The Associated Press has selected Webtrends to provide analytics and measurement for its newly launched World Cup mobile application and Web site that are sponsored by Visa.

The site at http://m.apsports and the AP 2010 World Cup Coverage application will keep soccer fans connected to the games.

?To prove the value of the World Cup app to its corporate sponsor, AP needs to be able to convey meaningful data that goes beyond the number of downloads,? said Casey Carey, vice president of products at Webtrends, Portland, OR. ?AP can use the data that Webtrends delivers to make incremental improvements to the app and help guide the design of future applications.?

The AP 2010 World Cup Coverage free application is available on iTunes, Ovi by Nokia, BlackBerry App World and Android Market.

Scoring with readers
The application is designed to enhance the FIFA World Cup experience for fans eager to stay abreast of the action regardless of their geography, language or mobile platform.

Features include multiple language settings for English, Spanish, French and Portuguese as well as customizable skins for all 32 countries participating in the tournament, letting users follow their favorite team throughout the month-long event.

AP also uses Webtrends as a platform to quantify and ultimately optimize how its other digital channels are performing.

?Sponsored applications are a good source of incremental revenue for publishers of content and for this reason, sponsors want to understand the effectiveness of their investment,? Mr. Carey said

?AP tapped Webtrends to help measure the usage of their app, as the number of downloads does not truly depict activity levels considering many people download apps and never use them,? he said.

APeep
Webtrends will deliver visibility into adoption and engagement numbers for the World Cup application.

Indeed, Webtrends' analytics for Mobile product will show AP the number of people using the World Cup application over time, as well as demonstrate how engaged fans are by identifying the frequency of visits, content views, bounce rates, and duration of time spent on each application and mobile site.

?The digital world is rapidly changing, and one great example of that is the prevalence of multiple channels/screens that customers use,? Mr. Carey said.

?Understanding consumer interaction and engagement across those screens is a challenge as a result, and Webtrends is helping AP address that by providing a common measurement approach to support mobile Web and five distinct app platforms,? he said.