Content-rich websites filled with company and industry news feeds, SEC filings, webcasts, blogs and v-logs have become standard for even the smallest public companies. As the widespread use of smartphones and tablets pushes the notion of the ‘anytime, anywhere’ office, even modestly budgeted IROs may find growing demand to take their IR web content mobile.
A new service, free to the buy side and sell side, may accelerate that demand. A year-old start-up, theIRapp, has launched an aggregator that can put critical IR web content for every portfolio company into one mobile app.
The newly launched service, called theIRappFOLIO, allows an investor to see all of his or her IR content in one place, organized by industry, with continuous feed of new content delivered to iPhone, iPad and Android devices. It is available from Apple’s App Store and Google Play as a free app for download.
TheIRappFOLIO is a native app that doesn’t have to access the internet every time you load it, explains Jeff Corbin, founder of theIRapp. ‘We don’t want to have to deal with internet connectivity or a bad WiFi zone,’ he says.
Corbin argues that the compliance hurdle that has kept many institutional investors away from using social media platforms is not an issue with theIRappFOLIO because all the content is company-generated.
Logos visually differentiate individual company content, but IR content is otherwise presented in a similar format company to company, Corbin states. ‘There is not a lot of room for creativity,’ he says. ‘The buy side and the sell side are not very creative. They just want the information.’
Corbin’s firm already produces a product called theIRapp for individual companies that investors and analysts can download. TheIRappFOLIO aggregates all the information currently flowing through these company-specific apps.
Corbin hopes to drum up demand by talking up theIRappFOLIO with institutional investors, which can ‘request’ he sign up their portfolio companies as subscribers.
