MobileMarketer goes on to state, “Cars.com tapped PointAbout to create the application for the iPhone and iPod touch as a complement to its mobile Web site, which was created by Crisp Wireless. General Motors, Toyota, Mercedes-Benz and Ford have all bought display advertising on the mobile site for 2010.”

MobileMarketer continues, “We wanted to be available to all consumers, so we have to be device- and carrier-agnostic, so that if you have a mobile device, you can access all of the tools and the 2 million-plus listings on Cars.com using your handset,” said Sharon Knitter, senior director of consumer products at Cars.com, Chicago.

“About 30 percent of our mobile content is coming from the iPhone, and we have folks that have an iPhone that look at our mobile site, but we wanted to also give them the opportunity to download an app,” she said. “We decided to start with a mobile Web site and add on device-specific apps as the market warrants—Android and BlackBerrry are on our radar.

“Mobile will continue to evolve, and we’ll continue to assess the layout of the marketplace, watch market share and adapt accordingly.”

Here is the SuperBowl Cars.com ad, which includes the app (although the ad used a generic phone for licensing purposes):

ESRB also had an urgent deadline, to get the application approved before the holiday shopping season.

PointAbout provided ESRB with a two-pronged solution:  To accommodate the tight deadline, we embedded the ESRB mobile website into a PointAbout springboard, allowing for the mobile site to be distributed through the iTunes AppStore, and run within a native application frame.  This was approved by Apple and made live, relieving ESRB of the immediate holiday shopping time pressure.  You can download this app in the iTunes App Store, and see screenshots below.  You can also read the ESRB press release about the launch, read a very positive review by news site C-NET here, and read another by PC World here.  The app has gone on to receive excellent press in publications such as TheOnlineMom.com , The Register, Blast Magazine, Animation Magazine,  TMC, Kotaku, and many others.

Now, PointAbout is developing a fully native application for ESRB that will run offline and have the fully functional features of a native iPhone application.  We will update this blog once we release that version.

“The app we developed with PointAbout gives parents access to our rating search and new rating summaries right from the store when they’re buying video games for their child,” said Patricia Vance, president of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB).  “We set out to create a sleek, user-friendly app in time for the holiday shopping season and PointAbout delivered.  They worked closely with us every step of the way and helped us give parents the gift of a really great tool for making even more informed decisions about video games.”

ESRB has also created a commercial that explains the application.

Johnny Langridge of Clare College writes,

“PointAbout’s AppMakr service has allowed us to do something amazing:  Leverage RSS content we were already publishing, and turn it into a great iPhone application.  This means we can get our content into people’s hands when they’re on the go using the RSS feeds we’re already publishing to the web.  It’s a win-win.  No extra work was required on our part, because AppMakr handled the entire app creation and submission process.

The service they provide is gold standard and we can’t thank them enough. The level of customer service is exemplary, the speed of response / delivery and attention to detail are faultless – they are a total pleasure to work with and we look forward to doing so in the future.”