July 2000, Vol. 11, No. 7

Me, myself & NEXPO

Divided feelings about the annual newspaper industry trade show

SAN FRANCISCO -- Much like Jim Carrey’s character in this summer’s movie Me, Myself and Irene, I have something of a split personality. Not in general -- just about NEXPO.

The Newspaper Association of America’s newspaper exposition (from which you can contract the word NEXPO ) was held here June 17-20, part of a larger meeting called Newspapers 2000. This annual rite of summer (though, if you want to be accurate, this year it fell in spring) leaves me divided.

On one hand, I enjoy seeing old acquantances and spending time with friends with whom I otherwise interact only through telephones or e-mail. I learn a lot.

On the other hand, the thing makes me mad. There are golden opportunities here for suppliers to listen to customers. There are opportunities for newspapers to share information. There are opportunities to gain knowledge. Most of these opportunities are wasted.

And yet, to go back to the first hand, some suppliers do listen, some newspapers do share and some papers do come away with more knowledge.

But that second hand keeps pointing out that the exposition is more about selling products than anything else. The craven commercialism is sometimes sickening.

Yet, the first hand finds more positive things than negative, while the second hand finds more negative things than positive.

Probably the biggest story out of NEXPO was the acquisition of CText Inc. and System Integrators Inc. by German Yellow Pages software supplier Net-Linx.

Though the principals painted a rosy picture of the new Net-Linx Publishing Solutions, why am I reminded of a little company called Sysdeco? Believing it could transfer its software development tool expertise to the newspaper industry, Sysdeco Group AG of Norway, acquired a number of well-known suppliers in the mid-'90s -- ND Comtec, ComIT, Atex, SyPress Oy, Dewar Information Systems -- and attempted to build a business out of it. Within a couple of years, Sysdeco left the newspaper business with its tail between its legs.

I don't doubt that the motives of the Net-Linx people are sincere and I don't doubt that they have the capital (both fiscal as well as intellectual) to make Net-Linx a leading supplier. It’s just that I have a nagging feeling that I've been down this road before and it came to no good in the past.

Inside, we try to wrap up the top highlights of NEXPO 2000 (though we've still got some goodies for next time):

Correspondent Marion J. Love introduces us to a new acronym -- ASP, which stands for application service provider. In the olden days (say, last year), the ASP concept was called "service bureau." It was truly the "in" thing for NEXPO 2000.

Correspondent George Powell takes a look at where Adobe InDesign, the hot product of NEXPO 1999, has gone in the last year. Unfortunately, Adobe’s delay of the integral InCopy module has delayed installation of any complete InDesign-based systems. Powell also notes that Quark Inc. -- makers of the competing XPress page layout application -- hasn't taken this lying down.

Correspondent Steven E. Brier wraps up this issue with some observations about browser-based editorial and classified systems. His first note is that there were quite a few of these products discussed at NEXPO 1998, but many of those have fallen by the wayside because of various problems. The products that have come to market, though, look impressive (even if you still need a stand-alone word processor to make them efficient).

Lastly, a housekeeping note: we are moving into the 1990s by offering e-mail addresses for our writers at the end of each story. On one hand I thought it was a good idea, but on the other. ...

-- David M. Cole, dmc@colepapers.net

Also see Hellbox

Me, myself & NEXPO

Divided feelings about the annual newspaper industry trade show

From THE COLE PAPERS, July 2000, Copyright © 2000, All Rights Reserved.