Interesting iPhone App launched by Horn Group

So the Horn Group, a US PR and Interactive Design shop, has launched an iPhone App.

This is clearly a brilliant effort on their part to show their expertise in the smartphone arena. It's a slick interface that basically takes everything Horn that you would usually have to view on the Web and makes it available on your iPhone.
 
This follows on the heels of Paver Smith's iPhone app that provides you with daily insights about the profession of PR. To my knowledge, these are the only two PR shops that have apps for the iPhone.

The Horn application is a great showcase piece but I still find the Paver Smith app my most enjoyed app on my iPod. The tips they provide every day are smart. They do a fantastic job of saying a lot in just a few words. I can see over time how their app will become almost a catalogue of 'best practices' in PR - which is something highly useful both for PR folks and executives.  (believe it not, PR folks get second-guessed by colleagues all the time, so it's great if you can point to something external to your opinion that is backing up the input you are providing).

I'll give this to Horn though, their application really showcases the value behind having a brand presence on mobile devices. Not only can it be done, but it can be done well.

Say I'm a fan of Electronic Arts - I can follow their tweets online, I can get email notifications, I can RSS their blog, I can visit their Web site... but will I? Do I really have the time or interest to pursue their content that much? As it is I get emails from them that I might be interested in, but if it hits my Inbox at a time when I'm just not in the mood for spam - DELETE - I don't even bother looking at it.

And does making folks chase you all over the Web - blogs, Facebook, YouTube, RSS, email, etc. - really the best way to drive content?

But if EA had an iPhone app that brought everything together for me, like Horn has done, I'd download it in a second.

When I'm watching television for instance, that's often when I browse my CNBC app. I suppose I could just use my mobile browser and go to CNBC's Web site, but I don't want to (don't ask me why, I just find it annoying). So CNBC gets a little icon on my iPod and their brand is staring me in the face every day when I'm using my apps.

I don't think I've been on CNBC's Web page now in a month or so, I pretty much always use my iPod and the CNBC app.

Ultimately PR folks should be seeking the drive as much content as possible to their stakeholders, but at the same time enabling simplicity and ease of use in how that content is received. I'm very impressed with how some apps, like the Horn and CNBC apps, are doing just this on mobile devices.

You'd never think that the limited space associated with a mobile device could ever compete against the vast, endless space associated with Web pages, but strangely, I think the mobile apps are much more enjoyable to use and access content through!

It will be interesting to see how many companies launch an iPhone app to further deliver content to their stakeholders, but my initial hypothesis is that there will be a lot of them. And when that trend really takes off I'm sure there will be a few PR firms that will make a lot of money enabling that brand and content extension into the mobile space.

Kudos to Horn for getting out of the gate fast and associating their PR expertise with the mobile space, I would suspect it will prove to be a brilliant strategy.