NEXPO Preview, Nos. 17-34

17. Creative Circle Advertising Services: “It takes more than just an on-line form to replace the kind of customer service newspaper sales reps provide.” That was said by Bill Ostendorf, a longtime newspaper executive and consultant who decided that he better build that something more, because he couldn’t find it elsewhere. Called adQ Intelligent Classifieds, the system helps customers write “effective ads” in addition to handling photo upload. The help comes in the form of both drop-down menus that walk the customer through the process, as well as a set of tips and a glossary to help with those descriptive terms that frequently elude customers. (Oh, and if you want your newspaper redesigned, Ostendorf has done more than 100; I’m sure he’d be willing to chat about that too.) (401) 277-4817; e-mail: bill@creativecirclemedia.com.

18. Creo: A couple of new products highlight the offerings of this provider of image output systems, including the Synapse Newsmanager, the company’s new automated newspaper production workflow system that’s based on software Creo acquired earlier this year from HiT Software of Italy; it is “scalable” and focused completely on newspapers. Also new in the booth will be the Trendsetter News SA, a new version of the company’s thermal CTP imager. It is a semi-automatic device with a small footprint and includes the company’s Square spot imaging system that allows for staccato screening. Models range in speed from 50 plates per hour to 200 plates per hour. (978) 439-7000; e-mail:paul.willis@creo.com.

19. Data Sciences Inc.: A reputation for good products and solid customer service led Knight Ridder, Journal Register Co. and Media General to all standardize all their papers on the DSI suite of business applications, including circulation — which optionally includes end-user (subscribers, carriers or dealers) Internet access to the system on a publication-defined basis — and ad order entry, contract compliance, credit analysis, production requirements and billing and pre-print management. Oh, and besides KR, JRC and MG, the Washington Post and the Dallas Morning News are also customers. (301) 957-0100; e-mail: sales@data-sci.com.

20. Digital Technology International: There are many enhancements to the company’s editorial product, including the BudgetCenter.

20. Digital Technology International: Way back when — like when computers used the C/PM operating system and Don Oldham and I were young men — DTI provided business system software to its newspaper clients. Oldham, patriarch of DTI, eventually dropped the product because nobody was interested. Well, that was then and this is now and now everybody wants business systems. But rather than resurrecting his old product, Oldham hooked up with SAP, the big German provider of enterprise software. The result is DTI Nexus, which is SAP’s applications tied real-time to DTI’s advertising system for small and mid-sized newspapers. Information is kept in sync between the two systems using a DTI-built component and DTI provides the industry-specific knowledge (though SAP is also at NEXPO on its own at Booth 3247, where it will tout its SAP for Media and its relationship with the Washington Post). DTI Nexus provides accounting, billing, circulation, customer relationship management, business warehouse, human resources and enterprise resource planning functions. Additionally, the company’s traditional ’Speed products are all getting upgrades, with ClassSpeed getting a new user interface. (801) 853-5000; e-mail: dtinfo@dtint.com.

21. ECRM: NEWSmatic is a fully automated CTP system that runs at 80 pages per hour and costs less than $95,000.

21. ECRM: Absent from NEXPO for the last few years, this maker of imaging devices is back and is showing its Newsmatic, a fully automated CTP system that runs at 80 pages per hour. Using violet imaging technology, the machine is adjustable to any one of eight resolutions up to 2540 dpi. Priced at less than $95,000, it’s sure to attract mid-sized and big papers. If that’s a little rich for your blood, the ECRM News Ctp is similar to the Newsmatic, but runs a little less than $60,000. For the savings you’ll have to load the plates by hand. (978) 851-0207; e-mail: sales@ECRM.com.

22. eMeta Corp.: A little side project on web sites caused me to realize how fraught with peril it is to attempt to provide customers with single sign-on; one of the many things that eMeta offers is RightAccess, a system that supports web user registration, single-sign-on and web content access. The company also provides RightCommerce, which is a billing system for on-line content and services (another area in which the neophyte should not tread heavily). Lastly, there is eRightsWEB, a service bureau (aka application service provider, aka ASP) environment for both RightAccess and RightCommerce. Customers include the New York Times and Knight Ridder Digital. (212) 925-3656; e-mail: info@emeta.com.

