The (Nashville) Tennessean in April began offering advertisers online proofing with the launch of Shoom Inc.’s ShoomProof.

The app, powered by ProofItOnline, is now being used by most of the daily’s advertisers, according to Michele Wojciechowski, ad operations director.

“Most of them are using this exclusively — except for a few smaller advertisers that still have some technology limitations,” she said.

 

The software enables advertisers to view, proof, mark up necessary changes and approve proofs via their Web browser.





Graphics: ProofItOnline
ShoomProofs’s Reviewer Interface where markups and approvals can be made and Administrative Workspace, shown below, where a designer would post and manage proofs.

 

The Tennessean (daily, 174,073; Sunday, 232,334) also manages advertisers’ electronic tearsheets online, through Shoom’s eTearsheets app, which the newspaper launched in January 2006.

For both proofs and tearsheets, an advertiser logs onto The Tennessean’s Web site as a registered user and follows the appropriate link to carry out either function.
 

Functionality key

Wojciechowski said the daily considered other vendors and products to manage e-tearsheets and proofing, but liked the functionality of the Shoom apps.

Automating proofing has saved The Tennessean time and money, Wojciechowski said.

 “In addition to the benefits for advertisers, there have been a lot of internal benefits,” she said. “When we want to see a proof or tearsheet, we can just go online rather than having to go through numerous print copies.”

Wojciechowski said the apps are particularly beneficial for large advertisers dealing with multiple newspapers.

“This can be a very useful tool for large advertisers because instead of managing multiple proofs, you can essentially deal with one.”

Meantime, ProofItOnline released an enhanced browser-based reviewer as part its online proofing application. ProofItOnline’s Reviewer Interface now features a more intuitive online proof review that is easy for first-time users and robust enough to support advanced users’ complex approval processes, the company said. “We’ve developed a user friendly interface that incorporates features that closely mimic the hard-proof approval process most reviewers are familiar with,” said Rob Munz, president and founder of ProofItOnline. “Now customers have instant access to the communication and review tools they use most often.”

These updates, Munz said, solidify ProofItOnline’s Web 2.0 functionality.