The Hollywood Reporter is letting entertainment buffs stay up-to-date on news from the Cannes Film Festival on their tablets.

The Hollywood Reporter Cannes Film Festival iPad application is the third iOS app from the publisher to launch this year, and the company claims that it is seeing more than 25 percent of Web traffic coming from mobile devices. The Hollywood Reporter is working with mobile publishing service GENWI on this initiative. 

?Our readers on the ground in Cannes and entertainment enthusiasts following from around the world crave a simple easy to use platform delivering the information they need,? said John Marchesini, senior product manager at The Hollywood Reporter, Los Angeles.

?The Hollywood Reporter provides daily print editions at most of the major film festivals around the globe, and this was a natural progression for us to expand our international footprint on tablet devices as the ultimate companion to these festival dailies,? he said.

The Hollywood Reporter is part of Prometheus Global Media, which also includes publications such as Billboard, Back Stage and Ad Week.

Real-time star
Consumers can download The Hollywood Reporter Cannes Film Festival app for free from Apple?s App Store.

The app updates in real-time throughout the festival, which runs through May 27, and is primarily aimed at the event?s attendees.

For example, users can view schedules of the 1,800 film screenings as well as an interactive map that users can tap on to learn more about hotels, restaurants and other outings in Cannes. The app also includes information on 3,800 vendors at the event.

The app is set up horizontally and lets users scroll through news, movie reviews, videos and photo galleries.

Article images can be tapped on to expand to a full-page size and users can share stories via Twitter, Facebook and email.

The app is ad-supported and The Hollywood Reporter is currently finalizing a launch sponsor.

Later this year, The Hollywood Reporter will be rolling out apps for Android devices, per Mr. Marchesini.

Mobile entertainment
Nowadays, consumers do not just want to read news on their devices, they expect to follow along with an event such as Cannes in real-time via mobile.

Given that the attendance of Cannes is primarily executives, mobile is a natural way to feed users content while they most likely have their devices in-hand.

The Hollywood Reporter is not the only publisher making entertainment-based news mobile.

For example, Conde-Nast owned Parade magazine recently rolled out an entertainment-only news iPhone app (see story). 

However, publishers need to take advantage of all the rich features that mobile offers, especially on tablets.

?Apps that have live content flowing through them as opposed to delivering flat PDFs are the ones that will win consumers? hearts and minds and keep them coming back for more,? said PJ Gurumohan, CEO of GENWI, Los Altos, CA.

?More special edition apps are going to become available throughout the rest of this year and beyond because they have big benefits for both consumers, publishers and event organizers,? he said.

?They are also a direct and persistent brand connection to consumers through push notifications and updates throughout the year. And, as an added bonus, we all save a few trees.?

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is editorial assistant on Mobile Marketer, New York