"". SHOOTonline. 2016-06-25. https://shootonline.com/?p=40717. Retrieved 2026-10-21.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 The Oculus Team (2017-08-03). "'The Times' Weighs In: 'NYT VR' Available Now on Gear VR". Oculus Blog. Meta. https://www.meta.com/blog/the-times-weighs-in-nyt-vr-available-now-on-gear-vr/. Retrieved 2026-10-21.
- ↑ Joe Mandese (2015-04-27). "All The News That's Fit To Be Virtual, NYT Pushes VR At NewFront". MediaPost. https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/248511/all-the-news-thats-fit-to-be-virtual-nyt-pushes.html. Retrieved 2026-10-21.
- ↑ Janko Roettgers (2015-10-20). "NYT Gives Away 1 Million Google Cardboard Virtual Reality Viewers". Variety. https://variety.com/2015/digital/news/nyt-vr-virtual-reality-cardboard-new-york-times-1201622150/. Retrieved 2026-10-21.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Matt Donnelly (2015-11-07). "New York Times Launches Virtual Reality News App". TheWrap. https://www.thewrap.com/new-york-times-launches-virtual-reality-news-app/. Retrieved 2026-10-21.
- ↑ Steve Dent (2015-10-20). "NY Times launches VR app with Google Cardboard giveaway". Engadget. https://www.engadget.com/2015-10-20-ny-times-vr-app-google-cardboard.html. Retrieved 2026-10-21.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 "New York Times' VR Project "The Displaced" Takes Best In Show At AICP Next Awards". SHOOTonline. 2016-06-07. https://shootonline.com/?p=40516. Retrieved 2026-10-21.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Rick Broida (2015-11-09). "What It Was Like to Watch the New York Times' VR Movie". Fortune. https://fortune.com/2015/11/09/new-york-times-virtual-reality/. Retrieved 2026-10-21.
- ↑ Sarah Perez (2016-04-28). "The NYT is giving out 300,000 more Google Cardboard viewers". TechCrunch. https://techcrunch.com/2016/04/28/the-nyt-is-giving-out-300000-more-google-cardboard-viewers/. Retrieved 2026-10-21.
- ↑ "Seeking Pluto's Frigid Heart". Tribeca Festival. https://www.tribecafilm.com/films/seeking-plutos-frigid-heart-2016. Retrieved 2026-10-21.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 "Fight for Falluja". Online Journalism Awards. Online News Association. https://awards.journalists.org/entries/fight-for-falluja/. Retrieved 2026-10-21.
- ↑ Max Willens (2017-11-14). "One year in: What The New York Times learned from its 360-degree video project, The Daily 360". Digiday. https://digiday.com/future-of-tv/one-year-new-york-times-learned-360-degree-video-project-daily-360/. Retrieved 2026-10-21.
- ↑ Saqib Shah (2017-08-04). "Watch NYT's immersive stories on Samsung Gear VR". Engadget. https://www.engadget.com/2017-08-04-nyt-vr-app-samsung-gear.html. Retrieved 2026-10-21.
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 16.3 16.4 "NYT VR - Virtual Reality APKs for Android". APKMirror. https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/the-new-york-times-company/nyt-vr-virtual-reality/. Retrieved 2026-10-21.
- ↑ Kif Leswing (2015-11-09). "Why 'The New York Times' VR App Gave Some People Double Vision This Weekend". Fortune. https://fortune.com/2015/11/09/new-york-times-vr-app-double-vision/. Retrieved 2026-10-21.
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 Maria Korolov (2016-06-24). "NYT VR wins mobile Grand Prix prize at Cannes". Hypergrid Business. https://www.hypergridbusiness.com/?p=56319. Retrieved 2026-10-21.
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 "#CannesLions2016: Entertainment Lions winners!". Bizcommunity. 2016-06-24. https://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/111/146875.html. Retrieved 2026-10-21.
- ↑ Adriana Paíno Ambrosio, Maribel Rodríguez Fidalgo, Yanira Ruiz Paz (2019). "Narrativas periodísticas en 360º para el consumo en dispositivos móviles: estudio de caso de la app de the New York Times, "NYT VR"". Narrativas jornalísticas para dispositivos móveis, pp. 149-170. Labcom, Universidade da Beira Interior. https://produccioncientifica.usal.es/documentos/5e4fc36729995245c6b295f0?lang=en. Retrieved 2026-10-21.