In the past, CBS has invested heavily in the development of their mobile sports presence. And building upon last year’s successful mobile coverage and corresponding iPhone app for March Madness, CBS is rolling out a host of new developments for the CBS mobile sports platform.

Chief among such noteworthy developments is the addition of 3G/EDGE support, which will bring live streaming video to the “CBS Sports: NCAA March Madness on Demand” iPhone/iPod Touch application.

The app in question debuted last year to much fanfare and was created with the help of mobile video solutions provider MobiTV. In 2009, however, the application’s enjoyment was limited to those capable of securing a WiFi connection.

The 3G support add-on is certainly a welcome addition, although the upgrade comes with a substantial price increase. Last year’s $4.99 has been replaced by 2010’s new price tag of $9.99.

CBS says their NCAA March Madness on Demand will provide the most comprehensive coverage possible, including all tournament games from the opening round to the Final Four. That means basketball fans can stream 63 live games in all right from their mobile device.

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Although mobile apps are clearly all the rage, Shaun Gregory, the managing director of O2 Media, says it’s important not to place apps ahead of sound mobile marketing practices when it comes to utilizing the mobile space most efficiently in the promotional process.

Gregory advised firms to avoid the temptation of becoming wholly preoccupied with creating their own apps. Instead, he advised spreading one’s focus across a broad spectrum of opportunities in the mobile realm.

“Brands need to work out how apps fit into their wider mobile marketing strategy but many want to launch one before considering the alternatives,” Gregory told his audience at the FT Digital Media and Broadcasting Conference.

According to coverage of the event from New Media Age, Gregory revealed his view that applications “come into the advertising conversation far too early.” Rather, he offered, it’s vital to remember that traditional mobile marketing strategies like SMS marketing remain the most efficient and effective way to connect with mobile users.

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With all the talk about the New York Times’ accomplishments and endeavors in the mobile realm, you would think there are no other major newspapers in the Big Apple.

The New York Daily News, however, is not only one of New York’s biggest newspapers, it’s also the 6th most “widely circulated” daily paper in the United States today.

Befitting a publication of its stature, The New York Daily News is finally rolling out a new mobile application (developed by Handmark) that will deliver the biggest headlines directly to readers via their mobile device.

Based on the first impressions logged by readers and longtime subscribers, there’s nothing overtly innovative about the app – much like the apps from competing publications. Instead, the app is a meat and potatoes offering that serves up the news as only the NY Daily News can. And, luckily for the paper, that’s all readers seems to care about anyway. Read the rest

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Hoping to avoid the fate of myriad news providers and former publishing juggernauts that have succumbed to the digital media age, the Associated Press is continuing to roll out a multitude of new mobile and multimedia initiatives to give one of the world’s oldest news reporting organizations a fresh face in the mobile news era.

Tom Curley, the AP’s chief executive officer, says that “AP Gateway” will serve as a new business unit designed to cultivate new opportunities across new platforms, especially mobile devices like cell phones, tablet computers, e-readers, etc. With the ultimate goal of expanding the company’s AP Mobile news service for mobile devices, the powers that be at the AP have hinted that some of the applications and offerings will likely be introduced free of charge, while other services (like premium packages) could possibility be introduced on a paid subscription basis.

In recent weeks, the AP has earned as many headlines as it reports by announcing that the venerable news entity will create its own iPad application, a move that stunned many competing news organizations that are admittedly reluctant to embrace Apple’s much awaited tablet computer.

For now, the Associated Press says it will use the AP Gateway group as a mechanism by which to assist its fifteen-hundred member newspapers in developing and driving original digital content.

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State Farm is joining the increasingly large crowd of insurance companies to provide a mobile application to their clients.

Last week State Farm introduced an iPhone app to build upon the insurance providers’ Steer Clear Safe Drivers Discount Program, a project that was designed with young drivers in mind. The Steer Clear App aims to inspire new drivers to take advantage of the Steer Clear discount program as well as the drivers education opportunities that may be available to them.

Pointing to the sobering reality that automobile accidents remain the leading killer of teenagers in the United States, State Farm is tapping into the mobile realm as a proven, effective means for reaching teenagers. Claiming that the app is a first of its kind in many ways, State Farm is being widely praised by many for promoting safety behind the wheel with some of the youngest drivers on the road.

According to the company, “State Farm plans to extend the application’s usability beyond State Farm customers, to serve as a helpful tool for any young adult as they learn to drive, and as a guide for parents as they coach their teen drivers.”

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r2integrated, an internet marketing and technology firm, has developed a simple and innovative tool to help brands plot the future of their mobile apps.  By comparing an app’s brand value against its usefulness, the tool predicts whether the app is doomed for failure or future success.

The quadrant is comprised of “campaign focused,” “most successful,” “least successful,” and “utility focused.”  By plotting a proposed mobile app’s brand value proposition against its usefulness, the quadrant can help predict its likely success based on one of the four aforementioned outcomes.

The first of which is obvious; if your app has low brand value proposition and low usefulness, the likelihood of success is inherently low, and it’s not worth the investment.  Low brand value compared with high usefulness, however, will place your app in the “utility focused” quadrant, meaning its success will improve, but will still face heavy competition from other utilitarian-based apps from larger software companies and providers.

If your app has high brand value but low usefulness, you’re app will be deemed “campaign focused,” meaning it will likely be successful for short-lived branding initiatives, but will lack long-term viability from a user-perspective.  Finally, if your app has high usefulness and high brand value, you’ll find yourself in the “most successful” quadrant for obvious reasons, meaning its utility will keep it “top of mind” with users, while driving brand impression and buying behavior as well.

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AdMob, in its latest Mobile Metrics Report for January 2010, focused on how consumers are interacting with mobile apps on the four major platforms; iPhone, iPod Touch, Android and WebOS.

In addition to the normal metrics AdMob reports on, last month’s special section included an opt-in survey of consumers on iPhone, iPod touch, Android and webOS devices to learn more about how they are engaging and interacting with applications.  The survey included 963 respondents across all of the platforms and revealed some interesting points on app purchasing habits.

iPhone and Android users download a similar number of apps on a monthly basis, with each platform producing around 8.8 apps downloaded per month by its users.  Of the total apps, 7 out of every 8.8 downloads were free apps on the iPhone, compared to 7.6 out of 8.7 on Android devices- indicating that iPhone users are more prone to paying for apps over Android users.

The iPod Touch, however, produces 12.1 app downloads per month on average by its users, with 10.5 being free apps.  Interestingly enough, the report indicates that iPod Touch users download 37% more apps on average than iPhone and Android users.  WebOS users download roughly 5.7 apps per month on average, with 5.1 being free apps, indicating that WebOS users are far more apt to downloading free apps over paid apps, likely because of a much smaller selection over Apple/Android app stores.

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