COLE'S NEWSWIRE, March 6, 2002

March 6, 2002
Vol. 8, No. 9

COLE'S NEWSWIRE is a weekly distribution of information about the sales and installations of publishing technology and the latest news on new products developed by suppliers to the industry.

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BRUCE BELL AND ASSOCIATES INC.
New York's ALBANY TIMES UNION (100k) has chosen the Surview Sales Development system, which allows sales representatives to pull research information from a newspaper's database and instantly turn that information into Microsoft PowerPoint sales presentations.

The companies said the product would be used by the TIMES UNION's 60-member sales staff.

Bruce Bell and Associates is on the Web at http://www.surview.com/.

DIGITAL SCIENCES INC.
Florida's TAMPA TRIBUNE (307k) and Ohio's COLUMBUS DISPATCH (246k) have both installed circulation systems from this supplier based in Laurel, Md.

The TRIBUNE is owned by Media General, which is installing DSI/Circulation at all 25 of its daily and more than 100 weekly newspapers. The company now has nine daily papers and seven weeklies on-line with DSI/Circulation. The company is moving all subscriber billing and remittance processing to its headquarters in Richmond, Va.

The system installed by the locally owned DISPATCH will support Group1 address cleansing and presort postal requirements, and a web browser module will be installed soon.

DSI is on the Web at http://www.data-sci.com/.

ESRI
This Redlands, Calif.-based supplier of geographic information systems (GIS) has announced that its ArcIMS 3.1 web server application now has a module allowing for plotting routes.

The ArcIMS Route Server offers the ability to incorporate point-to-point driving directions and accurate routing into web sites built with ArcIMS 3.1. It also calculates optimal routes based on time and distance, and accommodates multiple stops along a route.

ESRI is on the Web at http://www.esri.com/.

MAN ROLAND DRUCKMASCHINEN AG
This Offenbach/Main, Germany-based web-fed printing system supplier has purchased controlling interest in PPI Media, the automated newspaper production software company based in Hamburg, Germany.

PPI will remain fully autonomous in its management, the companies said. The MAN investment will allow PPI Media to expand its applications to cover workflow for printing and publishing companies beyond the newspaper business. Executives also said PPI Media continues to be profitable and that this investment is strategic rather than economic.

PPI Media, which has U.S. offices in Aurora, Ill., is on the Web at http://www.ppimedia-us.com/, while MAN Roland, with U.S. offices in Westmont, Ill., is at http://www.manroland.com/.

MEDIA COMMAND INC.
Australia's GEELONG ADVERTISER (31k) is the first newspaper to receive the Page Ready newspaper service from the Australian Associated Press (AAP); the service uses Media Command's CyberPage page makeup system.

The AAP, which was Media Command's first customer to produce material using the hardware- and operating system-independent Genera database, provides fully made up stock pages to the ADVERTISER via File Transfer Protocol (FTP) in the Portable Document Format (PDF). The pages are made up in Sydney using macros written for CyberPage.

The company has also announced that it has opened a German subsidiary. Media Command Deutschland GmbH is based in Reichshof near Cologne. The company said this new office would help it expand operations in Europe.

Media Command, based in Tampa, Fla., is on the Web at http://www.mediacommand.com/.

NEW YORK TIMES AGENCY
The agency, the content licensing arm of the NEW YORK TIMES, has announced that it now is offering keepsake page reproductions of any page in the paper's 150-year archive. The reproductions, made by EZ Prints Inc. of Atlanta, are offered in two sizes, 60 percent or 100 percent of the original, and are printed on photographic paper.

The agency is on the Web at http://www.nytimesagency.com/. EZ Prints is at http://www.ezprints.com/.

NEWSPAPER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA
The Vienna, Va.-based trade group known as the NAA has made three recent announcements:

-- The association has introduced a new training manual, "Principles of Web Offset Press Operation for Newspapers." The guide is designed to help press operators improve their understanding of the theories, rules and standards that underpin proper management of press operations.

