AP Mobile News Network gets 16M page views in first month

By Dan Butcher

September 22, 2008

AP's Mobile News Network coming soon to BlackBerry

The Associated Press' Mobile News Network received more than 16 million page views for the month of August, with 948 news organizations signed up to provide content.

More than one million local stories featured on the Mobile News Network were read, with coverage of breaking news, sports, entertainment and business developments for consumers on their handset. The Mobile News Network is the first product released by AP's Digital Cooperative, an initiative aimed at finding new digital outlets for news and information produced by AP members.

“Historically, wireless users got turned off by poorly built WAP sites, so our focus has been in getting the development of the Mobile News Network right for the user,” said Jeffrey Litvack, global director of new media markets for the AP, New York. “This is especially challenging when developing client applications and to improve the product offering requires significant resources.

“That said, our number-one priority is user experience, and we'll continue to invest in making the MNN the best news application for any smartphone user,” he said. 

August marked the Mobile News Network’s first full month following the July 10 release of its iPhone client application.

Mobile sports coverage

The network was optimized first for the iPhone to take advantage of the device’s multimedia capabilities, and currently 95 percent of traffic comes from the iPhone and iTouch.

Forthcoming this quarter are optimized client applications for other smart phones including BlackBerry, which was recently previewed during the CTIA Wireless I.T. and Entertainment show held in San Francisco the week before last.

The Mobile News Network can be accessed on any Web-enabled handset by visiting its mobile site at http://www.apnews.com/mobile, which was launched on May 5.

Mobile election coverage

With the popularity of the iPhone application, only five percent of total traffic is coming from the mobile site.

Based on the AP’s early traffic figures, wireless users are obtaining news from the network consistently throughout the day beginning at 7 a.m., with the number of visits growing steadily until 10 p.m.

Consumers are acquiring news just as much, if not slightly more, during the weekend than any given day of the week , with 14.9 percent on Sundays vs. 13.8 percent on Wednesdays, for example.

The Mobile News Network audience members view an average of 37 pages per month.

This spring, the AP selected Verve Wireless to provide the technology for the Mobile News Network.

Verve Wireless’ patent-pending publishing and ad-trafficking platform allows content partners to extend their communities and readership onto mobile phones and other network enabled devices.

Verve Wireless currently works with media companies from across the country, including dailies, local broadcasters, alternative newsweeklies and city magazines.

In the first three months, 948 AP members comprised of news publishers and content producers have joined the Mobile News Network, a 786 percent jump since its May 5 launch with 107 participating members.

AP member participation covers all of the top 100 designated market areas.

“There’s a lot of collaboration and arduous work required to get the content on the network,” Mr. Litvack said. “Currently, we have about 200 members fully on-boarded, and they had over 1 million local stories read last month.

“Even with this success, we are not satisfied with where are and are investing more resources every day to bring more local content to users,” he said.

California is driving 20 percent of local content traffic.

The most viewed stories came from San Francisco/San Jose, New York, Los Angeles, Seattle and Miami news providers.

The most highly visited content areas are Top Stories (29 percent), Local News (18 percent), Sports (12 percent), Entertainment (9 percent) and Photos (7 percent).

The Mobile News Network Web application can be found at http://www.apnews.com/mobile.

The Mobile News Network’s iPhone application is available for free download at the Apple App Store on iPhone and iPod Touch or at http://www.itunes.com/appstore.

The Mobile News Network’s BlackBerry application is expected to be released this quarter.

The next step? The AP is going for the globe.

“We developed the application for a U.S.-centric audience but we’re getting tremendous uptake by international readers,” Mr. Litvack said. “Some users are very happy with the way it is, others want to see it more tailored for their particular country.

“With AP's vast global reporting resources and relationships we are working on solutions for this international audience,” he said.

The next phase of development on the Mobile News Network will be location-based advertising. 

“In this initial stage, we decided not to put an ad vehicle on the client application until we were able to develop the right system to track the effectiveness of advertising properly,” Mr. Litvack said. “We decided to focus primarily on making sure that it’s built for users, attracting and engaging the audience base.

“The next phase will focus on working closely with publishers, agencies and marketers to match consumers with relevant brands and products based on their location,” he said.