Red Foundry Announces Fusion: the Mobile Mashup Has Arrived

CHICAGO, May 7, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- This month Red Foundry announced the launch of Fusion, the world's first network that unites app developers and publishers with feature and service providers. In tandem with the launch, Fodor's Travel, a foremost leader in travel guidance, re-released six popular city guide apps, which are now powered by Red Foundry Fusion.

The Fodor's travel apps for San Francisco, New York, Barcelona, Paris, London, and Rome are now integrated with multiple service providers, such as Expedia®  Affiliate Network (EAN), OpenTable, and TicketsNow, enabling transactions to take place right within the app. The apps allow users to seamlessly go from researching and browsing a city guide to actually booking reservations and purchasing tickets. This type of integration with multiple service providers and various APIs can often be time and resource intensive for app publishers and developers. However, with the Red Foundry Fusion network, app developers can tap into a library of pre-engineered Fusion Elements from premium service providers and simply add them to their apps, saving hours of development time.

The integration of EAN's hotel inventory into the app is an example of an Element Fodor's used, and is available for use by other app developers as well. "We see this initiative as an opportunity to enable app publishers and developers to integrate with EAN's expansive network of hoteliers using our API, offering a great overall experience for mobile users. We consciously designed our API to be mobile-friendly, offering fast response times and optimizing data, so it's great to be involved in a project which takes advantage of this," says Thaddeus Hanscom, Vice President and General Manager at EAN.

In addition to greatly reducing development time, the ability to work with multiple APIs in a single SDK means app developers and publishers can optimize Elements through tests and Red Foundry's analytics. Developers can easily run Elements from two competing service providers to compare performance, or run Elements from localized providers to ensure users have the most relevant experience. App publishers can also gain valuable insight into users' behaviors as they navigate through the app, and can optimize for conversions. Analytics for all service provider Elements are available in a unified dashboard, so publishers can see the full picture of user interaction within the app and related services.

Red Foundry Fusion allows app developers and publishers to earn revenue through transactions made with premium service providers. This means app publishers can opt to move away from a pay-per-download price model and offer the apps to users for free, making the app more broadly available, and opening the door to more revenue-generating potential.

"Anyone who builds mobile apps can make them better, with less effort, using Red Foundry," said Jim Heising, Red Foundry President and Founder. "We are the only business in the market offering a solution where Elements can be dropped into any app, regardless of how the native app is engineered. This cross-platform compatibility is going to open the door for publishers to not only improve the user experience for users, but also potentially generate multiple revenue streams."

App developers and publishers can now sign up for the Red Foundry Fusion beta at www.redfoundry.com. Service providers should contact Red Foundry Business Development by emailing [email protected]

About Red Foundry

Red Foundry connects mobile developers who want more capabilities for their apps to the feature and service providers who have them. With premium services and features ready to plug and play into native apps, Red Foundry Fusion enhances mobile apps of every kind. Red Foundry was founded in 2009 by a team of technology veterans who have built successful start-ups for over a decade. For additional information about Red Foundry and the Fusion network, visit www.RedFoundry.com.

About Fodor's Travel

Fodor's Travel, a division of Random House, Inc., is one of the world's leading providers of travel information. Covering over 300 destinations worldwide, Fodor's guidebooks and website, Fodors.com, have provided the most up-to-date, accurate information for travelers for more than seventy years. Written by a team of over 700 writers located around the globe, Fodor's provides travelers with engagingly written, intelligently and accurately reported, and absolutely indispensable travel guidance.

About Expedia Affiliate Network

Expedia Affiliate Network (EAN) is part of Expedia Inc., the world's leading online travel company. EAN creates the tools and technology that help millions of travellers find the perfect hotels for their next trips. As the world's fastest-growing private label travel affiliate network, EAN works with over 10,000 partners in 33 countries to turn their web traffic into hotel bookings and happy customers. For more information on EAN visit www.ean.com.

Expedia and Expedia Affiliate Network are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Expedia, Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries.  All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.   © 2012 Expedia, Inc.  All rights reserved.  CST # 2029030-50

SOURCE Red Foundry