In two separate articles, Editor & Publisher tells the tales of two media publishers that just launched mobile applications for two very specific reasons – one to make money, the other to virally market and offer value-added coverage to its advertisers.

The Washington Post, which is not charging for its online content and has no immediate plans to do so, has just launched its first paid IPhone app. The annual fee for the IPhone subscription is a mere $1.99. Directly prior to launch, the Post told E&P that it realized 8 million mobile page views in February. Even assuming a very-high 100 views per subscriber, were even half of these users to sign up for the subscription, we’re talking $80,000 additional revenue for the year. While not as immediately lucrative, in theory, as charging for online content, this might be the more subtle and more acceptable way of starting down the paid-content road.

Village Voice Media Holdings has teamed up with Happy Hour destination site GoTime for a local-based Happy Hours mobile app that provides mobile users with the locale of drink specials. The free IPhone and Android application offers a database of over 15,000 happy hours in 30 cities. Users can search by location, cuisine, time, or bar / restaurant name.

“We want to be everywhere our readers are, and that’s out on the town, anywhere in the country,” Village Voice Media president and COO Scott Tobias told Editor & Publisher. “The Happy Hours app adds another dimension to the coverage and the advertiser relationships VVMH and these publications have established, one that taps into the content we’ve been publishing for years and that listens to what our merchants are saying about the best deals out there today. We own the night – and this app really delivers that.

We can see this industry-specific app as lucrative and virally marketing in other locales, and for other industries and entertainment products such as movies, live concerts, theater, and other events. It could even segue into retail.