CBS Mobile launched an ad-supported CBS News iPhone application to aggregate its content from several programs and foster a mobile news community.

The new application features content from ?The Early Show,? ?CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,? and ?60 Minutes.? CBS Mobile and Treemo Labs developed the application and Transpera powers the video and ad capabilities.

?At CBS, this is really the next in a culmination of things for us,? said Rob Gelick, vice president at CBS Mobile, Los Angeles. ?For us to put to together an app with multiple facets and personalities in a marketplace where consumers like to consume news in different ways allows us multiple dialogues within a single app."

CBS Mobile and CBS News are divisions of CBS Corp., which also owns the television station CBS and co-owns The CW.

The CBS News iPhone application features several advertising opportunities on a variety of content channels.

Mr. Gelick said that CBS News? sales team sells advertising space in the application just as it would for any other platform.

The application features banner ads, expandable interactive ad units that keep consumers inside the application and preroll video advertisements.

CBS Mobile has a partnership with Frango to act as the ad mediation platform.

On the content side, CBS has leveraged multiple platforms to bring application users up to speed on the latest in worldwide information.

Features of the application include breaking news, show pages dedicated to content from programs such as ?48 Hours Mystery,? Webcasts from CBSNews.com, Twitter feeds from more than 40 CBS News accounts with navigation by show, reporter or topic, social media integration into sites such as Digg and location-targeted weather forecasts.

Full length on-demand episodes of CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, 60 Minutes, The Early Show and 48 Hours Mystery are available.

Atwitter
The Twitter feeds were designed to give insights and breaking news from CBS News? accounts.

Consumers can navigate the content by topic through News Trends, a collection of the top stories from feeds across Twitter.

Mr. Gelick said that incorporating Twitter and a tag cloud helps CBS News reach a younger demographic.

?From our point of view, news is one of those areas that transcends all demographics,? Mr. Gelick said. ?There are different followings around different shows.

?We?re targeting as low as the 18-24 crowd and with the Twitter features we?re expecting a younger audience to consume the application,? he said.

CBS Mobile has been quite active in the application space with the launch of two new applications for The CW called CWTV and CW City Wize.

CWTV features videos, pictures and the opportunity to buy episodes from Apple?s iTunes (see story).

Target-sponsored CW City Wize offers a map of locations featured on three CW dramas: ?Gossip Girl,? ?90210? and ?Melrose Place? (see story).

Mr. Gelick said that having applications allows for the CBS brand to have a richer dialogue with the audience, especially with CBS News? community features such as Twitter.

?I think what we found certainly in this platform release on the iPhone is the ability for people to consume content is extremely easy and we?re finding an increase in overall traffic when it comes in app format,? Mr. Gelick said.

?It really isn?t just about what our reporters and editors are capturing and investigating, but also the reaction and feedback from the broader community,? he said.