NEW YORK & PARIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Business Wire today announced a major two-tiered expansion of its industry-leading mobile delivery capability, becoming the first third-party content provider available on AFP Mobile, as well as launching its own iPhone app, which provides worldwide access to multimedia releases in English, French, German, Spanish and Portuguese.

AFP Mobile (a service of Agence France-Presse) initially available for iPhone and iPod Touch users, enables on-the-go users to read the latest news from AFP's worldwide network of journalists, anytime and anywhere. Business Wire news, photos and videos, conveniently categorized based on 21 industries and three subject classifications is available within AFP’s application, providing users with direct, real-time access.

Introduced in January, AFP Mobile offers unique user-friendly features, which include a customizable navigation bar that allows for a personalized display mode and individualized category menu, the ability to browse the news by photos, store as well as share favorite stories with others, and to seamlessly view stories in multiple languages.

AFP has the most comprehensive global footprint in the news industry, with particularly strong media penetration throughout Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa. It is anticipated that the AFP Mobile app will prove popular among users in these regions, who are familiar with AFP's well-deserved reputation for editorial credibility.

Business Wire's app, downloadable at no cost from the Apple App Store, mirrors the same functionality, scope of coverage, and ease-of-use as the AFP Mobile app. Additional languages are planned in future iterations of the service.

"These major enhancements are the latest example of Business Wire's campaign to 'super-charge' press releases, which we announced as a major 2010 initiative," said Cathy Baron Tamraz, the company's CEO.

"Mobile is a major element of our multi-channel distribution platform going forward, and these app additions clearly demonstrate our commitment to differentiate ourselves in the marketplace. We have successfully leveraged our unique strategic relationships to provide mobile coverage to every continent, opening up exciting new communication opportunities for our clients."

"This agreement illustrates our mobile strategy: we deliver content with ready to use solutions in order to enable our client to meet all mobile news usages," said Erik Monjalous, Group Sales and Marketing Director for Agence France-Presse.

In keeping with its bold tradition of enterprise and innovation, Business Wire announced its "Global-Mobile-Social-Measurable" strategy earlier this year. The initiative includes mobile delivery, dual-platform inclusion on its search engine optimized (SEO) platforms (Business Wire and EON: Enhanced Online News), and increased measurement reporting so clients can better evaluate return-on-investment.

In addition to its own mobile-rendered site and Blackberry/Windows Mobile app, Business Wire content is available via the mobile channels of many leading news services and financial information providers, in addition to such popular services as Yahoo! Finance and Viigo. Business Wire content is available on every major platform, including Blackberry, Droid, iPhone, Palm and Windows Mobile.

About Business Wire:

Business Wire, a Berkshire Hathaway company, is utilized by tens of thousands of member companies and organizations worldwide to functionally enhance and communicate investor relations and public relations content to target audiences. As a recognized disclosure vehicle in the United States, Canada, the UK, France, Germany and other EU markets, Business Wire facilitates the simultaneous flow of market-moving press releases from corporations to financial markets and their audiences, including regulatory authorities, media, investors, financial information systems and consumer news services. Business Wire also handles XBRL tagging, document formatting and regulatory filing into the EDGAR and SEDAR systems.

Communications professionals turn to Business Wire to optimize and issue press releases, photos and multimedia to news organizations, journalists, trade publications, search engines, and individuals, with full-text posting to web sites, online services and databases. A range of distribution options enables members to target by geography, industry, news theme and audience demographics.

Founded in 1961, Business Wire has dual headquarters in San Francisco and New York, with 30 bureaus in cities including Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Miami, Paris, Frankfurt, London, Brussels, Tokyo, Toronto and Sydney and reciprocal offices throughout the world. Business Wire's patented NX data platform supports XML, XHTML and XBRL code that enhances news release interactivity, social media sharing and search engine optimization. More information about Business Wire and its services is located on its website at www.BusinessWire.com.

About Agence France-Presse:

AFP is a global news agency delivering fast, accurate, in-depth coverage of the events shaping our world from wars and conflicts to politics, sports, entertainment and the latest breakthroughs in health, science and technology. With 2,900 journalists spread across almost every country, AFP covers the world 24 hours a day in six languages. AFP delivers the news in video, text, photos, multimedia and graphics to a wide range of customers including newspapers and magazines, radio and TV channels, web sites and portals, mobile operators, corporate clients as well as public institutions. Founded in 1835 under the name of Havas, AFP is the oldest press agency in the world. (www.afp.com)

Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=6219736&lang=en