23. Gannett Media Technologies International: The Advanced Media Processor may not be new — it was first shown at the last NEXPO — but it’s still a great idea. AMP is designed to streamline the process of archiving digital media assets. Now, that may sound like a yawner to you, but the folks who run your library will prick up their ears when they hear about it. The workflow tool is a front-end to Gmti’s Digital Collections archiving system and it has been installed at the Cincinnati Enquirer and Michigan’s Kalamazoo Gazette and is on-deck at a handful of other places. It will make the library work more efficiently. How efficiently? The designers think that it will halve the time to prep material for archiving. Oh, and the best part: if you own a Digital Collections system, the product is free (though they’ll charge you to fly out to install it). (513) 665-3777; e-mail: gmti-info@gmti.gannett.com.

24. Harris & Baseview: Few would have believed that this was going to work out, but with Harris taking the upper end of the market and Baseview the lower end (they apparently duke-it-out for the mid-sized papers), the company appears successful and has all the bases covered. New for NEXPO 2004 is a new IQue Server (editorial aimed at smaller papers) that runs on both Windows and Mac OS X and is now InDesign CS compatible. The Jazbox product (aimed for bigger newsrooms) now sports OnePlan, a budgeting and resource system, which includes a calendar and contact tool, in addition to an assignment system (oh, and the JazBox page-design client is now available for OS X). The company’s service bureau business, Bits, has a new calendar module and AdPower (the advertising system aimed at the bigger papers) has a redesigned interface. Who said that they’d never get along? (321) 242-4110; e-mail: marketing@harrisbaseview.com.

25. IPIX AdMission: Transient advertisers can load their own pictures with AdMission.

25. IPIX AdMission: The provider of photo uploading services has become so taken with the newspaper business that it has set up a new division to handle us. Ipix AdMission Classifieds gives consumers a “fast and intuitive interface” to getting photos from their hard drives and to your classified section. The system provides automatic imaging sizing and color correction features and the photos are stored in one of the many Ipix data centers (the company got its start in this business by providing eBay with a picture uploading and storage service). The AdMission Classifieds product can be purchased directly from Ipix or you can get it as an option with any one of many fine suppliers of classified front-end systems. (925) 242-4021; e-mail: rimfire@ipix.com.

26. ISV GmbH: New to the U.S. market (and hence, new to NEXPO), ISV is a 15-year veteran of the classified ad systems business, albeit mostly in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. But sales into Trader Publications, Bargain Finder and Recycler Classifieds (a division of the Los Angeles Times) have given the company the confidence to roll out its product here. The Avus 21 system provides all the features necessary in an advertising system, from ad order entry to pagination. Additionally, the system is Web-savvy and has “powerful” reporting features, including customer and financial tracking. In an age where all the suppliers are stampeding to become full soup-to-nuts providers, here is one that is proud to say that it “highly specialized.” {011} 49 305 34333; e-mail: info@isv-gmbh.de.

27. Mactive Inc.: New to the industry’s leading provider of classified ad systems is Campaign Manager, a module that supports establishing and monitoring a sales campaign, with letters, e-mails and/or faxes to potential customers. The module coordinates ad rates with the overall system and allows for follow-up activities and detail analysis. Also new this year is an automatic adjustment manager, an automatic collections interface and e-mail notification and alerts. Set to be rolled out later this year is the new fielded data function, which allows ads to be handled in a more granular way, both in print and on-line. (321) 254-5559; e-mail: sales@mactive.com.

28. Mainstream Data Inc.: Back in the old days (i.e.: when I started out in newspapers), knowledge of an important story breaking was achieved in one of two ways — either the corner pub emptied out in 30 seconds or the bells on the wire machines rang. Today, it’s a little more complex. Everybody is a syndicate, everybody a wire service. Stories — important ones you’d like to get into the paper — come whizzing by your head and you’re ducking so as to not get hit, thereby missing said important story. Mainstream Data has been providing the financial types with news and financial data aggregating for years and is now providing that technology to newspapers. Its NewsView advanced content filtering, alerting and display application helps you find and capture those big stories before they hit you in the head — and before the bells on the wire machines ring. (801) 584-2800; e-mail: info@mainstreamdata.com.

