The Cole Papers, Picks1-16, June 2002

June 2002

1. AccuWeather Inc. (above left): The weather leviathan now offers a desktop application that newspapers can co-brand.

7. Agile Enterprise Inc. (above): TeamBase pages and layouts now can be viewed from a web browser.

9. Atex Media Solutions (left): ActivAds brings interactivity to on-line advertising; web users click on the ad and get a variety of options.

12. Brainworks Software: Ad order entry personnel can easily see different upsell options.

15. Cold North Wind Inc. (left): Canada's Globe and Mail has digitized historical papers such as the July 21, 1969, edition heralding the U.S. space program.

18. Digital Technology International (right): New this year will be the updated version of SpeedWriter, based on Adobe InCopy 2.0.

1. AccuWeather Inc.: Wasn't it that indefatigable newspaperman Mark Twain who once said that everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it? Well, he never met the dudes from State College, Pa., where this weather prediction powerhouse resides. The focus this year at the AccuWeather booth will be on on-line products, specifically the e-mailed AccuWeather Alert and the web-based AccuWeather Desktop. Both provide not only those quality forecasts, but also some room for your newspaper's logo and -- gasp! -- an ad position or two for your loyal customers. The company also wants to talk about its iSight weather web cams, but don't you think that Twain would have hated web cams? (814) 235-8650, e-mail: sales@accuwx.com.

2. Ad Looks Inc.: Everywhere you look these days -- just glance through this newsletter, for example -- everybody has an electronic tearsheet system. But who first came up with the idea for electronic tearsheets? This Rocklin, Calif.-based company, which was launched on the ashes of the old CE Engineering (purveyors of SII terminal emulation software). Ad Looks takes a different tack than its competitors: Rather than archiving a Portable Document Format (PDF) page, it scans a newspaper's printed advertising pages, providing advertisers with not only proof of publication, but also an idea about reproduction quality. New to the show, the company will be exhibiting on-line ad measurement tools. (916) 660-1501, e-mail: jferra@ad-looks.com.

3. AdLizard: In the last year, more than 100 improvements and additions have been made to AdLizard, the on-line ad building product from Australia. Version Four includes a new look-and-feel, an on-line image editor and a direct file upload capability. (011) {61} 2 8920 9200, e-mail: info@adlizard.com.

4. Advanced Publishing Technology Inc.: For the first time, this Burbank, Calif.-based company comes to NEXPO with a full product suite -- editorial, ad order entry, pagination, workflow monitoring, accounting and circulation. The last is the benefit of a deal struck with Lee Enterprises Inc. of Davenport, Iowa, in which Lee turned over development and support for its corporate circulation system (which was based on code from the late Newspaper Technologies Inc., may it rest in peace) to APT. (Lee also threw in a corporate commitment to equip all its properties with other APT products.) So it is that circulation is big at APT. The company also will highlight an updated editorial system -- can you say Quark CopyDesk? -- and its latest in advertising and workflow monitoring. (818) 557-3035, e-mail: sales@advpubtech.com.

5. Advanced Technical Solutions Inc.: The phone rang a couple of months back and a systems editor asked, "Who is ATS?" I thought this particularly funny, as the editor worked at a newspaper that had a System Integrators editorial front-end and ATS is littered with former SII people (starting at the top -- President Al Edwards did time at both SII and Atex). Regardless, I told the editor not to hold that against ATS: the products are solid, the service superior (in no small part because the company started life as a service-and-support alternative for Atex customers). When it doesn't have a product to meet your needs, it will partner with that product's best-of-breed supplier. New in Orlando will be Version 3 of MediaDesk, the company's editorial and pagination system (though the phrase "content management system" has crept into the description). (978) 849-0533, e-mail: info@atsusa.com.

6. AGFA & Autologic Information International Inc.: The newly "consolidated" Agfa and Autologic (itself the product of more mergers than anyone cares to remember) will emphasize each of their product lines. Agfa will talk about its IntelliTune image data analysis software, Autologic will talk about its AdManagerV display ad workflow tracking software. IntelliTune from the Ridgefield, N.J.-based company helps publishers create consistent color halftones for better reproduction, while AdManagerV incorporates desktop publishing applications along with a Structured Query Language (SQL) database to monitor display ad makeup workflow. In addition, the booth will play host to Tera Digital Publishing of Italy, whose editorial front-end and pagination product line Thousand Oaks, Calif.-based Autologic has been distributing for the last year. (201) 440-0111, e-mail: richard.ferranti.rf@us.agfa.com.

