The Cole Papers, Picks-1-16, May 2003

May 2003

Advanced Publishing Technology Inc. (upper left): The ACT On-Line Classified module allows customers to preview ads on-line.

Autologic, an Agfa Company (top): The 3850 CTP platesetter now has a violet mW imager.

Anygraaf USA Inc. (left): The ePaper system is an integrated component of the Doris32 system.

CCI Europe: CCI AdDesk Sales features include ad order entry, ad sales prompting and selling acceleration functions, sales force automation tools, credit control and invoicing.

1. AdStar Inc.: Like the sailboats tossed by the cruel sea at its home in Marina del Rey, Calif., AdStar has survived the storm of the dot-com boom -- it did the IPO thing -- and come out the other side, no apparent worse for the wear. The company will be showing its new XML Gateway (done by dudes who actually know eXtensible Markup Language), Web-based AdSales (supporting both pre-paid and publisher-billed order entry) and AdStar Agency (the piece of business on which it was founded in the 1980s: providing ad agencies the ability to send classifieds to newspapers automatically). (310) 577-8255, e-mail: adstar@adstar.com.

2. Advanced Publishing Corp.: The market for making replica newspapers -- exact digital facsimiles of the paper that include a licensing mechanism for on-line distribution -- is heating up, as proven by this new entry to the field. The Canadian company uses Australian technology (Djvu from RealView Technologies) to automatically produce the digital replica (which like its competitors, meets the needs of the circulation auditing bodies, giving publishers a boost to those important numbers). The company emphasizes that the product requires no extra work for the publisher. (506) 674-9555, e-mail: info@advancedpublishing.com.

3. Advanced Publishing Technology Inc.: This full-service supplier now has it all: circulation, accounts-receivable, ad order entry, editorial, pagination, workflow monitoring. One-stop shopping for the publisher who wants an integrated environment. New this year is ACT On-line Classified, which provides the customer with ease-of-use while providing the publisher with increased ad dollars. And for the smaller publisher, there's now ADSnap -- a complete classified system in a box; a simple interface and "effortless" installation brings features to smaller publications of which they've only dreamed. (818) 557-3035, e-mail: sales@advpubtech.com.

4. Advanced Technical Solutions Inc.: This full-service supplier now has it all: circulation, accounts-receivable, ad order entry, editorial, pagination, workflow monitoring. (Is there an echo in here?) Whereas other full-service suppliers have taken the integrated approach (building each module from the ground up) ATS has taken the interface route (writing most code in-house but taking best-of-breed from third parties to handle the rest). The ATS secret sauce, though, is service. Started as a company servicing old Atex J11 installations (it still does that), ATS is service-oriented to its marrow, and it shows. New this year is the company's AdVisA/R, an accounts receivable application, and an upgrade of its MediaDesk editorial system. (978) 849-0533, e-mail: info@atsusa.com.

5. AdWriter Inc.: All my fiber as a writer told me to ignore this company and it would go away, but the techie in me had to put it on the recommended list. Why the internal strife? AdWriter's products write ads. By plugging a specific set of data -- about a car, for instance or a home -- the AdWriter products create, on their own, narrative about the product. Most used car ads, the company says, are written by sales personnel after they've taken the auto around the block for the first time, leading to pretty dull copy. The AdWriter product introduces "romance" (the company's word) into the copy. And worse, an AdWriter affiliate produces a similar program that takes the stats from a sporting event and spits out a pretty good story. Last saving grace: the company is owned by Ohio newspaperman Hal Douthit, so it can't be that bad. (419) 621-2127, e-mail: sales@adwriter.com.

6. AlfaQuest Technologies: The former Monotype Publishing Systems has developed a method of computer-to-plate (CTP) exposure that uses conventional ultraviolet plates (the demo will show American Litho Mach II plates). Since plate cost has been the big stumbling block to CTP return on investment, alfaQuest may have cleared the way to win the hearts and minds -- and pocketbooks -- of newspaper publishers. In addition to the FastTrak line of CTP devices, the company will be showing its page workflow system, PrintExpress, as well as its Panther line of workflow and imagesetters (new this year: ported to Mac OS X). (847) 427-8800, e-mail: kroeske@alfaquest.com.

7. Anygraaf USA Inc.: First-time Nexpo'er Anygraaf comes from Finland and its product line has a good pedigree -- the founders were the graphics systems department at Siemens Nixdorf, a set of publishing products that never quite made it in the United States. The company has built an editorial system (called Doris), a pagination environment, on-line publishing system, ad order entry, ad tracking (either for its own system or for a third-party), staff management tools, page pairing tools and lots of other goodies. Though obviously everything is new in the booth, the newest of the new is ePaper, the company's replica-newspaper system. Also new is a consumer product, Doris Browser, which turns cell phones into web browsers. (301) 926-1805, e-mail: anyinc@anygraaf.com.

8. The Associated Press: We grizzled Nexpo-Anpa /Tec veterans can remember a time when the AP came to the newspaper trade show to talk to us about stock tables and fast (9600 bits-per-second) transmissions. Today AP wants to talk about advertising (oh how far it has strayed): a new component of AP AdVantage now allows advertisers and publishers to interactively communicate about the placement, confirmation and status of ad orders. This new system dovetails with the rest of the AdVantage package, including tearsheet collection and invoicing services, not to mention a little service called AP AdSEND, from whence digital advertising falls out of the sky directly into your system. The news cooperative says AdVantage now has agreements with papers representing 69 percent of U.S. circulation. (212) 621-1720, e-mail:christine_tash@ap.org.

