Due to the success of NewsGator's NetNewsWire application for iPhone -- whose milestones I profiled in late September (such as over 200,000 users and more than 130 million marked items) -- we decided that the next natural step would be to build branded, dedicated media apps for the iPhone for our media clients. 

Essentially what we did, as Jeff Nolan, VP of Media & Consumer Products, explains, was "detune NetNewsWire from being a general purpose mobile RSS client to media specific reader apps. This is a very exciting offering for media companies who wish to have an iPhone app that can be used to increase their audience and more fully engage them at the same time."

We have a brand new page up to explain how these branded iPhone applications will work.  The main reason we believe this offering will prove compelling and successful is because they will enable media companies to deliver a branded media experience directly to the over 7 million iPhone users -– providing their audience with one touch, anytime access to their content.

What's more, these iPhone applications we're offering are fully hosted and maintained by NewsGator for rapid deployment, easy management and tracking, and low support costs. These full-featured, powerful apps stand out in the marketplace in that they:

• can contain text, images, audio, and video
• support sponsorships for boosting your advertising revenue
• are created specifically for multiple RSS feeds
• have advanced feed categorization options
• have strong branding potential (you can put your logo on the main page)
• have search capability
• have the power of NewsGator & NetNewsWire behind them

As Jeff says, "media brands have an absolute requirement to extend their presence to the places where people are consuming content and moving out to mobile is a compelling option for any media site, large or small. The iPhone has dramatically reshaped the mobile marketplace and we now have a merchandising mechanism (iTunes) for moving applications to consumers.  However, any mobile application is complex and expensive. It is difficult to hire good iPhone app developers today and the market is competitive, which conspire to make iPhone app development a steep hill to climb for media companies."

But with NewsGator's branded iPhone applications your company can:

• Deliver a branded media experience to iPhone users via a custom, native App
• Market your App on the Apple App Store
• Monetize your App with sponsorships
• Minimize development and support costs with NewsGator’s hosted service
• Provide a superior experience over web Apps by enabling offline features and a richer, faster user experience

You can learn more about these exciting branded iPhone apps here or contact us directly, if interested, at 800-608-4597.