NINEMSN will launch a free video-based iPhone app this week, giving people access to its latest stories, and those from the Nine Network, at the touch of a button.
The Nine Newsbreak app is the first breaking news app from a local commercial network that will provide content created specifically for mobiles, although the ABC has long had a news app that combines its television, radio and online content for the iPhone, as well as iPad.
Nine newsreader Wendy Kingston will present a 60-second newsbreak created for the app twice a day, at 11am and 5pm.
Ninemsn head of content Todd Forest said the company, which is a joint venture between Nine Entertainment Co and Microsoft, wanted to take advantage of big spikes in mobile media usage, the popularity of video and the desire to access information on the go.
"Our mobile (website) use is up 69 per cent and news has gone up 123 per cent," he said.
Since the earthquake, tsunami and unfolding nuclear disaster in Japan, Ninemsn has averaged more than a million video streams a day. The Nine Newsbreak app will also allow people quickly to send user-generated content they have captured on their mobile directly to Ninemsn.
A recent user-submitted photograph of a frog riding on the back of a snake in floodwater generated more than 600,000 page views while 54,000 people shared it on Facebook.
Audiences were willing to exchange the fact that it was not professionally produced for the immediacy of it, chief technology officer Richard McLaren said.
"If you make it just slightly easier (to submit it), you get more people doing it."
The Nine Newsbreak iPhone app has been approved by Apple and will be available on iTunes on Wednesday, with an iPad-specific version due next month.
Other apps focused on existing Nine, ACP or Ninemsn brands will follow, with a Wide World of Sports app likely to be one of the next to launch.
The Nine Newsbreak app is the first breaking news app from a local commercial network that will provide content created specifically for mobiles, although the ABC has long had a news app that combines its television, radio and online content for the iPhone, as well as iPad.
Nine newsreader Wendy Kingston will present a 60-second newsbreak created for the app twice a day, at 11am and 5pm.
Ninemsn head of content Todd Forest said the company, which is a joint venture between Nine Entertainment Co and Microsoft, wanted to take advantage of big spikes in mobile media usage, the popularity of video and the desire to access information on the go.
"Our mobile (website) use is up 69 per cent and news has gone up 123 per cent," he said.
Since the earthquake, tsunami and unfolding nuclear disaster in Japan, Ninemsn has averaged more than a million video streams a day. The Nine Newsbreak app will also allow people quickly to send user-generated content they have captured on their mobile directly to Ninemsn.
A recent user-submitted photograph of a frog riding on the back of a snake in floodwater generated more than 600,000 page views while 54,000 people shared it on Facebook.
Audiences were willing to exchange the fact that it was not professionally produced for the immediacy of it, chief technology officer Richard McLaren said.
"If you make it just slightly easier (to submit it), you get more people doing it."
The Nine Newsbreak iPhone app has been approved by Apple and will be available on iTunes on Wednesday, with an iPad-specific version due next month.
Other apps focused on existing Nine, ACP or Ninemsn brands will follow, with a Wide World of Sports app likely to be one of the next to launch.
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