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News Features
Amid wall-to-wall news coverage about banks, insurance companies, auto manufacturers, and other pillars of the American economy that are buckling under the oppressive weight of the global financial crisis, the fact that the print media outlets reporting that news are themselves on the verge of financial ruin may be lost on readers.
Between spending huge amounts of money on books—only to have them bought back for a fraction of the price—and lugging behemoth texts all over campus, the relationship between coeds and their textbooks is strained at best. So it makes sense that with another school year coming to a close, professors and students alike are looking for alternatives and opting to download etextbooks rather than cracking a printed one. With new social networking features designed specifically for the classroom, companies such as VitalSource are taking things one step further and are combining the interactivity of Web 2.0 with text. In the process of doing so, VitalSource managed to triple user numbers since June 2008, suggesting that etextbooks are becoming the latest learning tool in an academic's arsenal.
Like everyone else, website authors are always on the lookout for tools to make the way they do their jobs simpler and more efficient. With an abundance of products flooding the market claiming to make web-authoring easier, it becomes increasingly difficult to choose the right program to fit a company's needs. One approach is to build on an already familiar web-authoring program instead of requiring users to adapt to an entirely different tool. One company taking this approach is Ephox, a provider of solutions for web content authoring. On Jan. 18, at the IBM Lotusphere conference, Ephox announced a new integration of its EditLive! solution for IBM Quickr for J2EE and Domino users.
Today's content has no respect for yesterday's silos. Documents and assets end up on pages, screens, and devices—or, inevitably, all of the above. That means extra work for designers and developers to constantly manage and repurpose material. It also means extra pressure for them to operate outside the comfort zones of their original disciplines.
Those who work in content management systems (CMSs) know that the content creation process can often be time-consuming and unwieldy. Ideally, the best content management system should enable the user to post content to the web seamlessly, without having to click back and forth between different programs. After all, it's difficult—or, at the very least, annoying—to be in two or three places at once. However, as wonderful as this utopian ideal may sound, it is very rarely the case. Web content creators are usually required to collaborate with one another in a wiki, edit images for the web in Photoshop or a similar program, and then upload everything into the CMS. Functionality is lost in the quest for a visually compelling website with top-notch content.
Featured Stories
To succeed today, content sites must amass huge content collections, yet accomplish this with tighter budgets. At the same time, content consumers need to be enabled to find exactly what meets their needs. There are several strategies that can be employed to achieve web publishing's Holy Grail: the Triangle of Content Success.
The web has radically transformed the way we think about content creation; we have witnessed the democratization of media. We are no longer bound to the owners of the press to print our writing because today, anyone with a computer and an internet connection can be a publisher. Yet most academics still find themselves constricted by the 20th-century system.
From sloppy reporting to outright libel, not to mention web-speed requirements and confusing advertising placement. Journalism faces a slow of new challenges online. Can the old rules of media be applied? And if not, what is to become of journalistic ethics online?
As we enter 2009, it's clear to any reputable scientist that our planet is in peril. Individuals and institutions alike—have begun to look at ways to reduce our impact on the planet. The publishing industry is no different, and there are a number of ways that it is working to minimize its negative impact.
Take a closer look at Quark, Inc., one of the 12 companies that inspired the most banter among the EContent 100 judges during the voting process.
Product Reviews
Plustek Technology's BookReader transforms printed words into audio output, which can be saved in MP3 format for future access. With the press of a button (and some editing) the Plustek BookReader converts printed text into an audio file, which can then be read to you in a digitized voice.
Google Earth Pro is as easy to use as the free version. It extends the capabilities of Google Earth to allow for robust practical applications via the addition of such features as GIS and GPS import, spreadsheet data import, measure tools, and movie recording.
Applications abound that create 3D models of objects, buildings, and virtual worlds. Online and off, users want to interact with objects and information in a more natural way, moving through data as if it were presented in a physical, dimensional space. The SpacePilot makes navigating 3D programs and virtual spaces as easy—and almost as natural—as a walk in the park.
Creative Suite 4 is a significant upgrade to earlier versions of Adobe's content-creation bundles. CS4 provides significant timesaving tools, tightly integrates Adobe Acrobat with Flash for a digital media platform that spans desktop and web, and leverages work done in one program across the entire suite to easily repurpose content without requiring a total re-creation for each medium.
The G-Pen F610 is an attractive, affordable tablet that provides out-of-the-box ease of use. It features a highly sensitive pen and good integration with a variety of popular programs. While the pen itself could be better designed, the overall usability is quite good. The software bundle offers a good introduction to the fun—and usefulness—of the G-Pen F610.
Columns
Blogging has always been controversial, but the newest critique argues that you should pursue a leaner, sexier alternative: "microblogging." Microblogging can take many forms on the public internet or within the firewall. You can microblog most famously via Twitter "Tweets," Facebook status messages, or various other similar services.
A former EContent assistant editor, Kinley Levack, forwarded me an August column from The New York Observer, The Media Mob. Her email bore this subject line: "I will always think of you when I hear this phrase …" Alas, the column was not about the most inspiring bosses ever. In fact, it was about "The New Media Religion: ‘Platform Agnostic.'"
I knew that price wouldn't last, but I became hooked and since then I've renewed every 2 years, including the digital edition. However, this year's bill gave me a case of sticker shock at nearly 30 times the original teaser price. I've already switched several of my other print publications to digital, and I suspect pricing is going to strongly encourage more digital switching.
I recently spent the day with my editor and his colleagues on the marketing, editorial, and PR teams at my publisher, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. We had wide-ranging discussions the release of the Amazon Kindle version of my book. While the Kindle is new, John Wiley & Sons isn't. I can point to a number of things that are evidence of how Wiley is tuned in today, behavior that's indicative of why it has thrived for 2 centuries.
I earned a couple of memorable C’s in my academic history. One was for my capricious foray into physics, which I took as a college elective in an effort to follow the cryptic conversations my physics-major best friend had with her science pals. The other was in fifth grade handwriting. My teacher was appalled at my sloppy penmanship. She sent home a note to my mom, and they both stepped up the practice sessions … to no avail. Two years later, my grandmother bought me my first typewriter. I am forever indebted.
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EContent BEST PRACTICES
Technology providers who not only recognize the necessity and difficulty of the local and global content marketplace, but are there to help: From analytics to location awareness, content management to translation management, translation services to language specific search solutions, there are a range of solutions that will enable organizations to adapt to the needs of the new consumer.
Appropriate and effective content management solutions not only enable ease of use, effective interactive communication, and dynamic marketing experiences, they deliver what all organizations seek: measurable return on investment.
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