At its MAX 2010 worldwide conference in LA this week, Adobe will unveil its Digital Publishing Suite, a set of turnkey hosted services that will allow publishers to more easily create robust, interactive digital publications. The Digital Publishing Suite has already been used to create the iPad edition of Wired and The New Yorker.
The Digital Publishing Suite will let publishers create, produce, distribute and monetize their digital magazines and content across different devices and marketplaces. The App Store is obviously the biggest target of the Digital Publishing Suite right now, but the platform is designed in such a way that it is easy to target multiple marketplaces at once.
As we reported last week, the early sales numbers from various iPad magazines are still a mixed bag. The publications that sell the best tend to be those that offer the best experiences. But unless publishers work with a company like ScrollMotion, it can be difficult to integrate interactive and digital components into an existing publishing workflow.
We spoke with Adobe about the Digital Publishing Suite to get a sense of how the platform works and what publishers and content creators can do with the toolkit.
The system is designed to integrate well into existing workflows. If a publisher or content creator already uses Creative Suite — in particular, InDesign — integration should be really simple.
The Digital Publishing Suite is an add-on that will let publishers assemble editorial and advertising pages and then preview and test complete issues, including interactive elements. Now that Apple has lifted its ban on using third-party cross-compilers, Flash-generated interactions and animations can be inserted into digital publications. At the export stage, this code — whether it was created using SVG, Flash animation or something else — will then be cross-compiled into something native for the iPad.
Issues can be previewed both in InDesign, an iPhone or iPad simulator, or on testing hardware units.
As useful as having a tool to create *.IPA files within InDesign is, where we think Adobe has a real edge for its platform is in its distribution and monetization server.
Easy to Publish and Distribute
Publishers can store and host publication files after they have been created — sending them to others for review or pushing them out “live” to an app marketplace. Files can also be pushed out across platforms, so if you are targeting a number of different marketplaces or screen sizes, you can potentially publish to multiple platforms at once.
The platform also allows publishers to make issues either available for single purchase in the store or via an in-app purchase option (the way that the Wired and The New Yorker apps work). Once an update is pushed live, users who already have the main app installed will be notified that a new issue is available and they can then purchase and download the issue.
The system also supports subscription options — something the iPad doesn’t yet support, but that analysts expect to appear soon.
Analytics Galore
Last year, Adobe purchased analytics platform Omniture for $1.8 billion. Adobe has integrated Omniture’s analytics system into the Digital Publishing Suite, giving publishers access to real-time analytics for their digital content.
Using Omniture Online Marketing Suite, publishers and editors can look at how people are reading and interacting with their digital content. This is hugely valuable for both advertisers and from an editorial standpoint as well.
Adobe showed us a demonstration of the analytics panel, and it was fascinating to see a breakdown of how users interacted with a sample piece of content — what pages were visited first or in succession, the average time spent on a page or an article, what videos were watched, and so on.
In the print world, publishers are really more in the dark. Other than mentions of specific articles or spreads in letters to the editor, it’s difficult to tell what pieces readers are engaging with most.
Publishers can also use the analytics information to determine what kinds of ads work best in certain areas of the publication. If a certain ad placement isn’t working, it can be adjusted on the fly.
Pricing and Availability
Adobe plans to commercialize these services in the second quarter of 2011. However, professional publishers can immediately start to distribute and monetize their content by joining the pre-release program. The pre-release program will let publishers create and commercially deploy their publications.
If you aren’t ready to sign on to the pre-release program, but you want to check out the toolset, Adobe has also made its production and distribution tools available in Adobe Labs. The desktop tools include two Adobe Air applets and an InDesign CS5 plug-in.
Adobe will be offering two different versions of the Digital Publishing Suite:
- Professional Edition — $699 per month plus a per-issue fee. The monthly fee is charged per publisher or company, so if you publish multiple titles you don’t have to pay more than once. The per-issue fee varies on volume. For pay-as-you-go titles, it’s $0.30 an issue with no upfront commitment. That price decreases at higher annual volumes.
- Enterprise Edition — This is custom quote depending on the needs of the end-user. It offers the ability to extend the Adobe Viewer via an SDK and to integrate into other third-party services.
Huge Potential
One of the real standout aspects of iOS, Android and other mobile computing platforms is the relatively low barrier of entry. Middle school students are creating hit iPhone games and tiny startups are creating apps that go on to sell millions of copies.
Thanks to desktop publishing tools, the barriers to creating professional content and layouts have really been reduced. With the App Store, and mobile devices and tablets, the distribution barrier is also breaking down, allowing more publishers — big and small — to get their content onto digital devices.
Reviews: Android, App Store, adobe AIR
More About: adobe, adobe digital publishing suite, digital magazines, digital publishing, InDesign, ipad, ipad magazines, media
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