3 Social News Apps for a Nokia Phone

In a previous post "4 Trends in New Digital Media Development", I wrote briefly about a trend where media consumption is going beyond only individual consumption.  There are now increasingly more applications and services from the media publishers available from the Apps Stores which are incorporating social sharing features.  Have a look below a good 2X2 overview chart from Distimo on the current Apps Stores in the market today.

In a report which Distimo wrote (yes, they do provide free monthly reports on apps stores, the downloads performance and killer categories etc), it was mentioned that by far the most sticky of all mobile apps was from the news and info genre - most sticky as a function of of frequency of use and lowest level of churn (this of course depends on the quality of the content).  From my usage of apps on my phone, I certainly do not discount this observation one bit.  In fact, all the 3 apps below - 2 from the news content genre and the last a Twitter client are on the home screen of my phone and constitute my daily news media fix in the mornings before I start work!

App #1: Snaptu - dashboard to News, Facebook, Twitter and more!

Snaptu offers me my daily news fix.  It is a free ads funded app which provides a dashboard to various business (e.g. economist, new york times), technology (e.g. techcrunch, gizmodo), content (e.g. paidcontent.org), entertainment news (e.g. tmz), sports (e.g. reutersports), weather forecast etc.  And the coolest social sharing thing? I could share interesting news articles and information nuggets to my Facebook Wall, my twitter account or an email address!  I am currently using Snaptu on my Nokia N97 mini device but this app is also available for other platforms.  Enough said, catch the video on this cool app.

Other reviews and information on Snaptu can be found below:
- Snaptu on Facebook 
- oneforty.com


App #2: AP Mobile - Stellar News Reader from Associated Press - text, photos and video news!

I like the AP Mobile App from the Associated Press as it provides me with excellent news categorisations by region, country and also by media, i.e. text, photos and even streaming videos.  It is certainly a very nice and rich news media reader and ... you guessed it, social sharing tool - allowing you to share the news article you found interesting to your Twitter account or an email address or Delicious or even a text message!  I run AP Mobile app on my Nokia N97 mini but it also works on other platforms as well.  Check out the AP Mobile website for more details.


App #3: Gravity - Gorgeous Twitter App for multiple Twitter accounts and image uploading

Thanks to all of you wonderful online friends, my Twitter account is by far and large the most up-to-date news channel for me.  I get deja vu when I listen to the radio DJs using old news or the news channel on the TV.  And so, talking about Gravity. This richly featured Twitter App, which by the way, looks simply gorgeous, is a main stay as one of the home screen shortcut icons on my Nokia N97 mini.  It allows me to configure multiple Twitter accounts (if I have more than one, at this point only @nelsonwee), upload pictures to various Twitter Image services like TwitPic, monitor Twitter trends, form groups, get audio alerts etc.

Have a look at the following video on Gravity.

As for entertainment on the move, there are a couple more other apps I could talk about, probably in a subsequent post. 

Catch you later.
Nelson Wee
@nelsonwee