It is not something we focus a lot of effort on in our company, but it is a great honor nonetheless when recognition for hard work comes along.  We were honored to receive such recognition earlier this week when the Province of New Brunswick selected Advanced Publishing as one of New Brunswick's most innovative businesses.  During a gala evening hosted by Business New Brunswick, the Premier awarded this honor to us!

Thanks to all of our customers who push us in our efforts to continually improve our product!  Thanks to our dedicated team who work tirelessly and enthusiastically to bring those ideas to life and serve all of our customers with the best product and best service!

L-R -Victor Boudreau, Minister of Business NB, Trish Connolly, CEO of Advanced Publishing, Shawn Graham, Premier of New Brunswick

We are excited to announce the availability of some key upgrades to our Real-time Reporting center within the Publishers Access Center.  Our unique internally developed analytics and reporting service allows us the ability to customize reports and data exclusively for the specific needs of our publishing customers.

Some of the new features include:

1. Advertiser reporting – a complete area that reports key data for each advertiser for their specific data – how many people viewed or interacted with each ad, how much time people spent on it, what clicks were made. 
2. A Second Dashboard that provides key summary data BY ISSUE – rather than by date, so you can see and compare key statistics on an issue by issue basis at a glance.
3. Enhanced Reader location information
4. Enhanced data downloading capabilities  
5. Additional tracking of more information – if a PDF download option is available, how many people chose that option, how many readers have various plug-ins installed - Silverlight or Flash etc. 

We will continue to add more features and reports over the next few months to provide even more data to help understand reader behavior. If you are not currently a customer and would like to test drive our Publishers Access Center - just drop me (tconnolly@advancedpublishing.com) a note and I will open up a guest account for you.

There was an interesting blog post that I just came across.  It is one of the few that I have seen providing some statistics on digital magazine open rates.  The information comes from a UK blog site Napier News  that covers electronic media in Europe. The findings were interesting (albeit the sample size was small):

• four titles had open rates of 11-12%
• one title had an open rate of 16%
• one title had an open rate of 19%

Mike Maynard goes on to say, "I tried to find some cause of the difference in open rate, but there was no link between circulation, publication frequency or publisher and the open rate."

The writer goes on to conlude that "Certainly it suggests that digital magazines are less likely to be opened than their paper sisters (if you believe the readership surveys). I’m not surprised that today print is still the favoured medium. But with the huge cost advantage of digital, I think the figures are pretty respectable. They’ll also be slighly under-reported as pass-on readership will not register as another unique reader."

This caused me to look at the statistics for some of our digital magazine customers to see where they fit under these measures.  For most of our publishing customers, we also deploy the emails announcing each new issue, so we have all the data readily available to measure how many people "received the issue notification" (i.e. email) and then went on to actually open the magazine.  I first looked at email click rates to see how many people clicked the email to access the new issue.  Results varied somewhat, but overall were very much in keeping with the percentages noted above.  This, however, is not the whole picture.  I then went into our Publishers Access Center to see how many people actually visited the issue in question.  Here in all cases, the numbers were much higher - often 30-40% higher.  What does this indicate?  First of all, readers are not necessarily using the email as the access point for the issue at the time they receive it.  Secondly, previous/back issues continue to get new readers long after the notification for a new issue is deployed, so the readership and value of a digital issue continues to grow overtime.  This is especially true where full archive search is readily available (as it is with our offering). 

One final point - I do not come to the same conclusion suggested by Mike.  I too am very sceptical about the accuracy of data that is derived by readership surveys and certainly know that as an avid magazine reader, I likely get 5-10 magazines that cross my desk each week.  While I fully intend to read them (and keep them on the corner of my desk to read when I get a moment), I rarely do.  I find myself every couple of weeks trashing/recycling a lot of magazines (most still with the polybag in tact) without having cracked the cover.  I would be difficult to convince that open rates for paper copies are much different than digital open rates.

While the debate between the print and digital worlds will likely continue for some time, there is no doubt that things will continue to change and evolve towards digital.  As a vendor, finding the perfect balance between ease of production for publishers, and the best viewing experience for readers will continue to drive our product development.  Ultimately it is about the power of the content and the relationship and experiences between the reader and the publisher that will lead to success.

