Well, how long before the BBC nab this idea? As part of the iPhone 2.0/iPhone 3G release, it’s been revealed that AP has an app ready for it which will let you submit pics and text to them (which has been greeted by some) but how will these people get paid or is web2.0 being used again to drive nothing more than some free pics and text? And who’s the poor soul who will have to wade through all of the content for quality?
And never mind the current rows over net neutrality and the iPlayer eating bandwidth. Once the iPhone does video, that AP link will get swamped – especially as by the time we get to v3 of the iPhone – there may well be 15million plus people using it.
(thoughts on the upgrade to the iPhone: it’s a nicer piece of kit now at a far more sensible price, but I’ll stick with Nokia’s N95. The UI might be an absolute dog, the GPS may be horrific and Orange may be complete ripoff pricing merchants with a terrible sales service – in store and on phone – but the ability to forward emails, attach a keyboard and record video/audio make it the better workhorse for now.)
I wonder though…is there a future in this for newspapers. Say, a newspaper did a tie-in with Apple and a mobile network. Joe Punter gets a free iPhone and cheap rate in return for filing stories…I wonder if that could work. Would the paper get a boost if you tied in hard-copy sales to keeping your phone?
4 responses to “AP suddenly gains 10million reporters thanks to the iPhone”
But surely that makes it no different to the vast myriad of websites and news services already offering a ‘text us your pictures/stories’ service?
I’m just hoping the MNN app from AP will have the regional functionality for the UK as it does in the US in terms of local news-aggregating.
Totally agree. As you say over at your site, the potential could be really interesting if the investment was put up behind it – ah I spot the problem.
And I know a lot of places do ‘send us your tales’ but this is the first time I think a lot of people will have seen it so simple to do. AP should have pushed for this be installed on the machine at the factory…
Well, it all but is – a free downloadable app from the store? Most folk will hit the App store the second they’ve got their iPhone activated. With video news streaming on it too.
The other potential application for it would be the BBC – national and ultra-local, geotagged news and sports content delivered to your phone as breaking alerts if necessary.
Agreed on the BBC, which is why it’s the first part of my post. I think we’re going to see a lot more content editors than journalists in the future…