Digital Publishing Insights

Robin Kruk from FORUM magazine, published by the Association Forum of Chicagoland, has just written a great round-up article on digital edition use in the association community. It includes numerous case studies on Associations using digital editions, including associations working with Texterity.

Her recent article, “Should We Go Digital?” appear in the November/December 2008 issue of FORUM magazine, page 72, and can be viewed at http://www.associationforum-digital.com/associationforum/200811/.

Also check out “Robin’s Tips for Digital Publications” at The FORUM Effect, which provides an in-depth conversation with FORUM authors. Her blog is available at http://www.associationforumblogs.org/theforumeffect/2008/11/robins-tips-for-digital-publications.html.

Texterity is proud to announce that Sporting News Today was named the 2008 Online Launch of the Year and was honored by min magazine . Texterity has been providing this unique "digital only" daily magazine with publisher American City Business Journals since it's debut in July 2008. Anyone can sign up for the publication at Coverleaf.com.

For more information, see the min's article at http://www.minonline.com/features/9178.html

Folio Magazine's article titled Publishers Claiming Digital Circ on Rise (http://www.foliomag.com/2008/publishers-claiming-digital-circ-rise) showed a 28% increase in the number publications claiming audited digital edition readership. The numbers were released by BPA Worldwide, so they represent primarily the "B-to-B" magazine segment.

The headline should be "Audited Digital Circulation on Rise". In addition to audited circulation, however, is the large growth we are seeing in non-audited publications and subscribers too. This includes the large category of "digital only magazines", such as Sporting News Today.

There are many publishers (especially on the B-to-B side) that are interested in site license models for publications. For example, an industry publication might wish to make a copy of it's magazine available to a group within the company via email, or for distribution on the "intranet" of the company.

BPA Worldwide is now proposing several enhancements to their audit statement -- see their blog at bpaww.typepad.com/blog. Glenn Hansen and the BPA are working with publishers to make sure they are aware of the different options available.

Texterity already support site license via our "Subscriber Management" technology in various ways, including email group distributions, version splits, secure intranet content hosting, and our standard authentication via subscriber management.

Labels: BPA Circulation

This in from the site www.scribemedia.org -- a podcast interview with newly appointed Editor in Chief Jeff D’Alessio. He says the hybrid of print and Web design presents both readers and advertisers with another option, and could be a model for other media companies grappling with the Web onslaught. View it at http://www.scribemedia.org/2008/09/05/sporting-news-has-a-new-pitch/

I've just had a chance to play around with Google's new "Chrome" browser. It's a quick download from www.google.com/chrome/.

Of course, I wanted to try it out! Starting on the Texterity's examples page, I opened a few favorite magazines, such as MacLife.

First impressions are great. With it's clean look, it makes a digital edition look streamlined and maximizes the viewing area. Google had supposedly written their javascript interpreter "from scratch" to make it faster, and it felt faster to me than my version of IE, but I'll need to do some more testing to be sure.

The other nice feature is that the Texterity offline (local version) can be set to open in Chrome simply by setting Chrome as the "default browser". It's a nice experience as smooth as well. Everything, including the embedded rich media, works flawlessly as far as I can tell.

My friend Carl Landau has just sent his first Newsletter, and since he is a wild and crazy guy, it's pretty fun. (And useful). Any publisher involved in enthusiast or niche media properties would find this of value.

I always learn something from Carl. He also offers free "review" services for designs of email and faxes. Very worthwhile.

Check it out at nichedout.com.