WebCollage, Inc. a developer in online content publishing, announced the release of the interactive tour builder within the WebCollage content publishing application, Content Publisher. The interactive tour builder allows one to design, build and publish interactive product demos with existing assets directly onto their retail partner’s product pages. Manufacturers can build then syndicate product demonstrations across their retail channel. Content Publisher’s new interactive tour feature is designed for marketing personnel to create interactive tours using existing assets staying within the Content Publisher application. The Content Publisher platform lets end users design and then syndicate the entire interactive tour, complete with tabs, buttons and call outs directly to their retail partner’s websites. Content Publisher is designed with an intuitive user interface that integrates with WebCollage’s patented syndication platform. The SaaS solution gives end users control of what and when to syndicate, to which retailer and how many and when to update. http://www.webcollage.com/
Category: Publishing & media (Page 23 of 53)
SDL, the provider of Global Information Management solutions, announced the availability of an integration between SDL Trisoft and Leximation DITA -FMx, the DITA plugin for Adobe FrameMaker. By providing a bridge between SDL Trisoft and Leximation DITA -FMx, SDL gives the ability to use SDL’s advanced Component Content Management capabilities with Adobe FrameMaker. The new integration combines technologies for authoring and managing structured content. Together SDL and Leximation share several major clients that want a joint solution. www.sdl.com www.leximation.com
TransPerfect, a large privately held language services and software provider, announced that it has completed a merger with AD-COM, a Montreal-based provider of technical translation services. The transaction expands TransPerfect’s presence in Canada, adding a Montreal production hub to the company’s three existing Canadian locations. AD-COM will become a division of TransPerfect and will continue to be led by Founder and President Claudia Cieri, who will join the TransPerfect senior management team. Cieri is a 20-year veteran of the translation and localization industry. http://www.transperfect.com/ http://www.ad-com.ca/
We—the analyst team behind A Blueprint for Book Publishing Transformation: Seven Essential Systems to Re-Invent Publishing, David R. Guenette, Bill Trippe, Mary Laplante, and Karen Golden—have been working up a sweat, and it isn’t just because there’s a heat wave on in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. We’ve been heads down and glory bound in our efforts to finish up this whopper of a report. We sincerely hope—indeed, strongly believe—that Blueprint will be of help to many, if only for its 39-page directory of book publishing-oriented vendors of technologies and services that can help make ebook and digital publishing more successful.
This study provides a guide for book publishers to discover where they are this moment regarding digital transformation, while offering specific case studies and analysis of how book publishers should approach getting to where they need to be to take advantage next year, and in the years ahead. We knew going in that the study was an ambitious one, although none of us suspected in would be ambitious to the point of exceeding 200 pages, but, well, I suppose that is what can happen when you decide to look at the full range of publishing processes in relation to ebook and digital publishing. Not to mention an art program with over 60 figures, many of the results from our extensive Web-based survey.
We’re also excited about our case studies included in the study, filled with substance and capturing the voices of the subjects we interviewed, providing a conversational tone to these stories of real hands-on work being done in the vineyards of digital publishing.
Hmmm… maybe the heat is getting to me.
We’re entering the final review stretch, so stay cool, and keep an eye open for the publication announcement.
XMLmind announced the release of XMLmind Document Repository v1.1. XMLmind Document Repository, which is Open Source software. XMLmind Document Repository is a Web-based (WebDAV, REST) document store designed for technical writers, featuring automatic, transparent, versioning. This Open Source Servlet-based Web Application is intended to be the backend component of a future commercial offering. XMLmind Document Repository (XDR) can be installed and run as a desktop application: Self-contained distribution now includes a private Jetty 7 Servlet Container. New graphical application xdrcontrol allows to stop, configure or reconfigure and start or restart both Jetty and the XDR WebApp. Two new applications running in the Web browser allow to manage users and groups. http://www.xmlmind.com/
SDL announced the acquisition of Xopus, a provider of online XML editing. The acquisition by SDL’s Structured Content Technologies division addresses the growing trend to broaden the adoption of structured authoring beyond technical writers. Founded in 2001 in the Netherlands, Xopus has emerged as a friendly and simple-to-use online XML editor. Complementing high-end XML editors that are designed specifically for technical writers, Xopus enables a broader audience to contribute comments and content to increasingly distributed structured authoring processes. Accessed through a Web browser, Xopus provides the flexibility, ease-of-use, and interactivity of a Wiki, while still leveraging the benefits of structured content. The Xopus organization will become part of SDL’s Structured Content Technologies division. A prototype integration already exists between SDL Xopus and SDL Trisoft, the company’s Component Content Management system for DITA. Looking forward, SDL Xopus will be integrated with SDL LiveContent , the company’s publishing solution. Future integrations are envisioned with SDL Contenta for S1000D and related markets, as well as SDL’s suite of Global Information Management technologies. SDL will continue its philosophy of supporting an “open technology” approach to the enterprise ecosystem through integration to 3rd party applications and systems. SDL Xopus will continue to support existing integrations to 3rd party content management systems. http://www.sdl.com/
As we start to delve into some of the interim results of our survey of book publishing professionals, there is a great deal of good data to mull over. While the results are preliminary (and we welcome your participation here), some trends are emerging.
