‘World’s first location-aware digital newspaper’

The Bay Area News Group released an innovative new iPad app, TapIn Bay Area, that it calls “the world’s first location-aware digital newspaper.” Users can easily navigate via a map to get nearby news, events and listings, or the app will do it for you based on your location.

“Imagine cutting up your newspaper into 10,000 pieces and organizing those pieces on a map,” Tackable co-founder Luke Stangel tells CyberJournalist.net. “TapIn is version 1.0 of that map. Newspapers are trying to find a format that works in the post-Internet and post-mobile age. TapIn paints that canvas in a bold, new color.”
Stangel co-founders of Tackable, an independent development team incubated inside the Mercury News. We built TapIn in close collaboration with MediaNews.

The app is free for now but a monthly subscription will later be offered for $4.99. However, users will be able to earn that money back by participating in TapIn activities such as in discussions, sharing photos, and just plain browsing.

You can download the app here.

If you’re interested in more details, CJR has a lengthy interview with Stengel here.

Ken Doctor has a really thoughtful analysis of the app here, and says the four things that distinguish it are that it’s a tablet native product, has a commercial platform, incorporates game dynamics and is built as a syndicatable, networkable platform.

 

July 12, 2011 by 1 Comment
Filed Under: Innovation, Mobile, News