9. Atex Media Command: Well, did the merger work out? Only way to tell is to visit the booth to see if the venerable Atex and the upstart Media Command (though it has some venerable linage itself -- remember Cybergraphic?) have been able to hammer out a cohesive product and service strategy. The new company has a "Roadmap to the Future" for both new and old customers, which will show said customers what directions the products will take. And while there isn't still two of everything, you will have a chance to compare and contrast, in one booth, Sales Command and Enterprise, the legacy advertising systems. (781) 275-2323, e-mail: info@atexmediacommand.com.

10. Autologic, an Agfa Company: The acquisition of longtime newspaper supplier Autologic by the large graphic arts company Agfa has deepened the offerings that Autologic now makes to the industry. In addition to its traditional 3850 film and CTP imagesetters, Autologic now offers Agfa's Polaris line of devices. With recent sales into a USA Today print plant and The Virginian-Pilot in Hampton Roads (green laser for the former, violet laser for the latter), the Polaris is making inroads into the U.S. market. In addition to its imagesetting equipment, Autologic will show the latest release of Ad Manager (production and ad tracking) and the new release of its image correction application Intellitune. (978) 284-7042, e-mail: sheila.nysko.b@us.agfa.com.

11. Brainworks Software Inc.: With an integrated approach, Brainworks has everything but the kitchen sink (and circulation): ad order entry (try it on the hand-held computer), billing, accounts receivable, ad layout, editorial and pagination. The company will be featuring its sales-force automation system (includes web order entry and the aformentioned Palm-OS personal digital assistant order entry, which uses the PDA's infrared link to pass data to a cell phone, which then calls HQ and rates the ad in real time) and its "Top Of Mind Awareness" set of applications (which allow an advertiser to make multiple buys -- liners, class display, run-of-press display -- in multiple titles). Oh, and on the circulation front, the company is interfacing to third-party systems -- with or without cooperation from said third-party. (631) 563-5000, e-mail: info@brainworks.com.

12. CCI Europe: I once called the late System Integrators the "800-pound gorilla" of the industry. Today, CCI is the 8000-pound gorilla. Go to the booth. See the stuff. Learn the gold standard. (770) 420-1101, e-mail: ee@ccieurope.com.

13. CKP Newspaper Systems Inc.: When the latest technology trends finally get around to hitting the rest of the newspaper business, CKP seems to have already done it. The company based its early products on UNIX and today runs its client-based products on Java. What does that mean to you, Joe Publisher? It means that PCs and Macs can live in the same world. CKP also has pioneered the concept of remote computing and will show all its products at NEXPO via a private virtual network (VPN -- it gives the security-conscious a warm-and-fuzzy when using the regular Internet) to the Houston Chronicle, one of its lead customers. The company offers editorial systems (it supports both Quark XPress and Adobe InDesign for pagination), ad order entry and classified pagination. (603) 472-5825, e-mail: millennium@ckp.com.

14. Creo: How do you describe stochastic screening in less than 100 words and still have room to write about the rest of the Creo product line? Can't be done: suffice it to say, Creo's version, Staccato screening, is hot stuff if you're concerned about image reproduction in your newspaper (remember, advertisers like good reproduction). Creo will also highlight its Trendsetter newspaper plate imagesetter (with its Square spot thermal imaging head for consistent dot accuracy) and its Prinergy Newsrun workflow system. Leveraging the technology of its mature Prinergy general graphic arts workflow system, Creo has customized it for newspapers and is beta testing at five places on three continents. (978) 439-7144, e-mail: sales@creo.com.

15. Data Sciences Inc.: There aren't many companies where I've been able to track the same management for 14 years, but DSI is one. Quietly, the supplier of newspaper circulation software has day in, day out, improved its product and kept pace with trends (I have a dim 1989 memory of a proprietary computer with Motorola chip technology). Today DSI -- which has corporate commitments from Knight Ridder, Journal Register and Media General -- can proudly talk about a client/server environment (including a Web-based thin client), with an Oracle relational database and compliance with something called "Windows." Oh, and what does the company make? Circulation and advertising software. (301) 957-0100, e-mail: sales@data-sci.com.

16. Digital Technology International: There have always been two major tenents of philosophy at DTI -- advertising and automation. The company has combined them in its new AdSpeed Extra, which automatically builds complex ads that contain a lot of graphics, text and prices -- like those wonderful full-page used car ads and the full-page real estate ads that bring in so much money but are such a pain-in-the-patootie to build. Structured data goes in at one end of AdSpeed Extra and a completed ad comes out the other. Like all the rest of the DTI product line, AdSpeed Extra is integrated into the entire DTI environment and produces a product that is Internet-ready. Also in the ad arena, DTI will be showing its ClassSpeed Web Order Entry and ClassSpeed's redesigned graphical user interface. The company will also chat about its ever-growing list of installations and orders -- with impressive names like the Star Tribune of Minneapolis, The Virginian-Pilot of Hampton Roads and The Register-Guard of Eugene, Ore. -- for its editorial system, NewsSpeed 5 (based on Adobe InDesign), and its ad order entry and pagination system, AdSpeed 5 (ditto). And a nicer bunch of folks you'll never meet (except for that David Oldham kid). It's a must visit. (801) 853-5000, e-mail: dtinfo@dtint.com.

More NEXPO choices ...

More NEXPO choices ...

From THE COLE PAPERS, May 2003Copyright © 2003, All Rights Reserved.

From THE COLE PAPERS, May 2003
Copyright © 2003, All Rights Reserved.