International news provider Agence France-Presse has debuted a Spanish-language soccer application as a customizable mobile platform for Hispanic media.

¡Fútbol Ya!, a photo-rich application covering soccer news from across Latin America and the world powered by AFP, is now available for Hispanic media outlets as a customizable, branded mobile application for Apple's iPhone and iPod touch. ¡Fútbol Ya! provides up-to-the-minute news from top soccer events, competitions and a daily-updated photo gallery featuring soccer images.

"We're working with big media outlets such as Yahoo, ESPN and the New York Times to bring our content to their mobile audience -- they can use our content on their mobile solutions," said Katie Juhl, business development manager for AFP North America, Washington, DC. "Our mobile strategy is to create these products and solutions for our clients.

"Many places don't have a person available to make a mobile offering for their publication, so AFP can offer actual products to reach out to your audience via the mobile device," she said. "The Spanish-language audience is growing and it is also the most engaged mobile media consumers.

"We saw a need that wasn't being met for our clients to have a branded application in Spanish, and while right now it is an AFP-branded app, it can be branded by our clients and we let them put in their own local advertisers."

Based in Paris, AFP is a global news agency delivering coverage 24 hours a day in 165 countries worldwide. It is the oldest news agency in the world and the third largest after the Associated Press (see story) and Reuters (see story).

AFP offers content in seven languages, including English, Spanish and French.

PointAbout specializes in native applications that maintain the flexibility of the Web through a thin-client springboard.

The goal of the Spanish-language soccer app is to bring consumers current, illustrated news from the world of fútbol, a.k.a. soccer.

As a part of AFP's mobile strategy to provide mobile services and content to news outlets, the application is available for complete client customization.

Because of the flexibility of the smartphone platform provided by mobile software company PointAbout, media organizations can plug local feeds into the app, in addition to AFP feeds, to customize the look and branding.

Because the framework for ¡Fútbol Ya! has already been built, a media outlet or brand could quickly launch their own Spanish-language soccer application.

¡Fútbol Ya! is available now on the iTunes App Store. Soon, a version will be available for Android, as well as other application storefronts.

"In Latin America soccer is the number one sport, and soccer news is a really hot topic worldwide," Ms. Juhl said. "The iPhone is most multimedia device right now, and since we are a news agency with a strong background in photos, we wanted to make sure that the operating system would be able to handle all of the rich-media content we have to offer.

"Google's Android is next up, and other spin-off products could be SMS and MMS," she said.

Currently, Millennial Media is integrated into the application as the third-party mobile advertising network, although individual media outlets can also sell ad inventory themselves.

"Mobile advertising is an additional stream of revenue, and the app very engaging, it's updated all the time, so people will keep coming back to it to get the latest news," Ms. Juhl said. "It's an intimate way to reach each user

AFP can help provide advertising solution, or client can provide their own advertising, can plug in local soccer updates

In addition to this mobile application, the AFP already has a general news WAP site at http://www.AFPmobile.com.

"We can help publishers build their own WAP sites with news and entertainment quizzes, and we're exploring the gaming realm," Ms. Juhl said. "It's the same idea of publishers and media outlets being able to plug in their own information to our existing platform.

"Our strategy is going into niche content markets, because AFP has so much content, if we target this content toward a particular client or audience, it is very beneficial for publishers and advertisers," she said.