Brightcove is ramping up its content app platform with the Brightcove App Cloud.  With it, digital media organizations are able to build and operate growing portfolios of cross-platform native apps for iOS and Android smartphones and tablets through App Cloud, and the addition of cross-platform messaging and content-level analytics will allow them to engage more easily with their installed base, track campaign efficacy and identify the content with the greatest impact.

Push messaging is a powerful tool that will keep users up to date of new content such as breaking news, local events and discount offers, eliminating the need for a disorganized assortment of platform-specific messaging systems and generic analytics that impedes the immediate and effective capitalization on popular content.  This will help digital media companies better manage apps across iOS and Android app stores.

Brightcove’s App Cloud push messaging feature is designed to allows marketers to schedule and send push message campaigns to their user base across iOS and Android platform from a single dashboard. The message can be address to all app users, those in a specific geographic area, users who have not opened the app in a specific time frame, or a combination of these criteria. Integrated analytics deliver real-time feedback on the number of push messages delivered, the number opened, and user interactions with the content of the message.

“Push messaging has proven to be not only an effective means of driving users to new content within the app experience, but also a tool for driving behavior, such as TV viewership or event attendance,” said Melissa Webster, program vice president, Content and Digital Media Technologies at IDC. “Emerging content app platforms like Brightcove App Cloud are addressing this need and making it easier for organizations to increase engagement with their app audience.”

The new expanded analytics capabilities are arguably the most important update with Brightcove’s new App Cloud, tracking user activity at the content item level. Producers and marketers will see how many users have watched a particular video, viewed a specific image or read a specific article or blog post.

App Cloud is a mashup of HTML 5 and intelligent cloud services, all in an effort to accelerate app development, continuously optimize performance, measure efficacy and enable dynamic updates to installed apps.

“The percentage of time spent consuming content in apps on smartphones versus browsing the Web is growing, and publishers of all kinds are looking to capitalize on this trend,” said Ashley Streb, vice president of technology at Brightcove. “We continue to introduce new capabilities like push messaging and expanded analytics within App Cloud to enable consumers to engage with content while making it easy for publishers to build impactful apps that look and operate great on an ongoing basis.”

Brightcove App Cloud was launched back in November for operating engaging native apps for iOS and Android smartphones and tablets. Before that, it went public and filed for a $50 million for an IPO amidst net loss.

Other companies building out their social analytics tools include Quantivo, SocialVolt and Fan Appz, all recognizing the need to deliver better analytics across social sharing platforms and the mobile sector.