How to optimize the management of a Marketing and Communications campaign and increase productivity to produce print and digital related media

Join us for a Breakfast with Bouygues Telecom! WEDIA and APRIMO are organizing a breakfast on Friday, October 15, on:

• How to optimize the management of a Marketing and Communications campaign
• and increase productivity to produce print and digital related media?

Discover the feedback of Bouygues Telecom, represented by Catherine Corrado, Responsable Communication points de vente.
More info here : http://crossmedia.wedia-group.com/events-@/59/view-153-category.html?lang=en

Times they're A-Changin (in web-to-print)

Things are changing rapidly in the w2P sector. During the past weeks, I've noticed some very interesting news I'ld like to share with you (you can also follow them on Twitter) :

• In France, PageOnDemand has demonstrated their capabilities to handle catalogs in SaaS mode ;
• People told Microsoft were about to buy Vistaprint but it doesn't seem to be true
• French-based web-to-print editor Wedia have strongly increased their sales on S1, and are about to launch a very innovative solution on october 7th ;
• Blio, new e-reading platform will be launched on Sept. 28th ; Quark have already announced their product will be Blio-compliant ;
• Quark is very active in September : Promote launched in Australia, Quark Web-to-Print system delivered in the USA and France, iPhone / iPad publishing solutions demonstrated at the IFRA Expo…  
• Woodwing on tour made an impressive event in London ;
• Vjoon has announced a new Unified Publishing Process that will be demonstrated at the IFRA Expo ;
• PageFlex has launched  new capabilities r ;
• In Belgium, an innovative solution called ChiliPublisher has been seen…

Stay tuned !

Before to selfpublish, learn how to selfdesign

Self-publishing is a major trend in our industry : new technologies allow to produce printing material in low quantity at an affordable price, or “push” contents to social networks… A lot of websites offer to publish your book, your brochure or anything else on a wide variety of output channels, from print to web 2.0.
It's a kind of multichannel self-publishing.
But publishing is not so complicated.
In my opinion, what's really difficult is to prepare and produce the document you wish to publish. Create a nice layout that conveniently suits the output channel you've chosen, design the layout of page, preflight and output a file that matches the technical standards, especially for the printing industry.
Of course you can buy a nice layout on the Internet : but to produce your document so that your print publishing platform can interpretate it, you will need to manage it within DTP software such as Adobe Indesign or Quark Xpress. You will also need to understand strong technical requirements to output a PDF file ready for print. In other words, you will need to be a graphic art specialist.
What is missing currently to really to democratize multichannel self-publishing is to plug web services that will let any user (even “dumb” user) choose a template among a wide variety and customize it in a very user-friendly way.
Such services already exist, but for a reduced variety of documents, essentially business cards or flyers.
There're also some software that allow to do the same, but not in a full-web experience.
The missing link today is a full web customizable template library that will match all the soho needs in terms of marketing literature.
Stay tuned : this kind of service will be launched very soon !

Why wouldn't Quark go Open-Source ?

©Tchago Tavares - http://www.sxc.hu/profile/tchago

This morning, I asked myself which strategy would I choose about Quark Xpress if I was Ray Schiavone, CEO of Quark. I know, it may seem a bit strange to have such ideas in the morning ;-)
As many designers, I was a fan of Quark Xpress in the 90's… I've discovered Indesign in the early 2000, I've learnt to hate Quark Xpress from version 5 to version 7, and learnt to love Indesign at the same time…
Then, in the past two years, I've discovered again Quark Xpress 8, appreciated it very much, and at the same time, used it with Quark Xpress Server and Quark Publishing System.

Since Ray Schiavone has been appointed CEO at Quark, a new strategy has been defined : desktop app such as Xpress or CopyDesk are no longer the main development axis. Emphasis has been put on dynamic publishing, through Quark Xpress Server, Quark Publishing System, and more recently, Quark Promote and Quark Web-to-Print System, based on Gluon technology (bought by Quark at spring).
During the same period, Quark Xpress 8 has been improved : more stable, easier to use, embedding multichannel publishing features, cheaper prices, special bundles… But I wonder if Xpress 8 doesn't pay for the mistakes of his elder brothers : DTP software users has turned massively to Indesign, it's a fact. And I'm not sure they're going to switch back, even for a high-quality software such as Xpress 8.
Even if its strategy is based on dynamic publishing, Quark corner stone remains Xpress : templates for Quark Promote or files used in QPS must be in Quark Xpress format… it can prevent user from buying such technologies because they're already using Indesign.
So I was wondering myself if a strategy couldn't be for Quark to “open the code” of Quark Xpress.
In the software industry, DTP is one of the only fields where there's no real alternative to paying software. You find Adobe Indesign, Quark Xpress, Microsoft Publisher, and other less-known technologies, and only one open-source alternative, called Scribus. But Scribus is not really used by professional…
So if I was Ray, I would choose to release immediately Xpress 8 as a free software, with open-source code. It could be a great way to retrieve a nice brand image, and to get customers switch back to my technology… and at the same time, it will facilitate the deployment of my dynamic publishing solutions based on Xpress…
But I'm not Ray.