Hearst Magazines Announces The App Lab, A Mobile Media Development Center In Hearst Tower

The App Lab to Bring Together Consumers, Advertisers, Media to Promote Smart Mobile Expressions of Branded Content

NEW YORK - To address the explosion of consumer usage of mobile devices and related platforms and applications, Hearst Magazines announced today the creation of The App Lab at Hearst Tower in New York City. The new initiative will begin in September with educational sessions on topics including previews of emerging mobile content, applications and platforms, including iPad and other tablets; advertiser and agency roundtables on new ad formats and models; and consumer insight panels, among other programming. In early 2011, the company plans to unveil a physical space in the Tower to showcase Hearst’s iPhone, iPad and tablet products.

“As we continue to roll out new apps and content to expand our brands across this constantly evolving digital landscape, it makes sense to create a Hearst initiative to inspire, share, learn, and most importantly develop,” said David Carey, president, Hearst Magazines. “The App Lab is a digital think tank to bring together innovators, both inside Hearst and across the media and technology industries, in order to create the smartest content, ad models and platforms that resonate with consumers today.”

“We intend to bring marketers and agency partners into The App Lab to collaborate with our creative teams to develop new possibilities of how our magazine-branded apps and their consumer brands can work together,” said Michael Clinton, president, marketing and publishing director of Hearst Magazines. “As the app landscape expands rapidly, we are all discovering new ways to engage people: it’s a new way to communicate and the possibilities are expanding every day. We hope to include apps in all of our print and digital integrated selling efforts.”

To date, Hearst Magazines has created 11 apps, including Redbook’s One Stop Shop that launched August 9, the popular Seventeen Fashion Finder and Cosmopolitan’s Sex Position of the Day , which in addition to being on the iPhone, launched on the Android platform on August 17, the first of Hearst’s apps to do so. All of Hearst’s 14 magazines are available for the iPad through the Zinio application and Popular Mechanics launched an iPad application in July. iPad apps from Esquire and six other leading Hearst brands will roll out later this year.

About Hearst Magazines
Hearst Magazines is a unit of Hearst Corporation (www.hearst.com), one of the nation’s largest diversified communications companies with interests in magazines, newspapers, digital media, business media and television. As one of the world’s largest publishers of monthly magazines, Hearst Magazines publishes nearly 200 editions around the world, including 14 U.S. titles and 20 magazines in the United Kingdom, published through its wholly owned subsidiary, The National Magazine Company Limited. Hearst Magazines is the leading publisher of monthly magazines in the U.S. in terms of total circulation (ABC, Dec. 2009) and reaches 73 million adults (MRI, Fall 2009).

Its digital media unit operates 24 websites and 10 mobile sites for brands such as Cosmopolitan, Popular Mechanics, Esquire, Good Housekeeping, Marie Claire and Seventeen, as well as digital-only sites such as Delish.com, a food site in partnership with MSN; TheDailyGreen.com; MisQuinceMag.com; RealBeauty.com; social shopping site Kaboodle.com; and consumer health site RealAge.com. Hearst Magazines has created nine iPhone applications; all of its titles are available on the iPad via the Zinio application; and by the end of the year, the company expects to have at least 35 iPhone, iPad and Android applications for its brands.