Do you want your app reviewed in Vogue America?

Here’s my pitch: You’re a journalist writing for some of America’s biggest and most influential consumer media publications. You’re busy doing your job and you don’t have a lot of time to focus on this new burgeoning market of mobile applications. You understand that it’s not all about the iPhone but you simply don’t have time to do any investigation beyond occasionally cutting and pasting the odd iPhone app review into your magazine. But I know the market very well. I can parse the hundreds of daily releases into a small number of jewels that your readers are going to really value. So how about I visit for an hour and show you 6 applications (10 minutes for each) and you write a piece about each?

I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. I can’t stand the fact that most ‘popular’ publications don’t cover mobile applications at all. ESPECIALLY the female publications. Times have changed. Mobile is very fashionable. Just, a lot of the journalists in the market don’t know much about it at all. So it routinely gets ignored. I’d like to change that.

I put the above pitch to a world leading PR firm a little while ago. They loved it. My key problem: I don’t know anyone at Vogue. Or FHM. Or anywhere else, for that matter.

“We do,” they said, “Let us make some calls and see what they say.”

Turns out the publications liked it. So I’m doing it. Next month. There are — predictably — some costs. I don’t know where I’m going so the PR firm in question is providing me with some support. They’re doing all the legwork. It’s going to take a few days to deliver — although I estimated an hour per publication, it looks like I’ll need to spend almost an afternoon briefing at each. So there’s some costs to cover. But we’re sharing them across 6 mobile companies.

We’ve got 4 in the bag already and I’m looking for a few more. If your mobile application is likely to appeal to the American normob (“normal mobile phone user”) — and I do mean NORMOB — then drop me an email and let’s see if we can get you involved. There are no platform restrictions — indeed while the iPhone inevitably attracts attention, we need to consider the handset population of the readers of these publications. I’m thinking BlackBerries, Sony Ericssons, Java feature phones. Not just iPhone. There is, of course, no guarantee that the publications in question will cover the applications I pitch them but — you know — I’m going to try my best.

Mail me for a chat about this: ewan@mobileindustryreview.com.