Pulse shows news on iPad in more visual way

The Pulse reader is an iPad app that pulls together various newssources and presents them in an intuitive and visual format. You can add Google reader feeds as well as individual RSS feeds with a maximum of 20. It then allows for sharing of stories and pictures on social networks. Tools like these are quickly changing the way news, and images, are consumed. The app was built in 6 weeks for a Stanford University course to become the best selling app in the app-store. It quickly ran into some trouble with the New York Times as its (free) feed was included in the app. Even though that feed was freely available all over the web the newspaper demanded it to be taken out of the initial app-offer, which subsequently happened.

This is one of the great opportunities for those that license images. It also highlights some immediate questions around licensing models and sharing of imagery on social networks. Like with many of these applications, while the opportunities are great, the issue of licensing imagery seems unresolved.