Fluent Mobile releases the first news aggregator iPhone app
Fluent Mobile has released an innovative news oriented iPhone app that may be a game changer. The Fluent Mobile app aggregates mobile ready content from multiple content providers. According to M:Metrics in January of this year, mobile news sites were visited over 63 million times and the number is growing. This is a huge market.
Currently 1.5% of all web content is Google optimized and nicely formatted for mobile devices and the number is increasing. Fluent Mobile takes advantage of this content and aggregates it, creating a news portal with content from Bloomberg for business, ESPN for sports, The Washington Post, CNN, Fox News and USA Today, among others, for news. Upon launch, content will be provided by 32 separate sources and more will be added as relevant sites become mobile enhanced. For the first time an app provides one-stop shopping for news.
The information is organized well, allowing you to choose from a number of categories including U.S. News, Entertainment, Sports, Business, and Travel.
A very nice feature is that when viewing a list of stories, only one story per topic is listed, but you can go deeper and read other stories on the same topic. For example, there might be 20 stories from various sources about Bernie Madoff getting 150 years in prison. The app will only show one story and display a Related Stories button showing the number of stories found. Tapping on that button will bring up all the related stories allowing you to drill down to multiple sources. This design choice saves you from scrolling over story after story about the same thing, but you can get the information if you want it.
The Fluent Mobile app pre-fetches data allowing you to read stories when offline. I can see this as adding a great deal of utility since most news apps require you to be connected through Wi-Fi or your cellular data service.
As is common with news apps stories can be shared via Email, Facebook and Twitter. Passwords for services will be remembered within the app.
One downside is that although news is well formatted for reading on the iPhone, landscape mode is not available. This is because not all the content providers have landscape enabled sites but this will be corrected in a future release. Also planned for the future is a premium version that will allow more user customization.
The app is free being monetized through advertising. Pick up a copy and let us know what you think.
Here is a video demonstrating the Fluent Mobile app.
Currently 1.5% of all web content is Google optimized and nicely formatted for mobile devices and the number is increasing. Fluent Mobile takes advantage of this content and aggregates it, creating a news portal with content from Bloomberg for business, ESPN for sports, The Washington Post, CNN, Fox News and USA Today, among others, for news. Upon launch, content will be provided by 32 separate sources and more will be added as relevant sites become mobile enhanced. For the first time an app provides one-stop shopping for news.
The information is organized well, allowing you to choose from a number of categories including U.S. News, Entertainment, Sports, Business, and Travel.
A very nice feature is that when viewing a list of stories, only one story per topic is listed, but you can go deeper and read other stories on the same topic. For example, there might be 20 stories from various sources about Bernie Madoff getting 150 years in prison. The app will only show one story and display a Related Stories button showing the number of stories found. Tapping on that button will bring up all the related stories allowing you to drill down to multiple sources. This design choice saves you from scrolling over story after story about the same thing, but you can get the information if you want it.
The Fluent Mobile app pre-fetches data allowing you to read stories when offline. I can see this as adding a great deal of utility since most news apps require you to be connected through Wi-Fi or your cellular data service.
As is common with news apps stories can be shared via Email, Facebook and Twitter. Passwords for services will be remembered within the app.
One downside is that although news is well formatted for reading on the iPhone, landscape mode is not available. This is because not all the content providers have landscape enabled sites but this will be corrected in a future release. Also planned for the future is a premium version that will allow more user customization.
The app is free being monetized through advertising. Pick up a copy and let us know what you think.
Here is a video demonstrating the Fluent Mobile app.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
BlackPearl said 1:21AM on 6-30-2009
will this be U.S. only? cause i cant find it in the german itms
Reply
David Winograd said 3:29PM on 6-30-2009
I believe it is US only.
John B. said 1:37AM on 6-30-2009
Psh... Ads are not a very good business model IMO. This is especially true on the iPhone. I have an iPhone in large part because of the elegance and simplicity of its interface. Ads clutter and uglify the UI. If an app is ad supported, the likelihood of me using it is slim.
Reply
Taylor said 2:14AM on 6-30-2009
Which editor let the title go through with a capital I for Iphone, when every other post I've seen on here is iPhone?
I'm not the type to complain about grammar consistently, and I'm not gonna go 'YOU GOTTA LIFT YOUR GAME TUAW', as I'm happy with 90% or more of TUAW's grammar and spelling.
But... y'know.
Reply
circuitboy1276 said 2:54AM on 6-30-2009
Interesting Concept but it's slow. I pulled up an article from the Top Stories page from the Washington Post and it took nearly 45 seconds to load up over 3G.
Not at all usable until that issue clears up in my opinion.
Reply
David Winograd said 3:28PM on 6-30-2009
Try it again. When you first launch it, it pre-fetches a ton of stories and that's probably what the lag is. After using it a few times, I ran it, selected a story and the story came up in about 3 seconds.
Omar Qazi said 4:47AM on 6-30-2009
Have you never heard of an RSS reader? This is hardly a game changer, and doesn't even deserve to be covered here.
Reply
akatsuki said 9:53AM on 6-30-2009
Unofficial Apple Weblog or Shameless Reprints of Press Releases?
Reply
Johnny Dangerously said 1:17PM on 6-30-2009
TUAW seems to be the blog equivalent of my mother falling for, and then forwarding, stupid scam e-mails.
Are you effing kidding me? "The first news aggregator iPhone app?" *Huh*? In that case...
Fwd: Giant alligator found with several deer in belly!
Fwd: Rinse off your soda cans before drinking!
Fwd: Don't talk on your cell phone while it's charging!
Fwd: It's the Hotelicopter!
Fwd: Microsoft and AOL will pay you to send e-mails!
Fwd: 10 years of Good Luck if you forward to your three best friends!
Fwd: TUAW is real news!
Reply
OC Technophile said 1:46PM on 6-30-2009
looks pretty solid. nice aggregator of news info. good product
Reply
OC Technophile said 1:46PM on 6-30-2009
in addition, not a ton of rss reader apps on the iphone yet. google reader exists but thats the main one.
Reply