The news of AOL’s acquisition of HuffPo took center stage in my iGoogle feeds yesterday, but a couple pieces of news on mobile apps caught my attention outside the fray.
The Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division of the Association of American Publishers recognized the American Chemical Society (ACS) mobile app in two categories: Best New eProduct/Innovation in ePublishing and Best New eProduct in Physical Sciences and Mathematics.
I’m not a scientist, and the news might have filtered into the if-only-I-were-a-math-genius pile, but the ACS mobile app is actually pretty slick. It not only gives scientists and scholars access to archives, databases and current content in all of ACS’ journals, but it also offers a live-stream update of new research as it’s published. Applications of this type of platform could work across all academic disciplines, of course, but news organizations and other content providers shouldn’t dismiss it as a scholastic-only platform.
Also in mobile app news, Conduit announced its move into mobile apps. The new Conduit Mobile Platform will allow publishers and developers to create one app that will work on all major platforms. What’s more, the company claims the apps can be created by anyone — not just skilled developers — and it’s free. Ina Fried at All Things Digital smartly pointed out the issue of profitably remains unclear. Functionality will be interesting to watch as well. The platform will be launched at the GSMA Mobile World Congress next week in Barcelona.
TOC: 2011, being held Feb. 14-16, 2011 in New York City, will explore “publishing without boundaries” through a variety of workshops, keynotes and panel sessions.