RIDE Launch

Welcome to our new website and new product - RIDE.  It has been a hectic number of months here at Advanced Publishing as we worked to create a completely new system - using a brand new cross browser platform - Microsoft Silverlight. 

With the launch of Silverlight yesterday, we are excited about its prospects and widespread adoption already.  Websites such as Home Shopping Channel, WWE, Entertainment Tonight, Major League Baseball, and a number of others (check out the Silverlight site), have already created compelling web experiences using Silverlight.  We are sure that many will follow. 

Selecting a new platform such as Silverlight, instead of copying others and using more widely adopted technologies such as Flash, might be considered a risky move by some. 

We looked at the benefits we would be able to provide our readers and publishers with Silverlight, and made the easiest decision that we ever made. There are many benefits that Silverlight provides over current industry products that are based on Flash or HTML/JPEG.  For us, the key ones centered around:

• Silverlight's inherent abilities to interact with databases (allows us to manage and save personalized content and interactions in a completely portable way);
• Silverlight's full screen HD video capabilities (a good comparison of specific video features can be found here);
• XML native search capabilities;
• Speed and flexibility in providing customized experiences for our publishing customers;
• Increasing security issues and continuing ActiveX Control fears in both the corporate and mainstream market  - also led us away from Flash. 

The future of digital editions and web experiences in general are moving towards a richer, more customizable user experience.  There was no question about our desire to create a Rich Internet Application to keep pace and even help shape this movement.

Silverlight became the clear choice for us and we look forward to sharing the experience with our publishing customers - both current and new ones!