Advanced Publishing is excited to sponsor an upcoming webinar discussion led by industry visionary Bob Sacks.  To register and attend, please go to:

http://www.foliomag.com/webinars/34394

At the recent Audience Development Conference in Chicago, BPA announced changes that may push the take up of digital subscriptions quickly. As noted in a June 8, 2009  article on Audience Development:

According to Glenn Schutz, manager, communications, BPA Worldwide, the Board approved "the reporting of non-requested electronic circ as non-qualified circulation with a paragraph 9 additional comment documenting the sources used."

Schutz added that the Board will also allow "publishers to convert their print customers to digital editions with the provisions that they notify the customers of the change and give them the ability to opt-out." 

While there continues to be debate over this issue, this ruling really only gives digital editions the same status as non-requested print circulation (and is already permitted by ABC).  During a time when many publishers are struggling with the increasing cost of print and distribution in the midst of an advertising recession, this ruling should help publishers move additional readers to digital.  By initially providing non-requested copies in digital this will allow publishers to serve new readers (and still count the circulation)  -- in hopes of encouraging readers to become qualified.  Several of our publishing clients are already being more aggressive in pushing out digital to readers who have requested print but are on controlled waiting lists for print subscriptions to become available.  We certainly don't get a sense that this ruling change will cause publishers to "spam" digital versions to anyone, but instead gives publishers an economic way to serve new and existing readers who they may not be able to serve with print quickly, if at all.

There is a very interesting article posted by Jack Shafer in his blog - Slate.  While Jack is not necessarily a strong supporter of the functionality of digital editions in the marketplace today (except for the New York Times - Times Reader), he makes some excellent points about the how the roll out of devices (and who controls the content on them) will play an increasingly critical part of business content distribution going forward.  Some of his key points that resonate with me:

• While the Kindle is a major step forward -with its wireless ability to download new content on the go -  the reader experience is still far from great - no colors or fonts or great image display. In addition, its display of non-kindle formats is very cumbersome.  Its design and functioning is intended to make Amazon the gatekeeper for newspaper and magazine content - with them benefiting and publishers potentially losing out as low penetration of the device itself will limit the market potential.
• Having an industry standard format that would be device agnostic to allow publisher's content to be distributed to many devices - current ones we have now (PCs, Mobile phones, Smart Phones, e-book readers) and ones that continue to evolve,  without a proprietary digital format would be ideal.
• Such a standard would allow Publishers to directly distribute content themselves, or alternatively use aggregators - like an itunes for magazine and newspaper content, to bundle and sell content in that way.
• Jack goes on to recognize that while the New York Times Reader format is a step ahead for the reader, he expresses some remorse that the great full page ads are not available, as they are in the print version.   In addition, he recognizes the need to marry great ad content with great content experience as the ultimate solution - for readers and for publishers who need to make money to support ongoing creation of such great content.

As a vendor in the digital edition marketplace today, we are a key part of this evolution, as we constantly work with publishers and readers to improve and deliver content in such a way to maximize the reader experience, maximize the advertising potential, and minimize the disruption to the current content creation and production processes.  There is no doubt that the creation of content will continue to evolve to reflect where the readers and revenue are.  As more readers move from print to digital, more effort will be placed in altering creation processes to create the best experience based on the device used to read. 

We certainly plan on being part of this evolution and hope to use technology to continue to adapt and evolve delivery solutions for our publishing customers.

We have been ecstatic over the last year at the customer reception of our new product offering, including our RIDE version that uses the rich media power of Silverlight.  As many of you know, we were one of the first (if not the first) commercial application launched using Silverlight(SL) 1.0.  Since then we have continued to improve our reader experience and add options to make every reader have an accessible and user friendly viewing option for all our magazine and newspaper customers (ie. Digital AnyWhere).

Silverlight 2.0 has been in the works for some months and was recently released to the general public.  Those readers who had SL 1.0 will be automatically updated to the new version over the next few weeks. 

While we knew that this cross platform viewing environment had significant benefits on many fronts, it was going to take a while for it to achieve mass level of adoption (like Flash, for example  on home based computers).  We were very enthusiastic with download rates which were initially 1.5 million per day.  Then came the Summer Olympics and the growth rate increased tremendously.

