Good Postal News

Looks like the USPS may be getting some life back. The retirement overpayment return would be huge. This was really crippling USPS financially:

http://www.pubexec.com/article/postal-reform-bill-bodes-well-for-periodicals-industry

Of course, the bill needs to pass…

3-D Floor Graphics

If images like these can't get your product to stand out, I can't imagine anything will!




Below is a link to Justin Beever's other artwork. In case my daughter is reading this, It's Beever, not Beieber!

http://users.skynet.be/J.Beever/pave.htm

Though these images are all the origional art, this can be reproduced and run as a campaign.

iPad Competition / Samsung's Galaxy

Soon I'll start writing about how to actually use the printed word in cross-media marketing applications.

I just stumbled across the below story. The iPad has been such a hit, that it will be interesting to watch other competitors enter the field. Samsung's Galaxy Tab runs on Google software, has two cameras- one for pictures and one for web-conferencing. Combined with larger and expandable memory, it seems to be a formidable competitor:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/204779/samsung_galaxy_tab_vs_the_ipad_compare_for_yourself.html

A Crash Course in DRM / Digital Rights Management

My last post touched on electronic books, and got me thinking about document protection. This post is meant to tell what can be done to protect files in digital formats.



When dealing with paper books, the #1 concern is that someone will buy the book, cut off the spine, scan the pages and post to the internet or resell. The great thing is that this is an incredibly rare situation. In fact, in my 15 years in this industry I do not personally know of this happening to anyone.

With an electronic file, or e-book, there are a multitude of concerns. For some reason, it seems a lesser transgression to copy electronic documents than paper documents. What does this mean? It means that you need to consider how you protect your electronic documents. Making PDFs of your book and selling them as downloads on your website is not enough. There are consumers who will take that PDF and e-mail it to others they know, or even post the link somewhere that it can be accessed by anyone. It is for this reason that you must consider Digital Rights Management (DRM) for your electronic files.

DRM allows for various levels of protection. You can restrict: altering the document, e-mailing the document to another person, the computer that the file can be read on, printing, and copying + pasting. This can be applied within PDF files, as well as within e-books.

You can also deter the above by watermarking the document when purchased. Software can be used to embed the purchaser's name, e-mail, membership number, or even computer IP address. With this written in the margin of the document the threat of embarrassment or lawsuit is significant enough to prevent unwanted dissemination.

If you need to get more technical than this please feel free to contact me. I have some very economical sources for e-book conversion, and some powerful tools for DRM.

Its your content, and that is what makes you unique. Make sure to protect it.

ePublishing

In the olden days, people would write, edit and layout text for the sole end purpose of outputting a hadcopy printed piece.












Today, a book is not even a book. A book is "content", and content may be published:


in e-mail
displayed on a web site
As a PDF
on an eReader
on a Smartphone
In a Searchable Database - build a book / custom publishing fits here
Or even a printed book!


If you have any intention of using your "content" in more than one display method, this should be evaluated AT THE VERY BEGINNING. By using Markup Languages your content can be composed once and directed to Multiple View Methods; saving time, money and opening up new options. You can later apply Digital Rights management to hinder document theft. Think from the beginning how your content may be used, and consider applying Markup Language as the layout process to make your future much easier.

Green Paper From Neenah + Free trip to Costa Rica!

To Promote their new ENVIRONMENT line of paper Neenah is running a contest. Go to:
www.neenahpaper.com/environmentcontest
to register to win a trip for two to Costa Rica. There are other prizes as well.

The ENVIRONMENT line looks very cool. The papers are 30-100% post consumer and made with 100% renewable energy. Whole Foods is highlighed in the campaign and promoting their commitment to using 100% recycled paper with a minimum of 30% post consumer. There are not a lot of these papers available. Thank you for a cool promotion Neenah!

Recordable Story Books

Imagine being a Grandparent to a child that lives far away, or a parent overseas. This is the market that Hallmark is pursuing for Grandparents Day 2010.

Grandparents day is on September 12th. As a customer of Hallmark, I received an e-mail with books in the heading. Knowing that Hallmark is an early adopter, I just checked it out, and it seems very cool.

In September there will be 12 total books available. There is a demo on the Hallmakr page. The user pages through the book, hits the record and stop buttons on each page, then when done hits the lock switch hidden beneath a screw in the battery comparment.

As the user turns the pages, the technology recognizes what page they are on and plays back the recording for that page.

This may not be a workable idea for your business, but it could be a great gift idea. Here's the link:

http://www.hallmark.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ArticleView?storeId=10001&CatIDsList=&bae=3&targetProductLine=&selectedCategory=&homeCategoryId=&campaign=T_E_M_090110_GC_VB_MainRecStory&catalogId=10051&siteID=&mailID=T_E_M_090110_GC_VB_MainRecStory&mc=&pageName=/HallmarkSite/GoldCrownStores/GCS_GIFTS_RECORDABLEBOOK&storeId=10001