mocoNews.net - ITN's iPhone Success May Be Hopeful Sign For Mobile Video News

British news agency ITN has launched a video-focused news iPhone application. In a promising sign for video news, the app, since its launch over a week ago on Apple's App Store, has climbed to the number eight most downloaded free app, and is the most downloaded free news app. The emphasis is currently, however, on free. An ITN spokesperson said that the purpose of the app is to get ITN's videos "out there" on mobile phones, and at present there were no concrete plans to put ads in the content. In the future, if they were to launch ads, they would "most likely" take the form of sponsorships.

ITN's head of new media Ave Wrigley told Techradar, however, that the iPhone app was indeed ad-funded, and that they had ruled it out as paid-for app to attract users. They see the iPhone app, which took three months to develop and "considerable investment," as a test and a way to "put a toe in the water" and will follow up the iPhone app with Blackberry and Symbian versions if the iPhone app proves commercially successful. ITN currently has an app built with Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Gears that can determine the user's location and serve up relevant stories. It's also considering an Android-based app, according to its spokesperson.