Finally we got new information that was better than we had hoped for!  In an October 13, 2008  Microsoft press release issued in conjunction with the release of Silverlight 2.0 to the public, Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president at Microsoft noted, “We launched Silverlight just over a year ago, and already one in four consumers worldwide has access to a computer with Silverlight already installed.” In addition, "..Silverlight adoption continues to grow rapidly, with penetration in some countries approaching 50 percent.."

This is fantastic news for our publishing customers and their readers.  Achieving such a rapid level of penetration in only a year shows the power that Silverlight has - and this is only expected to increase.   Many application developers were waiting on the sidelines until the more mature SL 2.0 was released to begin commercial deployment, so this should only accelerate adoption further.

Yesterday we announced the launch of a complete new version of our solution.  The importance of this version - we call Digital Anywhere - is that it will enable EVERY reader who wants to read any of our customers' magazines or newspapers to view a feature rich version, without the need of any sort of plug-in. 

We strongly believe that the future of digital magazines is firmly moving towards a more interactive rich reader experience, like that which our RIDE version (using Microsoft Silverlight) can provide. However, currently many readers of digital magazines, especially those reading trade or business publication at work, are not always permitted to download browser plug-ins, like Silverlight or Flash.  In addition, some readers of digital magazines may still be using older PCs that have operating systems that may not have the capability to take advantage of new cross-browser viewers.

Digital Anywhere is our answer to meet this need.  We took awhile to release this product as we wanted to take the time to create a non-plug in version that still provided a sleek and easy to use reader experience with features that are unique.  We certainly feel that the resulting look of Digital Anywhere does just that!

We will provide a choice between the two versions to all readers who have the system capability to choose.  To other readers who may not, we will deliver the Digital Anywhere version automatically.  In addition, once a reader selects the version they prefer, they will automatically receive each new issue in that format.

Our publishing customers can now provide a great experience to all their readers -- at no additional cost.

You can check out our press release on our website here.  We have also created a sample that shows how each version looks for one of our B to B customers, Vertical.

At long last, a report that has been in the making for a number of months has been released by Gilbane Group.  Most of the established digital edition service providers participated in this indepth study and its results confirm what we have been seeing in the marketplace over the last few years:

• From 2005 - 2007 the number of publications launching digital editions grew by 277% (to over 3200 by 2007).
  
• Over 13 million people have subscribed to receive digital versions of their favorite magazines and newspapers - an increase of over 260% in that same two year period.
  
• Based on current and past trends, Gilbane predicts that over 8,000 publications will add or launch a complete digital version of their publications by 2009.

Gilbane's study also provides a Digital Edition Buyer's Guide to help publishers understand what features that they can expect to find in the various digital edition vendors' offerings in the market. Publishers can then determine what features are important to them and find the best match from the various vendors.

The study is a whopping 130 pages, and we plan to post a version on our website soon.  If you would like a copy of the complete study, just drop me an email - tconnolly@advancedpublishing.com

Robert Sacks recently penned an interesting article for Publishing Executive.  In his article he identifies 5 key trends in publishing and clearly articulates a call to action for publishers related to each one.  Digital delivery of magazine content is a cornerstone in his views on how the industry will grow and thrive. 

The 5 key trends he identifies include:

Key Trend #1: Magazines are not changing, how you read their content is.
What is a magazine? We at Media-Ideas believe that for a magazine to be a magazine, it must be metered, edited and have designed content, as well as be delivered periodically to the reader in a format that is date-stamped and permanent. We accept that a digital magazine with those six attributes is a magazine. We further believe that over the next 15 years, digital magazines will grow to become 30 percent of the magazine market. Within 25 years, they will represent more than 75 percent of the market for periodicals.

Call to Action: Publishers must create a specific road map today toward multiplatform magazine publishing and content distribution.

Keeping the structural integrity of a magazine online, with the six components necessary to be a magazine, will help to protect publishers from the leveling force of content aggregation that exists on the Internet today. This will greatly limit a magazine’s exposure to the content-dilution factor that is increasingly being played out in the realm of information distribution on the Web.

Key Trend #2: Costs are increasing faster than the traditional magazine business model allows.
Raw-material acquirement is causing paper, ink, printing and shipping costs to increase over the long term. These will be further impacted as ecological concerns grow. The lack of attention to ecology is going to be a major cost. Imagine having to pay carbon offsets for each copy returned.

Call to Action: Sky-rocketing costs will force publishers to become more efficient with distribution. The goal has to be 100-percent efficiency or zero returns (and zero returns means a massive reduction in a publisher’s carbon footprint).

