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Web needs beginning to shape new strategies for integrationLAS VEGAS -- "The Back-End Blues" is an old song with a new verse. The back-end blues are sung by suppliers seeking to clamp new technology onto an old production line. The new verse is about web content management instead of pagination. Fortunately major shifts in standardization and development tools give you a lot more options than in the "no interface with our enemies" days. But the same questions of reliability, responsibility, interactivity and functionality dog your decision trail. Familiar lyrics were on the lips of suppliers on the NEXPO '99 show floor June 14-17 in Las Vegas. "Buy it all from us," crooned the end-to-end product managers, "otherwise you'll deal with less understanding, efficiency and continuity." "Buy from a specialist," warbled the web system purveyors. "Why roll with old ideas and less agility?" The on-line specialists dazzled with more features and task-specific functions, with promises that they can exchange data with all up-to-date systems. This industry likely will keep both camps in business, but the specialists who attract deeper pockets outside newspaper publishing will dominate -- just as desktop publishing developers leapt past newspaper suppliers for page-building supremacy. As for selecting the best solution for your property, it's the same courting verses; just change the names of the intended. A few companies are packaging front-end, page assembly and web site management systems. More likely, however, "one file in, many venues out" will be knitted together from multiple suppliers. How tough will that be on your staff? It depends on how many new age components you try to cable-stitch to old-age publishing systems. And in this quest, unlike the debate a decade ago about front-end versus back-end pagination, there are marketing affiliations that may influence your choices, not just your site's unique characteristics -- size, affiliations, brand investments and position in the systems lifecycle. The simplest version of the question is, "Where do I bolt a web management system onto my production system?" The simplest choice, as NEXPO exhibitors summarize it, is whether you want a unified database, with one set of file management tools for both print and on-line, or whether new publishing methods demand specialized systems and suppliers.
Tastes, constraints, lifecycle
As one systems manager attending NEXPO summarized, few newspapers can afford to throw out everything to install a single-brand system. If your newspaper could, you probably did it last year, in the face of Y2K obsolescence, when web management wasn't a big priority in your buying cycle. However, if you've done the bare minimum Y2K upgrading and now plan a clean sweep, the all-in-one database purveyors are enticing. Maybe your faithful advertising or editorial system supplier has a new media toolbelt today, which includes running a web site as thoughtfully as running print production. This is especially likely if their latest models use eXtensible Markup Language (XML) tags to encode content. There's a lot of comfort in one brand: one language, one training program, one support procedure. Third-party developers make for lengthy telephone lists for technical support staff. There's also the tradeoff of putting all your eggs in one basket, as established companies totter and newcomers unveil bold new strategies every few months. Or is your buy is already made for you? A slew of newspapers don't have freedom of choice. As their parent companies flock and disperse and regroup in new media alliances, the separated on-line departments are herded into product picks that are good for the group, regardless of local systems autonomy. The member newspaper gets what the parent needs to keep its on-line strategy moving. That thins the available income for newspaper suppliers. How many customers will it take to sustain web tool development, and does your traditional brand have enough independent buyers to grow it?
Fuzzy edges between philosophies
The unified publishing systems replicate web databases behind a firewall, so that web visitors aren't rummaging through pulp production files. While the software tools for managing those files are the same, and there are synchronized replication methods, you're still looking at a separate set of hardware and a different collection of content. Also consider that production system companies will find programming subcontractors and new media upstarts to build e-commerce components anyway. Even under one nameplate, you're still looking at bolted-together web site software. So what makes a single database provider such a big advantage? The tradeoff between system continuity for web system functionality is a tough choice. In the web supply line, new products or features must be turned out every 18 to 24 weeks, just to keep pace with web developers. While newspaper suppliers are stepping out faster -- witness the quick roll out of Adobe's InDesign for page layout -- they still time release cycles in months.
New buying teams
Because new media operations are separate business units or are guided by separate corporate entities, there's a disconnect between old and new media technology budgets. The traditional tech team and the new media buyers may intend to coordinate buying decisions, but new media has its own allowance, and it doesn't shop at old media boutiques. New media techies may not report to traditional information technology managers, and may have no duty to buy what works best with old media systems. That leaves stem-to-stern suppliers in a tough selling environment. Their ballads may be falling on dead ears. Here's what was fresh on the NEXPO floor:
More concept than products right now, SII displayed deliverables from 2publish, its new media subsidiary. Known as "Adverticals," these components of SII's City Engine portal system aim to woo real estate brokers and car dealers into long-term marriages by storing their inventory records on the newspaper's computer system. It is ground that other newspaper suppliers cover. Yet underscoring integration under one parentage, SII offers an attractive package. Whether upgrade-ready SII customers will be dazzled by the components when competitors' software performs such knitting together as well, is the company's big challenge.
