AppCheck

BuzzBoard, a tablet-based sales tool app tailored to media companies offering SMB-targeted digital marketing services, does all the homework for sales reps, evaluating a client’s current Web presence and performance and allowing reps to pinpoint digitally needy local businesses.

Gray Television’s new Moms Everyday app, the app version of its four-year-old moms vertical site, can be localized for each of the TV company’s 32 stations. The company expects the app, launched in January, to generate $5 million this year.

Mobile Viewpoint’s WMT Live lets users live stream video directly from their iPhones to website or broadcast TV. The app is designed to be used by reporters or non-journalists, making it possible for anyone with an iPhone to contribute news to websites or TV stations.

Hearst takes its award-winning political coverage mobile with a new app that allows users to dig into information about national campaigns and local races. The app also invites engagement with Facebook sharing and user-generated photos and video.

Signalnoi.se, a new app for desktops, allows publishers to track in real time the social performance of their stories and their competitors stories across Facebook and Twitter, giving them the opportunity to fine-tune their editorial and social strategies around that data.

Taptu lets users select from more than 200,000 news streams — ranging from coverage of presidential politics to cuddly kittens — and use its mixing board-like interface to “DJ the news.”

Scripps’ new Storm Shield app lets users customize the type and number of severe weather warnings they receive for as many as five locations, essentially turning their smartphones into emergency weather radios.

ABC’s new alarm clock app, launched at its KTRK Houston in May and the broadcaster’s seven other O&Os in June, gives users a morning wake-up call and a shot of local news headlines all before they’ve had their first cup of coffee.

PressReader draws on newspapers from around the world to deliver content to users, and the arrangement benefits all involved: Readers sign up for a paid subscription to the app to get the news they crave, and publishers receive fixed royalties from PressReader.

The Belo-owned CBS affiliate in St. Louis has taken the advice of its audience and is rolling out the latest version of its core news app — one of 17 apps in the station’s roster — with a reorganized interface and flow geared toward user friendliness.

CrowdCloud, launched in beta in late February as an app and desktop widget, pulls in crowdsourced, geofenced content primarily through Twitter, to help local media outlets harness social media’s real-time news power and filter out the white noise.

Last year, Andy Leff turned a five-year-old hunch about user-generated content into Meporter. The app allows users to turn their phones into all the tools they need to create and publish news stories. Meporter also allows citizen journalists to use their phone’s geolocation features to pinpoint where they are reporting from.

Hearst Newspapers, looking for a head start in the app world, has launched subscription-based iPad apps for its four major dailies — the San Francisco Chronicle, the Houston Chronicle, the San Antonio Express-News and the Albany (N.Y.) Times-Union — built on company-created architecture that takes advantage of the Apple tablet’s capacity for visuals and room for expanded content.

News360’s free app mines users’ Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus accounts to customize a news feed that’s catered to their tastes. The company is eyeing an ad share plan with content providers as a potential revenue stream.

Users of WRAL Raleigh, N.C.’s pioneering news app can check the news, weather and sports, as well as submit photos, video and email. They can even click to call the newsroom with tips. The station, which launched its first app with Sprint in 2004 and its first iPhone app in 2008, recently added a premium option for its popular ‘Behind Bars’ vertical. Key to the app’s success, WRAL says, is a simple interface and lots of interactivity.