One interesting set of data points surround how publishers are viewing XML, how extensively they work with it, and what technologies they are using to support the management of the XML. Among those using XML, it’s significant that only about half have invested in some kind of storage mechanism specifically for XML, including both relational databases and dedicated XML repositories such as Mark Logic server.
While that overall number might or might not be so striking, I am struck by what some publishers feel is a barrier to adopting an XML repository, namely, the “Challenge of building XML knowledge, skills, or awareness.” This trumped more traditional barriers to technology adoption such as cost and the maturity of the technology and would seem, on balance, to be a solvable problem.
Perhaps it is the season when everything seems especially fecund, or perhaps I can’t resist abusing the lyrics of late, great Robbie Burns, but there is no “perhaps” about electronic book publishing’s astonishing pace of growth.
The Gilbane Group (a division of Outsell, Inc.), together with research partner BISG, is reaching out to the communities of book publishing professionals. We invite you to participate in Web-based survey, a central research mechanism for our upcoming study A Blueprint for Book Publishing Transformation: Seven Essential Processes to Re-Invent Publishing. The study will be published in June 2010, and all participants in this survey will have full access to the full-length study through The Gilbane Group website.
At the just concluded 2010 BEA—Book Expo America—our research partner on our upcoming study, A Blueprint for Book Publishing Transformation: Seven Essential Processes to Re-Invent Publishing, delivered some facts and figures in a session there. Kelly Gallagher, VP of Publishing Services at RR Bowker and BISG Reasearch Committee Chair, presented new research from The Book Industry Study Group on consumer attitudes toward eBook reading. According to the research, eBook sales went from 1.5% of all book sales in Q1 2009 to 5% in Q1 2010, with 33% of eBook buyers entering the market in the last six months. The survey was of eBook reading and purchase behavior from print book readers who recently purchased either an eBook reader or an eBook.
Outsell, Inc., our parent company, has also just published news about ebook market growth in education publishing. From the press release: “Outsell estimates the total global market for K-12 and post-secondary textbooks was $15.2 billion in 2009 and will reach $16.6 billion by 2012, representing a modest [compound annual growth rate] CAGR of 2.6 percent. Digital textbook products will fuel the market growth, with a CAGR of 25 percent, while revenues from print textbooks will decline by 1 percent.”
The Outsell report provides case studies of eight publishers’ innovations, including Pearson, Elsevier, Cambridge University Press, Macmillan, Flat World Knowledge, Cengage Learning, Chegg, and CourseSmart. It also provides potential market scenarios over the next 10 years and their likelihood of occurring, and strategies for publishers to “reclaim” revenues lost during a print-only era. To purchase the report, please visit Outsell, Inc. or click here.
Speaking in links, a reminder to all that we’re in the middle of collecting data from our ongoing survey of book publishing professionals, so if you’re one and you haven’t taken the 10-minutes to complete the Blueprint survey, click here. We seek to gain a clearer picture of ebook and related digital publishing efforts underway among the full spectrum of book publishers. Furthermore, the analyst team at The Gilbane Group seeks to identify a number of “pain points” or barriers encountered by book publishers when it comes to their developing or expanding digital publishing programs, including areas such as royalties, digital format choices, digital print decisions, and distribution problems.
So, it is Spring! Take a survey!
Subscribe to the Gilbane Advisor
