Newspapers have a number of choices
when deciding how to present their Web sites to the public. Many have chosen to
create mini-portals, serving as the gateway to a community or city (also called
a city site) and populating it with breaking news.
Special sections and business
directories oftentimes anchor these sites, making them a more permanent resource
for residents and visitors.
Olive’s ActivePaper replicates look and feel
of print publications
Photo: Olive Software
But newspapers that embrace this
particular strategy run into a roadblock: Publishers can’t count visitors
accessing free-of-charge portals as part of their audited circulation figures,
such as those compiled by the Audit Bureau of Circulations (see adjoining
story).
In response, newspaper publishers
are developing electronic versions that replicate exactly the content of their
printed editions. Publishers charge a fee for these electronic doppelgangers,
and the resulting subscribers are added to the overall circulation totals.
Wherever they choose
One company offering online edition
publishing software is Olive Software Inc., whose ActivePaper Daily app
replicates the look and feel of a print publication online. Users need only use
their browser software to access the content. Other vendors, such as NewsStand
Inc. and NewspaperDirect, offer similar products.
Olive currently has more than 100
newspaper customers worldwide, including The Washington Post, which in May
launched an electronic edition generated by the software.
“Our readers will now have access
to an exact replica of the print edition of The Post wherever and whenever they
choose,” said David Dadisman, the daily’s vice president of circulation. The
Post (daily, 762,009; Sunday, 1.1 million) is Olive’s largest newspaper
client.
To get their online replicas
produced, newspapers such as The Post transmit a PDF version of their pages to
Olive’s data center immediately before they are RIPed. The PDFs are converted
to XML through a series of filters. XML is a markup language that lets data be
reused throughout a wide variety of disparate environments.
The resulting code can then be
meshed with other Olive apps in order to allow users to perform such functions
as track ads or archive stories.
XML adds functionality
The app’s XML foundation will
also let users mesh with standards such as NITF and NewsML, which governs how
news articles and multimedia content are structured, respectively. That would
allow newspapers to manipulate how they use stories generated by third-party
syndicators and wire services.
The app’s flexibility is what’s
most attractive to newspapers, said Shaun Dail, Olive’s executive vice
president. “What sold The Washington Post was the fact we provide multiple
solutions from one workflow,” he said.
At last month’s Nexpo/SuperConference,
Olive added to its palette of XML-enabled offerings. One new app, AdLauncher,
uses XML to create a Web-compatible database of advertisements. Display ads can
be searched and retrieved through a variety of custom requests; the ads are
displayed exactly as they appear in the printed publication.
The other app, ActiveTearSheet,
exploits the growing interest in electronic tearsheet software. The app lets
newspaper reps, ad agencies and advertisers verify that ads run as promised.
Users can also track an ad’s account history, the number of times an ad is
supposed to appear and also plumb archives to certify how ads were placed.
Adding traction
Olive has been on a roll of late.
In addition to The Post, Olive also picked up large-circulation dailies such as
the Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J. (daily, 407,730; Sunday, 609,014), the Daily
Telegraph in London (daily, 1.1 million) and the Times of India. The Times, the
world’s largest English broadcast daily, is read by more than 4 million
people, according to the paper’s Web site.
Existing ActivePaper Daily users
such as The Gazette in Colorado Springs, Colo., say they’re satisfied with the
software. The Gazette attracts readers worldwide who want to keep track of what’s
happening in their adopted hometown, which hosts such institutions as the Air
Force Academy and the U.S. Olympic Committee.
“We deliberately priced the
e-paper at an affordable rate that satisfies ABC requirements but is a
substantial discount from the print (copy),” said Ginny Greene, online
executive editor.
The Gazette (daily, 97,791; Sunday,
114,150) counts its e-paper as part of its ABC numbers, Greene said.
|
Counting e-papers
The Audit Bureau of
Circulations governs electronic editions with the same rule it uses to
cover separate editions, Rule C 2.4.
Publishers are allowed to
count electronic editions as part of their overall circulation if a
consumer buys two subscriptions of the same newspaper (one print and one
electronic) and the publication collects the full basic price for one
subscription and not less than 25 percent of the price for the second.
Provided this benchmark is
met, both copies shall be considered sold at 50 percent of basic prices.
If the consumer buys one subscription (electronic or print), then a
qualifying price must be paid for that one subscription, according to
the ABC.
Ğublishers are required to
report electronic edition circulation totals as a separate line item.
Information about ABC’s rules governing e-papers can be found at www.accessabc.com/members1/n_electronic.htm.
— Hays Goodman |
Olive Software
866.654.8387
www.olivesoftware.com
NewsStand
866.837.4567
www.newsstand.com
NewspaperDirect
212.808.3031
www.newspaperdirect.com