The Economist debuts iPad, iPhone app for subscribers

The Economist is letting digital and print subscribers fully access its iPad and iPhone application as well as get a weekly sample of articles chosen specifically by the editor.

Users who do not have a subscription can purchase full issues of the publication via in-application purchases each week. Once a user downloads an issue, they can read the newspaper in full without an Internet connection.

“We want our readers to be able to read us wherever and however they want, and for an increasing number of people that means via a digital device,” said Oscar Grut, managing director of digital editions at The Economist, London.

“People who read their news and analysis on mobile digital devices will be attracted to the greater variety of ways to enjoy The Economist – on your iPad, on your iPhone, in audio, online, on Kindle and on Zinio – as well as in print, of course, where our circulation has grown every year for the last 30 years at least,” he said.

“Our goal with the iPad and iPhone apps is to deliver the same Economist content, in the same weekly package as print, through this new medium. We have redesigned the newspaper completely to make the most of the devices, while retaining that Economist feel – and like in print, it's free from distractions.”

AgaveApps built the iPhone application and TigerSpike built the iPad application for The Economist.

Each issue features a full audio edition, with all articles read by professional newscasters.

“We decided to integrate our popular audio edition into both apps, with all articles from the print edition read by professional newscasters, and synced to each article,” Mr. Grut said. “This lets readers switch easily between reading and listening to our articles.

“We did this because is struck us that audio is such a natural fit for portable digital devices, particularly the iPhone and iPod Touch,” he said.

The Economist is getting the word out about their new applications by putting promotional cover wraps on all issues, emailing news of the launch to subscribers and other contacts and its regional teams are also planning regional campaigns.

Mobile reading
Currently, users can read the publication in print, online, on iPhone, iPad, Kindle and Zinio.

The company is talking with other potential platform partners and looking at new platforms on launch on, including Android and BlackBerry.

“Our print circulation has continued to increase despite the turmoil in some parts of the print industry,” Mr. Grut said. “Our readers have, until now, generally preferred The Economist in print, but that is changing dramatically with tablets and smartphones, which are perfect for reading and listening to our kind of publication.

“This is one of the very exciting aspects of our apps,” he said. “We are obsessed, first and foremost, with creating elegant applications that deliver a wonderful, immersive reading experience to our customers,” he said. “I think we have succeeded in this mission.

“And by grabbing our readers' attention in this way, we offer a unique advertising opportunity to our clients to reach an engaged audience with beautiful full screen ads and rich media advertising.”

Android ad impressions pull even with Apple’s iOS: Millennial Media

For the first time, Google’s Android tied with Apple’s iOS as the largest smartphone OS on Millennial Media’s mobile ad network, with an 8 percent increase month-over-month and 37 percent impression share overall.

According to Millennial’s October 2010 Mobile Mix report, Apple, the leading device manufacturer on its network for the last 13 months, also accounted for a 37 percent share of impressions. Those numbers are another indication of how quickly Android’s market share is growing.

“Month to month, we have continued to see the rapid growth of the Android platform,” said Mack McKelvey, senior vice president of marketing at Millennial Media, Baltimore. “For the first time in October, we actually saw Android smartphone impressions on our network tie iOS smartphone impressions at number one, each capturing 37 percent share.

“Our clients’ savvy cross-platform buys have enabled them to reach their target audiences at scale, regardless of device or OS type,” she said.

Google's new phone software supports mobile payment

(Reuters) - Google Inc's next version of its Android smartphone software will support a technology that lets people use their handsets, instead of credit cards, to pay for goods at restaurants and stores.

Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt showed off a yet-to-be-released phone on Monday with a special chip that allows consumers to quickly pay for items by tapping the phone against a special terminal.

Schmidt said support for the technology, dubbed Near Field Communications, will be integrated into the next version of its Android software, "Gingerbread", which he said will be introduced in a few weeks.

"One way to think about it is, this could replace your credit card," Schmidt said, speaking at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco.

Google had no immediate plans to develop any of its own mobile applications to take advantage of such payment capabilities, but Schmidt expected other companies to do so.

"My guess is that there are going to be 500 new startups in the mobile payment space as these platforms emerge," Schmidt said. He added that Google would partner with traditional credit card industry players, like payment processors, rather than compete with them.

While NFC technology has been available for years, interoperability with Google's Android software should make the technology more widespread. Google's Android was the second most popular smartphone operating system in the third quarter, according to industry research firm Gartner, behind Nokia's Symbian and ahead of Apple Inc's iOS software, which is used on the iPhone.

In a roundtable briefing with reporters, Schmidt said Google's ability to marry its smartphone software with Internet-based services enabled features like turn-by-turn driving directions and real-time foreign language translation, which distinguished it from rivals' offerings.

"We would argue that our platform is better for applications that are network-resident and that need that kind of power," Schmidt said.

Google, which controls roughly two-thirds of the Internet search market, is increasingly competing with Apple and with social networking giant Facebook.

Earlier on Monday, Facebook unveiled a revamped version of its messaging system that could make it increasingly competitive with Web-based email systems like Google's Gmail and Yahoo Inc's mail service.

Asked about Facebook's potential effect on Gmail, Schmidt said that additional competition would be beneficial, and chided the press for focusing too much on the competition between Google and other technology companies.

"You all are focused on the competition, as opposed to the fact that the market's getting larger," Schmidt said. "And there's no question that more entrants into communications technologies, mobile technologies and so forth, bring more people in."

Playboy breaks location-based mobile initiative to engage trendsetters

Hugh Hefner’s adult entertainment brand Playboy Enterprises Inc. has unveiled Playboy Scout, a nightlife application enhanced with location-triggered content delivery.

Using Xtify Inc.’s geo-location push notification technology, Playboy Scout is available on Android phones nationwide and will soon be launched on other smartphone platforms. The Scout application presents Playboy’s audience with exclusive nightlife-oriented offers and information about events, clubs, and bars which have been reviewed and recommended by Playboy’s editors, and delivers push notifications to users when they are in proximity of venues of interest.

“Playboy has always been an authority in the nightlife space, with entertainment content that is even more relevant when unleashed from the confines of a computer or magazine,” said Paul Lee, managing director of new digital venturesa at Playboy Enterprises, Chicago. “Playboy is leveraging its respected editorial content and expertise on new digital platforms to extend the Playboy brand in the nightlife arena.

“The mobile phone is the one device people have with them constantly, in their pocket or their purse,” he said. “Brands not thinking about reaching their customers via the mobile device are going to get left behind—that said, mobile applications have to be continually relevant to the consumer or they'll cease to be used.

“Xtify's technology allows us to reach the consumer at the time and place in which the message we're sending is most relevant, and to easily send location-triggered notifications even when the app is closed on the consumer's phone.”