Two weeks ago the CNN iPhone app was released in the iTunes app store. Since then it has remained in the top 25 paid applications sold daily. And for good reason. Let’s explore why.

Full of features

The CNN iPhone app is really a bundle of applications. It has breaking news with push, streaming video, capability to send news to iReport, bookmarking of news and videos and keyword driven news. All of these exist in some form or another in other applications but none of them are nearly as polished as the CNN app. And none of them handle video search, display and bookmarking on the level that CNN does.

News With Push

Breaking news pushed to your iPhone like a SMS message. News that would make any Crackberry addict happy to know about let’s say, the boy in the balloon. I’m not passing judgement on the content and its news worthiness. . . only preaching that these features are a demarcation point in the history of mobile application development.

Streaming Video

There are other streaming applications for video to the iPhone but none of them have integrated on demand access of that video as elegantly. The user experience is much better than it is on CNN.com. Probably because they have had a few years to learn from previous mistakes in delivering video online.

Send an iReport

For independent publishers that are looking for an outlet or budding journalists, this is a great feature. It gives you the ability to interact with the iReport site by creating your own video, photo or text on the iPhone and then upload it right to iReport. There is also the ability to take on assignments in iReport. CNN sends them out and if you’re lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time, you could be the reporter on the scene. Look for this to happen very soon. This feature will spawn a few celebrities.

Bookmarking

Save your favorite news items in a My CNN directory to have access to them anytime you want. This is great for saving content that you might not have time to fully read or want to collect a historical perspective around a news event.

Keyword Driven News

There is no better nested application inside this app than the ability to filter news down to the topic(s) that you want to be updated on. You can see in the photo above the Hudson River water landing from a few months back. Imagine if this app was available then . . . CNN did, and they built it. In essence this feature alone is as many applications as the user and CNN want it to be. Because CNN can push to it and users can pull what they want.

It will be very difficult for another news outlet, big media, middle media or any niche under that to come out with a lesser iPhone application. That is both good and bad. They’ve taken what typically was a one or two trick pony and turned it into Fresian.

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CNN iPhone App is a game changer is a post from: TechStartups.com