Forbes aims to help families manage finances with iPad app

By Rimma Kats

July 12, 2010

Investing in mobile

Forbes has rolled out its “Forbes Investment Guide Plus” to Apple’s iPad to provide families information on how to manage their financial portfolios.

The company partnered with R2integrated to work on the development of the application. The application is available in the Apple App Store for free.

“The strategy here was to form an extended relationship to the Forbes brand through the Forbes Investment Guide Plus iPad application,” said Chris Chodnicki, chief technology officer of R2integrated, Baltimore, MD. “Forbes is a trusted brand that helps people enhance their personal finance and investing knowledge.

“Leveraging the iPad consumer adoption trend, the Forbes Investment Guide Plus iPad app provides timely, strategic and critical financial information in a straightforward, easy-to-navigate app that offers something new to readers every day,” he said.

R2integrated is an Internet marketing and technology company that provides platforms and services for companies to distribute marketing communications and implement Internet applications.

Financial advice
Users can read articles on how to take care of their families financially, look at career options, minimize the cost of investing and taxes and allocate assets.

In addition, the Forbes application includes feature stories and video interviews with financial planning and investment experts.

Here is a screen grab of the application:

“The iPad represents a new opportunity to distribute Forbes content to readers who may or may not be consuming it in the other ways the company makes it available,” Mr. Chodnicki said. “Forbes wanted to explore the possibilities around taking advantage of the new iPad medium.

“Recognizing the iPad as a tool to extend the Investment Guide branding, Forbes is able to publish relevant information in a convenient format that assists consumers in making personal financial and investing decisions,” he said.

Additionally, users get Forbes Daily personal finance updates.

The Forbes Daily content categories include, Strategies, Retirement, Stocks and Bonds, Mutual Funds, Scams, Real Estate, International, Estate Planning, Charity, Flings and Insurance.

Here is another screen grab of the application:

Forbes for many
This is not Forbes’ first foray into mobile.

The company has an application for the Palm Pre, iPhone and BlackBerry.

The Palm Pre application delivers the latest news, analysis and opinion, as well as stock market updates (see story).

Their iPhone application lets  users access content from the Intelligent Investing section on Forbes.com (see story).

Forbes’ BlackBerry application is ad-supported (see story).

“Forbes provides exclusive advertisement opportunities for sponsors,” Mr. Chodnicki said.

Final Take
Rimma Kats, editorial assistant at Mobile Marketer, New York.