Monday, October 10, 2011

Fort Myers | Among hurricane apps, who's first?

In her newest monthly On the Road newsletter touting good work across Gannett, Chief Marketing Officer Maryam Banikarim says of The News-Press at Florida's Fort Myers:

"The News-Press Hurricane Hub mobile app is the nation's first and most comprehensive source to track Atlantic and Gulf storms, with more than 60,000 downloads."

This led me to search the Web for hurricane apps, where I found one for iPhones: "Hurricane," produced by a company called Kitty Code. Here's the description on Apple's site (emphasis added):

"Hurricane™ gives you the ability to track these storms on the go using your iPhone or iPod Touch. Released in 2008 as the first Hurricane Tracking app for iPhone."

Here's how Apple's site describes the News-Press Hurricane Hub app:

"The Hurricane Hub is your comprehensive guide to the hurricane season, whether you live in an area impacted or you're just interested in major storms."

(Not mentioned on Apple's site, of course, is that the News-Press app is also available for phones powered by the competing Android operating systems.)

A year ago, Macworld ranked Hurricane No. 1 in a review that did not mention Hurricane Hub at all.

So, who was first to market: Fort Myers or Kitty Code?

Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write jimhopkins[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the rail, upper right.

4 comments:

  1. How did Fort Myers come up with this when sites have been discouraged from developing apps?

    ReplyDelete
  2. 10:20, money talks. If your site can develop a relevant app that can generate revenue through advertising then I am sure your site can do one as well.

    ReplyDelete
  3. A better question is why the only thing we've heard out of our CMO is a series of gee-whiz emails about tiny local product launches. How about sharing some strategic vision?

    ReplyDelete
  4. tiny local product launches are the bricks that were used to build the G A N N E T T empire.

    There is nothing positive to say overall so they are throwing out what they can. Strategic Vision would require a Strategic Leader and we have Strategically placed beans for the bean counters.

    ReplyDelete

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