7. Agile Enterprise Inc.: New at this Nashua, N.H.-based division of Applied Graphics Technologies Inc. are three things: XML, web administration and Adobe InDesign. The cross-platform editorial system supplier has implemented eXtensible Markup Language (XML) as its native text storage format (some of your other suppliers say they support XML, but they merely export text in XML and keep things internally in their own proprietary formats). In addition, the company has introduced administration of the TeamBase editorial system through a browser-based graphical user interface and has (finally) gotten onto the InDesign bandwagon. (We can cut Agile a little slack here, as it should be pointed out that Agile's first iteration of TeamBase used Adobe's PageMaker -- and Adobe didn't raise a finger to help Agile, either from a technical or a marketing perspective.) If the words "Quark XPress," "Microsoft Word" and "cross-platform" are on your must-see crib sheet, then see Agile. (603) 880-6440, e-mail: ttlynch@agileenterprise.com.

8. The Associated Press: You know the world has changed pretty dramatically when the AP seems to want to talk only about advertising (order entry and delivery) and not editorial. Nonetheless, the highlight of the AP booth will be the AP AdVantage service, which provides newspapers and advertisers a set of web-based and off-line tools for better communication (and not coincidentally, giving advertisers the ease of ordering ads in multiple newspapers at the same time). Much of AdVantage comes from the ashes of the Newspaper Association's Newspaper Industry Communications Center (Nicc), but New York City's AP seems to have figured out the weaknesses of the Nicc and have compensated for them. So, once you've ordered an ad in a slew of newspapers, how are you going to get it there? What about AP AdSEND ? It sure will be interesting seeing all those ad operations folks in the AP booth. (212) 621-7055, e-mail: gloria_graves@ap.org.

9. Atex Media Solutions Inc.: Allow me to speak for the rest of the industry: Hey, welcome back to NEXPO! (Atex took a bye last year.) The one-time industry leader comes to Orlando with a portfolio that includes its ActivSuite, a set of web-based services including eTearsheets, ActiveNews, ActivAd and eBill. The last is an electronic invoicing system, while the first three are services that rely on reproducing the newspaper page as an image that can be accessed on-line. eTearsheets, when working with eBill, can display on-line not only the newspaper page where the ad ran, but also the matching invoice. ActiveNews presents on-line the newspaper page as it ran in print, with the ability to search for specific words or phrases. ActivAd is the same deal, but when an ad is clicked, the user gets a variety of choices, including product details, coupons, e-mails, telephone numbers, web site links to manufacturers, videos of the product or maps. As Atex says, "Advertisers select the options they want to include and you charge extra for each service." The Boys from Bedford (Massachusetts -- who now have a significant number of non-boys in their ranks) also will want to buttonhole you about Prestige, the company's editorial front-end, and Atex Enterprise, the advertising order entry system. (781) 275-2323, e-mail: info@atex.com.

10. Baseview Products Inc. and Harris Publishing Systems LLC: The new order under their MediaSpan parent calls these guys "Harris and Baseview," but it seems to me that the company with the largest installed base should be listed first. Regardless, both divisions have more stuff to show than you can shake a stick at. Harris will unveil its Content Syndicator, a new addition to its Jazbox editorial application which allows papers to easily distribute newspaper information to wire services and other news outlets. The company will also show its latest efforts for its Newsjaz module (that would be your editorial front-end, which supports Adobe InDesign on Windows or Quark XPress on Macintosh) and its Webjaz module (that would be your on-line publishing system), as well as an upgrade to its AdPower advertising order entry system. Over on the Baseview side of the booth, they'll be chatting up CirculationPro 3.0, which can have clients on "virtually any platform" (hey, I've got this Kaypro sitting here) with a server that will run on Mac OS, Windows 2k or Solaris. In addition, Baseview, of Ann Arbor, Mich., will give you a look-see at AdManagerPro, ProductionManagerPro, NewsEditPro (see it on Windows) and IQueWeb, a new application that provides browser-based access to the IQue editorial database via Apple WebObjects. (321) 242-5330, e-mail: marketing@baseview.com.

