The Washington Post is giving readers a one-stop shop for all their election coverage needs via a new iPad application.

The WP Politics app aggregates political content from the Washington Post and combines it with multimedia to let users track the upcoming election via their handsets. The freemium app is available for free to download in Apple?s App Store with the option of paying for additional content.

?The app is for anyone interested in the election and politics,? said Beth Jacobs, general manager of mobile at The Washington Post, Washington.

?It was designed to quickly and easily get the everyday voter up to speed on the candidates and where they stand in an informative and entertaining way,? she said.

?At the same time, its level of detail and in-depth information appeals to the political junkie.?

Mobile heat
The Washington Post politics app is not ad-supported, but does include click-to-download banner ads that encourage users to download the publisher?s other news iPad app.

The main focus of the tablet app is to make the Washington Post?s political content more interactive with multimedia components. For example, when users open a story, they first see a high-res image before the article opens automatically.

The homepage is formatted with the tablet device in mind with a screen that is locked horizontally and features a swipable screen that lets users quickly access information.

The app?s candidates tap keeps an interactive graph of all the Republican candidates. The page includes a sidebar that breaks down political issues so users can find the issues they are most interested in.

The app also uses mobile-only resources, including a maps and infographics that break down certain parts of the country by tapping on a state to see which political leader is winning a state.

Users can also log-in to Facebook and Twitter to share articles and content.

Bonus content is $3 and users can pay with their App Store account while inside the app.

Digital election
By creating a hub for all of the Washington Post?s political content, the app gives users a way to quickly find daily news articles.

Additionally, the mobile-only features gives readers an incentive to download and regularly interact with the app.

Although the majority of content is free, the app is based around the freemium theory that many publishers are using to monetize their efforts.

The Washington Post has carved out its mobile strategy by making apps a major push.

Most recently, the publisher launched an Android app to let users access news while on the go (see story).

?We are committed to providing our users with a variety of ways to access the Washington Post and our content with an experience that is unique to both the device and the platform,? Ms. Jacobs said.

?As political coverage is core to the Washington Post, we wanted to offer an iPad app that is deep and  customized, beyond merely a news reading experience into more a rich visual experience, and one that  takes advantage of our content and the features and functionality of the iPad  to create something that is truly innovative,? she said.

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is editorial assistant on Mobile Marketer, New York