29. Managing Editor Inc.: Over the last decade-and-a-half, one of the great ironies of this business has been that a company called “Managing Editor” basically had no editorial software. No more: with K4 Publishing System (MEI is the U.S. distributor of the German InDesign-InCopy-based product), TruEdit (an InCopy plug-in), SLS (Shared Layout System) and Quicksilver (enterprise production hub), the company now has solid editorial and advertising offerings. New versions of the company’s Roundhouse ad tracking application (for Mac and Windows) and ClassForce 3.5 for OS X (classified page layout) — not to mention Fido (a finder of links for InDesign CS documents) and Fifi (same deal, Quark XPress 6) — are going to be there, but it’s the SLS and Quicksilver stuff you’re going to see. (215) 886-5662; e-mail: info@maned.com.

30. Mediaspectrum Inc.: So, you’ve got your legacy advertising system over here, and your customers spending money with Google AdSearch over there; how do you link the two? How do you track ads in the complex work environment today? How do you handle call center, electronic proofing or digital ad verification? All these questions and more can be answered with EngineBridge, Mediaspectrum’s “ad services platform,” say the company’s executives. Though a first-time NEXPO exhibitor, the curriculum vitae of the management team looks like Old Home Week: OpenPages, Issi (the old IBM unit dedicated to media), Cowles Publications. Go in and kick the tires. (781) 685-4648; e-mail: info@mediaspectrum.net.

31. MerlinOne Inc.: The trick of being a mature company in this business is to be willing to turn the business on a dime. MerlinOne, which started life as a company selling image scanners connected to transportable computers, has changed direction a couple of times, now concentrating on full-service archiving systems and electronic tearsheets. New this year is E-Sheets Central Exchange, what the company calls “the long-sought Super-Site.” With a single sign-on, advertisers see their pages and information across all their agencies and newspapers; agencies see their data across all advertisers and newspapers, and corporate groups can see all their papers at once. Pretty nifty. (617) 328-6645; e-mail: info@merlinone.com.

32. Modulo Systems Corp.: For the first few years of its life, Modulo had to work with its hands tied behind its back (long story; ask President Lee Silverman to tell you all about it). Now its hands are free and Modulo — in partnership with Ixiasoft are using NEXPO 2004 to introduce Concerto, a “next-generation publishing and content management system.” Based on Ixiasoft’s XML prowess and Modulo’s long understanding of publishing, Concerto offers web-browser administration, a choice of either Adobe or Quark word processing and page layout, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Internet Information Services and integration with existing Quark Publishing Systems and Gadgets (the company’s existing classified advertising system). And, as the guy on late-night TV says: but wait, there’s more! The company will also introduce a new advertising system called Symphonia, which presumably will be integrated with Concerto. (617) 234-4414; e-mail: info@modulosystems.com.

33. net-linx: After last January’s licensing of technology from Seinet Group of Spain, net-linx brings forth at this NEXPO a new nxEditorial system, based on J2EE (Java) and XML that “represents an extremely low total cost of ownership.” The system is based on browser clients (solves that nasty cross-platform problem), uses concurrent licensing and Open Source software (hence the low cost), includes integrated workflow and output production management and has web publishing features including a “pay-per-view” option (your visitors get one type of content; your paid subscribers another). Also new at this NEXPO will be nxAdSmart, a management tool for ad makeup production departments. (916) 830-2400; e-mail: info@net-linx.com.

34. NewsEngin Inc.: The latest/greatest includes an instant messaging system for editorial communication.

34. NewsEngin Inc.: Former newsroom guys. Smart. Open Source Software. Must see. For a good time, call (636) 537-8548; e-mail: jim@newsengin.com.

From THE COLE PAPERS , June 2004, Copyright © 2004, All Rights Reserved.