The 211-page volume is available to NAA members for $150 and non-members for $300. For more information, visit http://www.naa.org/products/ on the Web.

-- The association, in concert with Ifra, the international group for newspaper technology, have released a new report, "Benchmarking Newspaper Operations," detailing comprehensive performance benchmarks for a range of production tasks.

The benchmarks will allow individual newspapers to measure their performance against an industry set of guidelines for press operations. The $30 book ($60 for nonmembers) provides benchmarking tools and strategies. For more information, visit http://www.naa.org/products/ on the Web.

-- Media convergence will be the topic for three seminars sponsored by the American Press Institute Media Center of Vienna, Va., concurrently with NEXPO, the NAA's annual technology trade show, which this year will be held June 22-25 in Orlando, Fla.

The two-day exploration of multimedia practices will be held June 21-22, examining resource management, content creation and consumers' expectations, and the technology used in multimedia environments. For more information, visit the institute on-line at http://www.americanpressinstitute.org/.

The NAA is on the Web at http://www.naa.org/.

PROIMAGE LTD.
Nine newspapers owned by Gannett Co. Inc. of McLean, Va. -- including the NEWS JOURNAL (121k) of Wilmington, Del., the TIMES HERALD (30k) of Port Huron, Mich., and Iowa's DES MOINES REGISTER (152k) -- have all chosen ProImage's NewsWay page working and tracking system.

In addition, seven Gannett print sites have also ordered ProImage's Ink PreSetting software. Included are plants in Wilmington; San Bernardino, Calif.; Columbia, S.C.; Fort Myers, Fla.; Minneapolis; Rockaway, N.J., and Nashville, Tenn.

ProImage, with U.S. offices in Princeton, N.J., is on the Web at http://www.newsway.com/.

THE SOFTWARE CONSTRUCTION CO.
This Alpharetta, Ga.-based supplier of imaging and archiving software has announced that it has sold and installed systems at 10 newspapers around the world.

The MediaServer Production and Archive Database System are now in use at Spain's Prisacom, the on-line division of EL PAIS (413k); Alaska's ANCHORAGE DAILY NEWS (86k); Mexico's OCHO COLUMNAS (48k); the BURNIE ADVOCATE (25k) in Tasmania, Australia; the SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN (26k); the GLOBE AND MAIL (406k) in Canada; Tennessee's KNOXVILLE NEWS-SENTINEL (158k), and Florida's Treasure Coast Newspapers, which includes the STUART NEWS (45k), the VERO BEACH PRESS JOURNAL (36k) and the FORT PIERCE TRIBUNE/PORT ST. LUCIE NEWS (28k).

Software Construction is on the Web at http://www.swcc.com/.

WORLD ASSOCIATION OF NEWSPAPERS
The World Editors Forum, a unit of the Paris-based World Association of Newspapers (WAN), has launched an e-mail newsletter focusing on newsroom management, readership, editorial strategies and other issues of interest to the forum's members, who are senior news executives.

The monthly newsletter, called the EDITORS ONLINE FORUM, will be delivered to forum members, and also will be available on the WAN web site at http://www.wan-press.org/wef/newsletter/html. The publication is organized by topic, such as management and leadership, readership, press freedom and technology. It also offers a calendar of events.

The association is on the Web at http://www.wan-press.org/.

X-RITE INC.
This Grandville, Mich., company has announced that it has developed and integrated a new core software platform that provides streamlined and accurate color capture, formulation, matching and management.

The new platform, called X-RiteColor Master, contains four elements: an innovative database structure, quality assurance features, composite color formulation engines and flexible instrument connection.

X-RiteColor Master is available in five configurations, including QA-Master I, QA-Master II, Formulation-Master I, Formulation-Master II and Formulation-Master III.

X-Rite is on the Web at http://www.xrite.com/.

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COLE'S NEWSWIRE is compiled and distributed by The Cole Group, publishers of THE COLE PAPERS, COLE'S NOTES and NEWSINC., and consultants to newspapers and magazines worldwide. To receive more information about The Cole Group, send e-mail to: info@colegroup.com.

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