Today sees the official launch of MyPolitics UK – a political news & social media app for the iPhone from Purple Forge, powered by Tweetminster data.   It’s not a Tweetminster app (our friends at Thin Martian designed the interface & branding) but when Purple Forge first planned a UK app, they approached us to configure the feeds using our verified list of MPs, PPCs, Parties and Government departments.  Plus we identified the most popular and relevant news sources and bloggers, and suggested the types of survey question that gets good online traction for their interactive polls.

Purple Forge have created an agile development platform for spawning iPhone app channels that aggregate Twitter posts, YouTube & Flickr feeds plus news feeds, blog posts and live interactive polling tools.  Alongside their similar apps in the USA & Canada, MyPolitics UK is a tool that mobilises your local MPs and candidates, and the breaking news stories of the day.

For us, this has been a great way of testing the business case for creating a commercial API for Tweetminster tools and data – an API has been on the product roadmap since day one, but the challenge for any start-up is whether there really is a market for it and is it cost effective to deploy.  Over the last year we’ve created a host of apps and widgets for partners and our own products, so the infrastructure for an API is in place, and given the experience of working with Purple Forge and the types of request we’re getting from 3rd party app developers we’ll be launching an API to meet demand later this year… But definitely after the May General Election.

MyPolitics UK is out now and free on the appstore Check it out.

Posted at Thu, Mar 11th 2010, 15:44
permalink