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“Too many companies emulate the leader and try to be better, when they should avoid the leader and try to be better.”
 – Derrick Daye and Brad VanAuten, The Blake Project.

Choosing an ePublishing Partner

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Smart Companies Are Looking to a New Generation of ePublishing Solutions

By Monte Hamilton, Founder and CEO of Hamilton Associates

The next time your customers or prospects read about your organization, chances are it will be from the glow of a computer screen. People now prefer just about every kind of content – from books and magazines to corporate news, brochures, partner agreements and operating manuals – in the more convenient digital form. Electronic content is revolutionizing the worlds of publishing, business and franchising.

How can an organization select the right digital content creation and delivery technology? The basic issues to be considered are: functionality, speed, scalability, reliability and interoperability.

Functionality.  Any digital publishing solution must present a simple, easy-to-use interface to the consumer. The best ePublishing technologies replicate the familiar experience of traditional paper-based reading, but in the faster, multi-media setting of the digital world.

Speed.  The software application as a whole, and individual pages of content, must load quickly and smoothly.

Scalability.  A digital content system must offer sufficient network and server capacity to support heavy reader loads. Scalability is key, particularly for high-volume publishers like magazines and online catalogs.

Reliability.  Some software suppliers just tag an ePublishing module onto their products. But those add-ons seldom offer the functionality or reliability that consumers expect – and that corporate publishers require.

Interoperability.  Particularly in the world of business, an ePublishing program must work seamlessly with all other software systems.

A growing number of companies and publishers are adopting a new “flipping page” technology know as the Digital Edition. A Digital Edition essentially converts a traditional PDF into an electronic document that replicates the look and feel of the traditional hard-copy format. Readers actually “flip” through the electronic pages with a swipe of the cursor or their finger.

Digital Edition technology is ideally suited to online catalogs, electronic magazines and newspapers, corporate brochures, product catalogs, training, operations and human resource manuals, as well as sales presentation, company news announcements and more. This impressive flipping-page approach combines the familiarity of a traditional printed document with the excitement of multi-media content, including video and audio elements, and links to social media.

Of course, not all flip-page technologies are alike. The best incorporate advanced vector graphics that support higher-resolution images, and also allow infinite zoom, search and archive functions, bookmarking and page reader notes, digital rights management, third-party subscription and payments, and one-click page turning.

To fully exploit the coming age of electronic publishing, companies of all kinds must select and deploy digital content technologies that are simple to access and easy to use. The best ePublishing platforms combine the familiarity consumers expect with the multi-media experience they demand.

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