2010 Best of the Web: Mobile Strategy
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Time Magazine
TIME.com Mobile
Time magazine came to the iPhone App Store later than many brands, but the legendary source of news and views had already been executing a mobile strategy for years on the mobile Web, in an iPhone Web app and in partnership with carriers. The launch of the deftly designed iPhone app late last year, however, moved the brand into its next stage of smartphone development. Knowing that it had to distinguish itself in an already cluttered field of newspaper, Web and magazine new brands, the Time Mobile app leveraged the parent company’s core competency in combining expressive imagery with text.
The “image flow” interface for the app allows the user to scan the day’s top stories and leading items across all of the news verticals by flipping through images and captions. A push feature keeps the user apprised of breaking news as well. But the app is also dense when the user wants it to be. A deep trove of material from the Time.com blogs like Swampland and The Curious Capitalist keeps the reader on top of both the news and the views that are circulating in the new 14/7 cycles. Time has taken the design sense of the popular iPhone app and extended it to the BlackBerry, where it also added a customization feature that lets the user decide which content greets them at the front door of the app.
The iPhone app has deservedly attracted 576,000 downloads, while the BlackBerry iteration has gotten 187,000. Time’s genuinely innovative approaches to accessing news on the go has turned a latecomer to the app world into a leader of the smartphone’s next stage as a publishing platform.
Honorable Mentions:
Epicurious.com/Condé Nast Digital: In its latest Recipes & Shopping List app for the iPhone, Epicurious turns its online recipe database into a tool that crafts shopping lists. There’s even a novel “cookbook mode” that helps the chef in the kitchen. This is content that uses the mobile platform to rethink itself for multiple contexts.
Handmark Inc. – Forbes.com Mobile Reader: The Forbes.com application mixes breaking news with reflective commentary as well as the latest stock market status. It gives the Forbes.com brand loyalist a way to access the full breadth of the brand’s online experience anywhere.
PEOPLE/Time Inc. – People Goes Mobile: People executes a mobile Web and applications strategy that accommodates both platforms’ strengths without sacrificing quality and brand consistency. On the mobile Web, fans can get a compelling People.com experience on any phone but still access all of the multimedia goodness of the site. On the app, People.com rethinks functionality to augment the Web experience with customizable celebrity tracking.
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