Publishing News & Articles

Apple's Thursday event won't be a show-stopper in the usual iDevice sense, but early chatter suggests that the company may be about to revolutionize ebook creation. It could achieve this by launching a Garageband-like app to bring content-rich, Web-enabled, digital book creation tools to everyone.

As Apple celebrates its part of 1.2 billion app downloads last week, those centuries-past, paper-based tomes are the focus of the company's first big news in 2012. While we're sure it is hard at work on a budget iPad and a new iOS, Apple is trying to boost its share of the ebook market that Amazon rules.

Google (news, site) recently unveiled its Page Optimization Service, promising anywhere from 20% to 65% page speed improvement. Currently on a free, limited trial, the service supposedly improves page delivery and loading time by distributing the load across Google servers worldwide. But at what cost?

For Microsoft Word users, publishing just got a little easier. Quark released Quark XML Author 4.0 for Microsoft Word, which allows users to more easily create structured XML content. It’s no secret that most content gets created in Word, so it’s only fitting that now you can intelligently create and publish with it, too.

Amazon (news, site) has trumpeted the fact that, less than four years after introducing Kindle books, its customers are now purchasing more Kindle books than all print books -- hardcover and paperback -- combined. However, it's important not to take this announcement at face value.

Has it really been two months since QuarkXPress 9 came out? You know what they say, one good desktop product deserves a server version. Or something like that. Nerdy cliches aside, Quark (news, site) is back in the news with the release of QuarkXPress Server 9.

Publishing content management provider Really Strategies (news, site) has announced the availability of RSuite Cloud, a cloud-based print, web and eBook production solution that supports 70 languages. The product capitalizes on three of what are expected to be the biggest technology trends of 2011: Cloud computing, content management and globalization.

Here's an all-new level of geekery: Now you can purchase O'Reilly and Microsoft Press Books from the Apple iBookstore. Download the iBooks app to your iPad, iPod touch or iPhone, and you've got a massive searchable reference pool on the go. 

Wendell Challenger is an "uber bike geek" and a graduate-level science student studying topics related to evolution. He's also one of the volunteer writers and photographers for Momentum Magazine, a free bi-monthly publication for urban cyclists available in twenty cities in the US and Canada.

When it was decided to build Momentum's, um, momentum, by bringing its free content onto the Web, Challenger took on the project. Free and open source seemed a no-brainer between his scientific background and the free, community nature of the magazine. At Open Web Vancouver 2009 (news, site) he shared his experience.

For MadCap (news, site), it looks like the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) initiative is still a go. The company, a software provider with a serious thing for integrated applications of the content management variety, first announced its support of DITA late last year.

This week, MadCap unveiled proof of that support in the form of updated versions of two of their offerings: MadCap Flare 5.0 and MadCap Blaze 2.0. According to the company, the newest versions of Flare and Blaze are” the first authoring software products to support transformation and publishing from the DITA standard—without requiring Java development or third-party toolkits…”

Let’s take a look, shall we?

At a time when publishers, print and web alike, struggle to stay relevant while providing the means to produce, publish and profit, Mediaspectrum sees itself as a solution for evolving social media initiatives. And Red Herring agrees. The Red Herring 100 recognizes the most innovative private technology companies based in North America, of which Mediaspectrum was included.

Mediaspectrum provides a web-based service solution aimed at addressing all aspects of advertising, content, community and e-commerce. Their Media 2.0 platform helps media companies, from the Washington Post to the Trinity Mirror, increase revenues, manage editorial content and streamline workflows.

Mobifusion, a mobile apps developer in the mood to promise the entertainment world to its users, has just released the latest version of its multimedia platform.

Mobiviewer 2.5 reportedly improves both the viewing and reading experiences on mobile phones and includes a slew of additional nifty and bite-sized “snacks” like an icon-based UI, audio plug-ins, and instant photos and graphics. Sounds pretty tasty to us.

From 4.0 in the summer of 2007 to 4.1 in early 2008, Six Apart is about to grace us with yet another shiny and new version of Movable Type sometime this summer. While the exact release date has not yet been revealed — think early August — the 4.2 version looks like something worth the wait. The suspense is further fueled by the MT team’s bold comments revolving around the statement that this is “one of the most important upgrades to Movable Type ever.”

The circus is coming to town! Join mediabistro.com, the largest online destination for media people today for jobs, classes, community and news, at their two-day summit on digital platforms and trends that are changing media.

Speaking of the economy. Have you heard the one about Bear Stearns? Of course you have.

But have your heard this story?

Publishing 2.0 provided an interesting commentary “Following A Breaking News Story On The Web”. As it turns out, when big news breaks on a Sunday, it becomes quite apparent how different the Web is from traditional print media.