11. Bestcolor USA Inc.: If you've been in this game long enough, you can remember dozens -- hundreds? -- of four-color pages that just did not match what was on the screen, or maybe even the proof. This German company's Screenproof -- introduced last year, available since September -- enables ink-jet printers to produce color-managed halftone proofs. New this year is the Ink Key Assistant feature which shows the percent of ink across a proof. Bestcolor, with U.S. offices in West Chester, Ohio, will also have its continuous-tone, pre-press and Macintosh-based, design-level proofing software RIPs. (513) 942-7111, e-mail: info-us@bestcolor.com.

12. Brainworks Software: This Sayville, N.Y.-based supplier of newspaper systems has assimilated Freedom System Integrators (née Mycro-Tek) and now has systems that address almost the entire newspaper enterprise: editorial front-end, ad order entry, pagination, business software (accounts receivable, contract and credit management), integrated sales force automation, marketing, electronic tearsheets, web publishing and web-based customer service. The company supports the Big Two platforms, Windows NT and Macintosh, and supports either Microsoft SQL or Oracle as a database. Of note is the advertising system's Up-Sell Palette, which displays a variety of upsell versions of the ad, based on a set of rules that the newspaper creates. Ad order entry personnel have only to click on the upsell that the customer chooses and the ad is ordered, without further time or effort. The editorial system -- a complete rewrite from the FSI editorial system -- is cross-platform. It supports Quark CopyDesk for writing and editing and Quark XPress for page layout. (516) 563-5000, e-mail: info@brainworks.com.

13. CCI Europe: With the Danish company's normal engineering precision, it kept more than 10 newspaper companies (notorious, you may know, in their inability to keep a secret) quiet as it probed their heads to come up with a specification for a "true content management system." The results will be demonstrated in a prototype environment at NEXPO 2002 (appointment required), but our spies (CCI can't keep everybody quiet) say that the new system also encompasses a variety of element assignment and management tools (think stories, pictures, graphics), including the notion that the elements will be trackable as events or packages. This is on-deck for delivery in the 2003-04 time frame. The company, which has U.S. offices in Kennesaw, Ga., will also discuss its advertising order entry and pagination system, AdDesk. Oh, and the CCI NewsDesk system -- what you'd get if you joined the New York Times and Boston Globe in buying something for installation in the next few months. It's the gold standard against which all competitors measure themselves. (404) 314-1980, e-mail: ee@ccieurope.com.

14. CKP Newspaper Systems Inc.: An ad tracking system and a Java version of the Millennium Editorial system will be on tap for this Bedford, N.H.-based supplier of editorial and advertising front-ends. Like last year, the company will demo its entire product line over high-speed data lines from the Houston Chronicle (a part owner of the company), with no backup servers. That's either really foolish or really smart. Stop by the booth and you be the judge. (603) 472-5825, e-mail: james.mooney@ckp.com.

15. Cold North Wind Inc.: Making microfilm archives available and searchable on-line was something this august journal once called "the holy grail of newspapering." While others have been trying to make this work, Canada's Cold North Wind has digitized more than 5 million newspaper pages, from titles hither and yon (Canada's Toronto Star, Mexico's El Informador and Australia's Port Philip Herald, which is the precursor to the Melbourne Herald-Sun). The company's Archive Publisher product provides a variety of e-commerce systems to meet most publishers' needs. (613) 722-9886, e-mail: mark.caldbick@coldnorthwind.com.

16. Database Publishing Systems Inc.: New to NEXPO but with some familiar faces in the industry, Database Publishing actually has been in business since 1989. In the past, the Rocky Hill, Conn.-based company's products were resold by others, but over the last year the company terminated many of those agreements and is now selling its AdTracker product directly (some resale agreements remain in place). The company will be highlighting AdTracker Online, a web-based electronic ad delivery and proofing system; AdTracker Onyx, an SQL database-driven ad template pagination system aimed at the auto guide, real estate and employment products (sometimes known as "gallery style" ads), and AdTracker A-Tear, an electronic tearsheet system (surprise!). (860) 721-9700, e-mail: linda@dps-ct.com.

From THE COLE PAPERS, June 2002Copyright © 2002, All Rights Reserved.

From THE COLE PAPERS, June 2002
Copyright © 2002, All Rights Reserved.