Associated Press Teams With 40 Newspapers On Mobile Coupons

from www.paidcontent.org

The new mobile initiative, dubbed “iCircular,” will start rolling out on Monday within the mobile sites and apps of the 40 newspapers.

The iCircular feature will be found within newspaper mobile apps on the iPhone. The feature will be available on other formats, such as Google’s Android, later on. It’s HTM5-based, so that will also be available on newspapers’ web and mobile wap sites and ultimately ease iCircular’s transfer to other operating systems. The app will be situated within a special “Deals” section on each of the newspapers’ apps and mobile sites. 

“It’s essentially an app within an app,” said Mary Junck, chairman of AP’s board of directors’ revenue committee and CEO of Lee Enterprises (NYSE: LEE). “We didn’t want to create an app separate from the newspapers. We wanted something that would be as integrated into the newspapers as a Sunday circular is in the print editions.”

Interestingly, the program is open to all newspapers, not just AP members, Junck told paidContent in an interview. “This is meant to address a problem and promote an opportunity for all newspapers,” she added.

Launch partners include the New York Daily News, The Philadelphia Inquirer, the New York Times (NYSE: NYT) Company’s Boston Globe, Hearst’s San Francisco Chronicle, Cox Media’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution, AH Belo’s The Dallas Morning NewsTribune Company’s Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune,  and other representatives of nearly every major newspaper company. (The whole list of iCircular newspaper launch partners.)