mobile

A few months ago, we gave some tips on how to define your mobile newsroom presence. One of those tips talked about keeping Flash at a minimum for mobile devices:

While there are mobile devices which can run Flash, using Flash should be avoided for both mobile sites and applications. For video, recent studies show that HTML 5 outperforms Flash on mobile devices.

Yesterday, Adobe announced that they will be ceasing development of the mobile version of Flash Player for mobile browsers in order to continue their focus on HTML5. This is huge news for any organization which uses Flash for mobile websites to deliver multimedia content or interactive graphics.

According to Adobe VP Danny Winokur, “HTML5 is now universally supported on major mobile devices, in some cases exclusively. This makes HTML5 the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms.” While these are strong words from Adobe, it’s important to note that any organization that begins to transition its Flash content to HTML5 must keep two important thoughts in mind.

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Instapaper, the tool that allows us to save those super-long magazine stories for later, pushed out a major update to its popular iOS app on Monday.

The tool allows you to click a bookmarklet in your browser when you see a story you like, then pushes a cleaned up, iOS-optimized version of those stories to its $4.99 app. After the article is downloaded to the app, an Internet connection is no longer required, making the app a must-have for frequent flyers.

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Buried in the headlines following this week’s untimely passing of Steve Jobs is the news that Apple will release iOS 5 next Wednesday, Oct. 12. It’s an exciting (and free) upgrade for users of the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. The Notification Center, iMessage, Reminders and the integration of Twitter are all exciting new features.

Most exciting for journalists, however, is Newsstand.

Newsstand manages your subscriptions to iOS versions of newspapers and magazines. It will alert you when there’s a new issue available. It even displays the covers on a rack — like a real newsstand. It’s like a dynamic version of iBooks. Read more

Amazon’s made big news in late September with the announcement of their new family of Kindle devices. The new Kindle now comes in touchscreen and non-touchscreen versions, both of which no longer have the QWERTY keyboard found on previous versions of the device. And of course, there is the introduction of the new Kindle Fire, which bundles Amazon’s multimedia services, web services, and the new Amazon Silk browser into a compact handheld tablet. With an attractive price point and a number of solid features, the entire Kindle family will be an important new platform for journalists.

If you are a journalist or a newsroom that is currently not syndicating your content on the Kindle, now is the best time to start. You can request to become a beta publisher through the Kindle Publishing for Periodicals program. You must have the distribution rights for the content in your publication, and your content must be in the proper format (NITF, XHTML or RSS) for submission. Amazon’s review process takes about 3 to 4 weeks, and once it is published, customers can have a two-week trial subscription for your publication before purchasing a full subscription.

Publications are currently only available in the United States, and the program supports publications in English, French, Spanish, German, Italian and Portuguese. Amazon also sets the price for your publication ($0.99 and up), and qualifying publishers can earn a 70% revenue share on delivery costs.

For blogs, there is the Kindle Publishing for Blogs program, which allows customers to subscribe to your blog through their Kindle.

Adding your blog to the Kindle store is easy, and blogs are generally available for customers within 72 hours of acceptance. Like the Kindle Publishing for Periodicals program, Amazon also sets the subscription price for your content ($0.99 and up). You will receive 30% of the monthly blog subscription price for each subscriber to your blog. Blogs are currently only available in the United States, and the program supports blogs in English, Spanish, French, Italian and German.

Both the Kindle Publishing for Periodicals and the Kindle Publishing for Blogs programs are free to join.