Call to Action: Crippling costs will force publishers to offer better-quality, more-targeted print products at even higher price points.

Call to Action: Ballooning costs will force publishers to further espouse digital delivery.

Key Trend #3: The control and branding of digital content is a critical battle.
XML, content aggregators and search engines are growing in importance and acceptance. This type of online distribution should principally be considered as a marketing tool to attract new readers. Only the very largest magazine publishers and publishers of addictive niche titles will manage to retain their brand awareness through this information-
distribution model. Digital magazines must become a critical piece of a publisher’s digital content-distribution plans over the next two years. Because they preserve the core characteristics of a printed magazine, they are best equipped to retain reader loyalty in a digital world.

Call to Action: The formula construction of a magazine’s distribution will become a central battle for relevance. If publishers do not take an aggressive stance, outside forces will steer a solution away from the interests of the magazine industry.

Key Trend #4: E-paper is rapidly developing flexible, color displays.
Although the Amazon Kindle is not ready for prime time, it is a prime example of where we are headed. Our Media-Ideas researchers predict that by 2020, e-paper’s worldwide market will be worth more than $20 billion. We further predict that by 2020, the annual global production of e-paper displays will be 500 million units with a unit price of $50. Imagine a piece of paper that is a screen, plasticized at first, but becoming more and more like the pulp we have all grown to love.

Call to Action: If digital magazines have not made sense to you, your readers and advertisers, they will with full-color e-paper. Publishers must be acting on their digital magazine implementation plans today or risk irrelevance.

Key Trend #5: The corporate structure of traditional publishers cannot keep pace with technological changes, causing a misalignment between internal organization and business needs.
In every corner of the publishing organization, employees need a larger skill set—one infused with technology—such as writing a blog, shooting and editing video, and repurposing content. Today’s IT departments are ill-equipped to act upon consumer-imposed requirements. It must fall on the business unit to provide the necessary guidance and forward planning.

Call to Action: Type A publishers need to assign business-technology “visioneers” within each unit of the organization who report directly to a C-level executive.

Call to Action: Visioneers are responsible for planning necessary technology and functionality over five years. Both the business units and the visioneers must be partially compensated on each other’s success

Folio Magazine recently published an indepth overview of the current state and trends in digital magazines.  You can review the entire group of articles here, but some of the highlights I found most interesting:

• Digital magazines appear not to be the transitional technology that they were perceived as not too long ago but are, instead, a hybrid technology of choice for many publishing brands and consumers.

• “The number of publications that are moving into their initial digital effort is still very significant,” says Steve Paxhia, lead analyst in the Publishing Strategy & Technology Practice at The Gilbane Group. “While the base isn’t large, the number is actually growing quite nicely. It’s safe to say that it is growing in excess of 25 percent per year.”

• The digital-magazine market has been vibrant for less than five years, but it nevertheless has enough maturity to have developed some interesting and important trends. Publishers are starting to realize, for example, that this isn’t simply a plug-in technology. It requires focus and attention for the initiative to be successful.

• the technology has gotten much more robust in the last couple of years. Vendors can add RSS feeds, enhanced ads, and many more bells and whistles, while the publisher still needs to supply only a PDF of the magazine. That means that small publishers who can’t afford to dedicate the resources necessary to keep up with cutting-edge trends can also participate.

Microsoft recently published a complete case study highlighting our new RIDE (Rich Interactive Digital Edition) solution.  The full content of the case study can be found here. 

While the advances in technology we have been able to achieve is exciting, the real impact for us comes when a new customer sees our service offering and gets really  excited about the advances in the look, feel and new features of digital magazines that we have been able to create.

We look forward to continuing to evolve our RIDE solution to bring new, exciting features and service add ons to our publishing customers.

Here at Advanced Publishing, we built our first RIA in 2007.  As many of you know, we selected Microsoft's Silverlight for our rich user interface.  In a list of RIA predictions, Ryan Stewart, a long time RIA evangelist outlines his predictions for 2008.  We certainly expect that as technologies such as Silverlight gain momentum, developers will continue to expand the boundaries of rich user experiences on the web.

A recent announcement made by NBC and Microsoft is just another in a series of high-powered media company's to start using Silverlight in a big way.

Check out the release at the NBC website.