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Sign in please: The Messenger product, originally developed by the Washington Post but now sold by NewsEngine, is reminiscent of the messaging systems in old front-ends. |
Five years of high-quality
products capped by Messenger
LAS VEGAS -- There's no question that The Cole Papers likes NewsEngin Inc. of Chesterfield, Mo. Way back in April 1998, this publication gave a thumbs up to NewsEngin software in use at The Times in Munster, Ind.
In fact, we said then (more than five years ago, an eternity in software development years) that My NewsEngin's "logic is simple and straightforward, the tools are user friendly and it will fit with any size paper in need of a workflow solution, especially sites that paginate without one."
That was then and now is no different. NewsEngin has not been resting on its laurels from a technology newsletter, though they were and are well-deserved. As the pagination system for the rest of us, it has a growing customer list of more than 40 news organizations around the world, including some large ones, like the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the Chicago Tribune and Associated Press.
Don't misunderstand, all these organizations are not using the complete suite of services offered in My NewsEngin, but rather easily customizable parts that are a great help in newsroom workflow and to news staffers doing computer-assisted reporting.
Unlike a lot of suppliers, NewsEngin emphasizes the fact that its software is "designed by journalists for journalists," and it posts a hassle-free price per seat of $1000 right on its web site, something you don't see other suppliers doing.
Those parts of the suite of applications that comprise My NewsEngin which help reporters handle other newsroom functions they have that are usually outside the more traditional functions, like tracking reporters' sources, and photos, graphics and stories associated with an assignment are what makes NewsEngin chug on a somewhat different track.
Take the application EventTracker, being built for the Washington Post, but of use in any newsroom that deals with daily event listings. Using a web browser anyone will be able to enter the information about an event into a database, even the publicists themselves. If software can enable classified ad customers to roll their own classifieds, why not apply this same concept to the listings? In many papers, the bulk of the typing for listings devolves on a few people.
With EventTracker, and its export capabilities to the Post's CCI editorial pagination system and to the Post's Web site and master planning calendar, a lot of duplicate effort can be eliminated, as well as typing errors and data repetition.
Other new parts of the My NewsEngin suite include Wire Tracker, now Web-based, the better to easily monitor and share wire service copy, StoryTracker, which automatically builds a story budget for all departments, then can produce that master planning paper which is a part of all newspapers' budget meetings.
Continuing in the helpful to reporters vein is UniQuery 2.0, which allows reporters to globally search many databases, now including those residing on an Oracle server, from a Web browser. Another style aid to reporters and editors is Stylebook, an electronic, searchable version of the Associated Press Stylebook, which can be merged with any paper's stylebook, searchable with a Web browser, or a Lotus Notes client.
That's the other unique thing about NewsEngin, the integration of Lotus Notes into its applications suite. Applications can be run fully integrated in My NewsEngin, or separately. The Notes-based applications will run on any platform, from Windows 95 and OS/2 (!) or Macintoshes, UNIX boxes and the latest Windows. And server-side, it's just as open and cross-platform.
The Lotus Notes base gives firm support for SourceTracker, which keeps track of all the things reporters usually have on slips of paper -- contacts, interviews, Web sites, other documents and associated stories and notes. Currently in version 3.0, it can link all the elements of a working story together in a project, let the reporter write the story in Notes, which can then be copied and pasted into whatever front-end system that publication may use.
All this for $200 a seat, or get it with the My NewsEngin suite, along with NewsFront (for writing and editing stories), WireTracker, FrontDoor (for free-lance submissions), StoryTracker, PhotoTracker, Graphic Tracker, StaffTracker (a scheduling module, soon to be available), Stylebook, News Archive and Web Publisher.
To paginate, use the new version of NewsFront XT, a Quark XPress XTension, providing the bidirectional link between the NewsEngin database and XPress.
And we would be remiss if we didn't herald the arrival of NewsEngin Messenger. Originally developed in-house at the Post, NewsEngin is now developing and marketing something that looks to these old System/55 eyes like Coyote Message, but running in a browser.
Well, we said it was good five years ago, and the initial assessment holds true today. Get NewsEngin in bits and pieces, or go for the total package. These folks do understand.
-- G.P.
NewsEngin Inc.,
(636) 537-8548,
e-mail: info@newsengin.com.
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