Manchester City this week announced an innovative plan that brings fans ever closer to the heart of the club when it comes to the development of its iPhone app.

Together with creative agency Aqueduct, who I had the pleasure of meeting briefly last night at Opta Sport in Waterloo, they have added even more to their app.  You can post favourite articles direct to Facebook or Twitter, check out games and events that are coming up and add them to your personalised calendar , get ‘City Live’ Commentary of games and much more.

The main area I’m interested in with this announcement, as otherwise it would be another iPhone app launch (although a very good one).  Is that they are involving the supporters in the development process of the app!

They’ve set up a blog where fans can go to see the latest screenshots, be shown ideas for updates and give their feedback on anything they see.  I like this way of again bringing the fans even closer to the club.

City’s Digital Delivery Manager, Victoria Stansfield, sees it as a key approach; “We want the iPhone app to make the most of the technology that’s available in the phone and we’ll use a similar approach to any subsequent apps we do on other handsets. It may not all be there in the first release but the app will have upgrades and add-ons that keep it alive and keep fans coming back for more.”

“It’s important that the fans are involved in the app’s development and subsequent updates, they will be the ones who use it after all.”

With the billions of pounds that have rolled into the City of Manchester Stadium in the last couple of years it would be easy for them to become very elitist as they buy big and push for titles and commercial success, ignoring the fans.

But credit is due to them with the way they have worked to embrace the efforts of the fans and include them in as much as possible.  Whether it be by recognising the Man City fan sites through links from the www.mcfc.co.uk site or with this new app development blog.