Publishing News & Articles

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.

Never one to settle in and savor the moment, Microsoft has gone out and done it again. They recently bought Rapt Inc., a web publishing vendor out of San Fransisco. This acquisition is just the latest in a number to fill Microsoft’s suite of publishing and advertising tools.

The move “puts us way ahead of what other offerings are available in the market,” Scott Howe, a general manager in Microsoft’s advertiser and publisher solutions group said, likening Microsoft with Rapt to a jet plane, with rivals, including Google, being a bicycle.

Ooh! Burn to Google.

But did they really put their money where their mouth is?

Allette Systems, providers of publishing system design and integration and aXtive Minds, a consulting group focusing on XML and Web technology are hosting Open Publish 2008.

To be held April 23-24, 2008 in Baltimore, Maryland, Open Publish 2008 will focus on both the management and implementation issues relating to publishing technology based on open standards.

Ever since the birth of reality television and the subsequent rise of Web 2.0 technologies, user-generated content has become more popular. So popular in fact, that the news is now relying on it.

CNN announced that its ever-popular iReport is expanding itself in hopes of becoming the YouTube of cable news. While iReport has been around since 2006 and has received more than 100,000 news-related photo and video submissions, CNN rarely uses more than 10 percent of the content in its newscasts. That is of course because they’ve needed to check each story out for accuracy and other pesky newsy type information.

But no more…

Provider of online publishing solutions, Nstein Technologies Inc. has announced the acquisition of UK-based Picdar, a picture and digital asset management provider.

Nstein, who is headquartered in Montreal, Canada is broadening it’s presence in the UK and Europe with this new acquisition selling itself as a leader in online publishing solutions.

Nstein Technologies Inc, an online publishing solutions vendor for newspapers, magazines and online content providers, has announced the creation of a formal partner program specifically designed for the system integrators and developers community.

The program will first be presented on the company’s web site and formally introduced to clients at Nstein’s 2008 User Conference in May.

If there is any doubt that users are going online to read their news, there’s finally proof to dissuade you from thinking otherwise.

According to data released in a new report by Nielsen Online for the Newspaper Association of America (NAA), average monthly unique audience figures for newspaper Web sites grew by more than 3.6 million in 2007. This is a record year for the industry and an increase of more than six percent over 2006 numbers.

It’s official, Moveable Type Open Source (MTOS) 4.1 Stable has been released to the market.

We’ve been keeping you up to date about MTOS since we heard about it in August. In December we gave you an overview of the new open source version.

It was just last week that MT4.1 RC1 was released. So the guys and gals over at Six Apart are moving fast.

AlwaysOn has announced their OnMedia 100, a list of top private companies that highlight “game-changing players in the marketing, branding, advertising, and public relations industries.”