Recently by Leah McBride Mensching

L'Agence France-Presse (AFP) has announced it plans to offer readers direct access to AFP content on digital devices rather than just a "Business to Business" model. AFP is the third largest news agency in the world, tailing the Associated Press and Reuters, and is undoubtedly an influential force in the print industry, providing articles to about 5,000 newspapers in six different languages. Yet Emmanuel Hoog, CEO of AFP, admits that the company is behind the digital trends. Hoog commented to Le Monde "It's absurd that the third largest news provider does not have an application for the iPad, the smartphone, or the internet...How have the AP and Reuters launched mobile apps in French and not AFP?"

Along with much of the print world, AFP has felt the ramifications of a changing industry. Several newspapers have decided to stop using content from AFP, which has affected the news company's primary source of revenue. While Hoog believes the majority of newspapers will continue their contracts with AFP, Hoog asserts his company is in the position to offer content directly over the Internet and mobile devices.

For more on this story, visit our sister publication, editorsweblog.org.

According to findings from research carried out in May by Digital Media Test Kitchen, "few mobile news apps have pushed the creativity envelope." The report stated that "compared to the innovation that's rampant in the non-news mobile app world, the news apps we reviewed seem behind the curve."

Six newspaper apps were reviewed: USA Today, The New York Times, THE Associated Press, the Guardian, Politico, and the Huffington Post. "Most of the news applications that have been created by single news brands do not do enough to encourage interactivity, customization, or creativity...there is an overall lack of interactivity compared to the news brands' regular Web sites." Regarding creativity, these apps generally stuck to the same pattern of pairing headlines with thumbnails photos. However, these thumbnail photos can usually not be enlarged when clicked on, "a disappointment when the image was too small to discern adequately." As for interactivity, while most of the apps permitted sharing on social networks, only the HuffPost app allowed users to comment.

For more on this story, visit our sister publication, editorsweblog.org.

Close on the heels of its Associated Content acquisition, "Yahoo has begun recruiting writers to begin building a local news site for the San Francisco area."

A recent email to registered Associated Content writers announced Yahoo's search for "writers living in or near the San Francisco area (like you!) to write compelling, local content -- ranging from highlights of your favorite neighborhood destinations to metro-wide, first-person reporting assignments covering the stories and topics not typically found in mainstream news media." This email confirmed speculations which had started earlier in the year when Yahoo advertised openings for local editors in San Francisco.

For more on this story, visit our sister publication, editorsweblog.org.

Newly launched MouseTrace offers website owners the ability to find out detailed activities of visitors. It "provides a complete view of how your visitors are using your website, recording every click, mouse movement," according to information provided on the product website: so website owners can see the exact paths that users take around their sites.

Declaring itself not a traditional 'web stats' company, MouseTrace works in collaboration with existing stats packages on a website, Google Analytics for example. It is able to monitor activity of an unlimited number of pages on a website, including secure (ssl) pages. It also monitors iPhone activity, providing information on page scrolling and zooming, as well as gestures and device rotation.

For more on this story, visit our sister publication, editorsweblog.org.

Without waiting for the argument on whether or not the web is dead to be concluded, Nieman Journalism Lab has launched its Apple app. It works with the iPhone, the iPod touch, and though not at optimum performance, the iPad.

"Every day, there are 16 gazillion news articles about the future of journalism, 27.5 flabillion blog posts, and 294 quinzillion tweets," Joshua Benton wrote on niemanlab.org. "In response, we've built the Nieman Journalism Lab iPhone app," he continued. "You can use it as you like, of course, but the use case I'm imagining for it is when you're standing in line at the grocery store, sitting on a train, or otherwise in a situation where you could squeeze in two minutes to catch up on what's going on."

For more on this story, visit our sister publication, editorsweblog.org.