Whatever parameters define a print element can be specified for the web element -- start, stop, section. XML tagging on the print side picks up design characteristics created in any web authoring package. Simplicity rules in classified advertising as well, both telephoned or on-line submissions. When an on-line customer clicks the "submit" button in the web site ad form, it hits the same justification process that prices phone-room ads. And the same database software that manages print class-ads manages on-line ads (also in a separate physical system). It's simple, it's not flashy. It's just an extension of the tools that manage the print side's inventory. The browser-based classified submission interface (the editorial version isn't shipping yet) looks ordinary. If you can take the deep dive into DT's database pool, the on-line tools will just be another component.
ACI's database is built to handle all media types, managed by its Composer browser-based booking center. Staking a special claim to modern design, OpenPages' creators first built a web-management system and then adapted a publishing system from it, rather than retraining a print system for the Web. Whether that creates special advantages for either form wasn't clear from the demonstration, which showed the expected array of layout and repurposing features. That's no knock; the fact that this system allows one news staff to work in two realms out of one toolbox is a worthy advance.
It's a case of "don't reinvent the wheel." Atex had already inflated a web tire on its Enterprise advertising system. Dubbed Online Services, the component suite features ad booking, searching and inventory management on-line, tied to Enterprise's pricing, contract management and text composition functions. For web banner ads, an add-on is available called AdTraffic Manager by Solbright Inc. of New York, in which Atex has invested. The new Omnex editorial system doesn't include web management, so Atex opened its heart to FutureTense's IPS Xcelerate product. CCI Europe, whose American office is in Kennesaw, Ga., also selected FutureTense as its web-wrangling partner.
This union offers a soup-to-nuts menu of newspaper publishing software, from human resources to billing to advertising and editorial publishing systems. Browser-based interfaces, dubbed Cyber$ell.web and CyberNews.web, extend the reach of publishing functions to computers anywhere. Features in the advertising and editorial software convert Cybergraphic markup to HTML, speeding page building on the Web. However, managing web server contents is beyond its reach.
Through drag-and-drop assignments and header fields, with XML tagging to confer design, WebDesk makes web transfer a visual, automatic process. Want to reorganize the site? Just drag and drop again to rearrange the component list, which can be any media. This year there's a commerce component, with user registration screen, log-in authorization and billing interface.
Next in line
That makes FutureTense today's leading on-line backshop. Its core commerce set is the Internet Publishing System (IPS), with the IPS Content Server enhanced by specific advertising and editorial modules. There's a lot to it. As the company that introduced the separate-form-from-content approach to the newspaper industry, FutureTense has a head start on features. And because it's one component of a multi-faceted content and commerce system, FutureTense holds a strong lead in web-juggling software. So it isn't a fair fight to pit, for example, FutureTense against DT's on-line management. FutureTense is a separate system, with its own business, advertising, personalization and commercial departments. Open Market Inc., the Burlington, Mass.-based provider of Internet commerce software, announced in July that it will acquire FutureTense in a stock deal valued at about $125 million. Versifi.com, from GDI Inc. of Newport Beach, Calif., calls itself an "e-business management solution," positioned right about where FutureTense stands. It's a tough place to measure up. The all-Java application ties together content publishing, ad management, storefront creation, portal functions and auctions. As the deployment system for Entrepreneur magazine's on-line edition, Versifi.com absorbs content files from desktop publishing software and helps non-technical users schedule and drop them into preformatted templates. A technical paper describes less sophistication than newspapers expect from publishing systems, but it may be plenty for your site. Interact, from Coin Corporate Interactive Inc. of Northbrook, Ill., stresses user friendliness and low entry price for an e-commerce system. A server dubbed Framework hooks together publishing, archiving, business and security systems, while the Publish program enables chat rooms, newsgroups, mailing lists, newsletters and on-line service centers. It has its own ad server and statistics manager. Other modules include shopping and financial functions. With a handful of customers in Europe, this is a long-shot company in the U.S. newspaper market. The good news is that you, the customer, have choices now among truly database-driven, standards-based, open systems. Even if the decision path is the same old song, at least there are new verses to sing. -- Marion J. Love
American Computer Innovators Inc., From THE COLE PAPERS, August 1999, Copyright © 1999, All Rights Reserved.
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