The Associated Press (AP) has announced its Mobile News Network (MNN), a new native application for iPhone and iPod touch, is now available for free download from the Apple App Store.

The Mobile News Network, based on the previous web incarnation, "automatically detects location, allows readers to browse full stories while out of network reception, and provides navigation customization... viewers [can] save stories of interest and flip through photos and videos without delay," according to an AP release.

In an April interview, AP VP and Director of strategy Jim Kennedy told the Weblog: "There are new points of entry for the young consumer, sometimes they're based on content, in some cases they're based on device."

AP is trying to latch on to the iPhone's incredible success in the US. Speaking of delivering local news on mobiles, "Our hope is that it becomes a standard button on the US-distributed iPhones," he said.

The application also seems to embrace the rise of citizen journalism. MNN has a "Send Report" option, allowing users to report first-hand accounts and send photographs directly to AP editors.

The Associated Press (AP) has announced that the incident regarding the Drudge Retort (DR) receiving take-down notices is "matter closed", European Journalism Centre reports.

The AP recently filed Digital Millenium Copyright Act takedown requests asking DR to take down blog posts that they were violating copyright laws by using quotes ithat were too long.

The AP said that on Thursday, they were able to "provide additional information" to DR's Rogers Cadenhead so that he can "bring the contributed content on his site into conformance with the policy he earlier set for his contributors."

"Both parties consider the matter closed," the AP said.

This week, the AP will be meeting with people interested in blogs to discuss "the relationship between news providers and bloggers".

"The resolution of this matter illustrates that the interests of bloggers can be served while still respecting the intellectual property rights of news providers," the AP said.

Source: European Journalism Centre

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The Associated Press will present the full results of its qualitative, anthropological study of young media consumers around the world at the 2008 World Editors Forum in Gothenburg, Sweden, to be held June 1-4.

The results of the 2008 Newsroom Barometer already revealed that the decline among young readership was news editors' biggest concern worldwide.

AP's study aimed to better understand the behaviors of young readers aged between 18 and 34 - and how news organizations can fight this decline.

For the study, AP commissioned a team of anthropologists to follow 18 young individuals around the world and examine their media habits.

"We looked for just regular people," said Jim Kennedy, Vice President and Director for Strategic Planning at AP. "The only prerequisite was that we wanted them to be digital consumers."

Anthropologists quickly found that the digital news diet of this age group was very unbalanced, based mostly on 'facts' and 'updates' - two characteristics of email news. However, as opposed to some editors' conventional wisdom, the young consumers "wanted more than that. They wanted to find a path to the back story, and they wanted to find a path to what's going to happen next."

Among the other findings:

The Associated Press has announced plans to launch an advertising-supported mobile news network and to reduce its rates for American newspaper clients, after holding the rate steady for the past two years.

Mobile News Network, which will be organized by ZIP codes, will launch this summer. It will deliver local from participating newspapers and national and international news and photos from AP to advanced cell phones such as the iPhone. A news videos service is in the works.

The move comes in response to increased economic woes in the U.S. newspaper industry. It is predicted that members will save approximately $14m (£7.1m). The AP had previously proposed a rate restructuring that stood to save papers about $5.9 million, but decided to increase savings, reports Follow the Media.

The price cut may also serve to pacify certain member papers who had voiced protests about, among other issues, the rate restructuring plan (go here, here, and here for a look at current tensions between AP and its members).