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August 1997, Vol. 8, No. 8
Digital deli
NEXPO ’97 proved you don't have to wait in line for service anymore
NEW ORLEANS -- Often, publishing is about waiting.
You wait for the story to break; you wait for the reporter to write the story; you wait for the ad to come in; you wait for the film to dry; you wait for the press to run; you wait for the delivery trucks to arrive.
For many, those waits included waiting for the postal service to drop off this week’s envelope of syndicated features. Can't start on those advance pages until the mail gets here, Boss.
The tide is finally turning, though.
As we found at NEXPO ’97, held here June 21-24, there are a wide variety of nondeadline-oriented features that are now available on the Internet. With the proper user and password, an editorial assistant (or a clerk in the ad department -- we found an interesting ad component delivery system as well) can download that week’s worth of cartoons or columns with only minor irritations.
Inside, Correspondent John Bryan takes a look at these new delivery mechanisms that were on display at the annual newspaper technology trade show and finds that they work pretty well.
Many of the more exciting and innovative products we saw at NEXPO naturally appeared in the new media arena. Correspondent Marion J. Love takes us through the world of serving material onto the World-Wide Web through databases.
Her first stop is in the realm of combining the print and on-line databases to allow for a better workflow when creating both products.
Unfortunately, there were slim pickings in this area; we found only Digital Technology International of Orem, Utah, and CCI Europe of Marietta, Ga., talking about this concept.
Love also looks at the world of publishing databases -- like real estate listings and automobile inventories -- on the Web. She provides a handy list of all the products we found at NEXPO, along with a summary of their functionality and pricing.
Correspondent George Powell revisits the issue of outsourcing, a concept he wrote about two years ago. Powell finds more and more newspapers are adopting some form of outsourcing -- whether it’s the outright replacement of the color technology group in the back shop, or just assembling comics pages.
Powell also found someone who is willing to help you figure out what to pay your staff -- assuming your policy isn't "as little as possible."
Also inside, you'll find Correspondent L. Carol Christopher’s take on software for building a web-based community.
Through interactive forums and dynamic calendars, users of your newspaper’s web site can submit material for publication (either on-line, in print, or both), editors can review it, and it can be posted or printed.
The on-line gurus tell us that interactivity is the hallmark of a successful web site, and it would seem that any newspaper that wants to win at the Web needs a product like this.
Christopher also takes us inside the Newspaper Association of America’s Wire Service Committee (which met at NEXPO), where decisions are being made about the future of text transmission by the wire services. A new coding format based on the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) has been developed and is poised to be implemented.
Lastly, in the Hellbox, we announce our acquisition of NewsInc., the newsletter about the business of the newspaper business. We believe that NewsInc. and The Cole Papers will work well together, and we think you'll see a better Cole Papers because of this transaction.
Far be it from us to declare that the war on waiting is over, but it seems clear that the newspaper industry is trying to get as efficient as possible.
Digital delivery of news features, on-line databases of ad illustrations, combined print and on-line databases, databases of advertisers' inventories, outsourcing, providing ways for the community to get information out on its own, a new way to distribute wire service material -- all seem well worth waiting for.
-- David M. Cole
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