Are eReaders like iRex the answer to a paperless office?

June 24, 2009 by Gayle Moss

iRex Digital ReaderWell, the municipality of Hardenberg (Overijssel, the Netherlands) seems to think so. Starting Jun 22nd, 15 of their council members are issued with an iRex Digital Reader reader as a test to see if eReaders could reduce the paper flow required to prepare for council meetings. If this trial proves successful, the municipality of Hardenberg plans to fully switch to paperless meetings by April 2010. It will be the first Dutch city to completely shift to digital delivery of documents.

“It is a step that completely fits within the ambition that the city has set for itself,” said Yolanda Waaijer, Registrar of the city of Hardenberg. “Our objective is strongly focused on reducing the CO2 emission by the local government. With this step, we as a community significantly contribute toward this. It is not only the entire paper flow that can be omitted, but also the whole logistics to get the documents to the correct locations. Perhaps the biggest saving is in this last aspect, “continues Waaijer. “In addition to saving paper and reducing the environmental impacts, it also saves time. The municipality is now able to get all relevant documents to the council multiple times a day with just the press of a button”

In addition to Hardenberg, apparently there are 20 other Dutch municipalities that are involved in a test project to implement a digita reader as well.

Pretty cool idea. Imagine…a progressive government. Who would have thunk it! :) I knew there was a reason I loved The Netherlands!

Actually I have to admit, I assumed digital readers were more of a personal tool for reading books and newspapers like the 1,000+ publications you get on PressDisplay on the iRex Digital Reader (and soon Polymer Vision’s Readius). I didn’t really see digital readers as office tools. I guess I’m not as progressive as I thought I was.
iRex and Readius

Well done Hardenberg! I love the idea and can’t wait to hear how your trial progresses. Meanwhile, I’m off to see about getting digital readers for all our management meetings at NewspaperDirect. :)

Star TV interviews NewspaperDirect’s own Nikolay Malyarov

June 8, 2009 by Gayle Moss

Last week, David Owen, Senior Vice President of Publishing and Nikolay Malyarov, Director of Digital Media and Business Development from NewspaperDirect did a tour of 5 Asian countries meeting with key publishers and demonstrating PressDisplay.com on the new mobile and eReader devices.

Star TV in Malaysia was so intrigued by what David and Nikolay shared about NewspaperDirect, PressDisplay, PressReader and SmartEdition technology, they invited Nikolay to a TV interview where he could provide more background on the products and show off 1000+ publications on these latest handhelds. Check it out.

The new devices are pretty amazing and the content on them second to none, but after seeing Nikolay on TV, I almost asked him for his autograph when he arrived back to work today ;)

Gayle

New gadgets to get your news

June 8, 2009 by Gayle Moss

New gadgets to get your news

June 8, 2009 by Gayle Moss

NewspaperDirect Launches “ideas: the magazine of newspaper marketing” SmartEdition

May 14, 2009 by Gayle Moss

More good news!  Today, NewspaperDirect announced the launch of ideas: the magazine of newspaper marketing SmartEdition at the 2009 International News Media Association (INMA) World Congress in Miami.  

ideas: the magazine of newspaper marketing SmartEdition
ideas: the magazine of newspaper marketing SmartEdition

The award winning ideas magazine SmartEdition will be available to all INMA members on their PCs, Macs, smartphones, iPhones, Blackberry and iPod Touch devices, as well as the latest eReaders such as the iRex 1000 series and, soon, Polymer Vision’s Readius.

“NewspaperDirect has always been the front runner of technology and digital opportunities for newsmedia companies,” said Maria E. Terrell, Associate Director, INMA. “Our relationship spans over 10 years, and in that time, NewspaperDirect has grown with the newsmedia industry and shown newspapers how to break out of being a paper product, and become a media product.”

Here’s a short video showing just a few of the many features available  on ideas: the magazine of newspaper marketing SmartEdition.

ideas joins hundreds of other SmartEditions powered by PressDisplay technology.  Prominent titles such as: The Times, The Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, The Age, Le Figaro, The Irish Times and all Sun Media and Transcontinental titles, to name just a few.

NewspaperDirect’s expertise in Newspapers in Education has been instrumental in helping many publishers launch highly successful NIE programmes, such as: The Washington Post, New York Post, Sun Sentinel and all 11 Canwest publications, including National Post.

If you are a publisher and want to have your content everywhere for zero operational costs, just contact us at digital@newspaperdirect.com and you can have it all!

Gayle

Guardian News and Media Limited chooses NewspaperDirect for its New Guardian and Observer Digital Editions

April 6, 2009 by Gayle Moss

Back in March, you may recall seeing this post from Emily Bell on Inside Guardian.co.uk Blog called Relaunching the Guardian and Observer digital editions.  Emily spilled the beans a bit early on NewspaperDirect being the Guardian’s new digital edition provider, but today it’s official! 

The Guardian Digital Edition

The decision to outsource the development, hosting and technical support of GNM’s digital editions to NewspaperDirect was based on 3 factors: 

  1. The Guardian’s commitment to focus on editorial excellence,
  2. NewspaperDirect’s recognised leadership in the ePaper market, and
  3. NewspaperDirect’s distribution network and “no cost” business model

Check out the press release for more details. 

And for those of you who have been waiting patiently for The Guardian Domestic Edition to be on PressDisplay.com, well…your wait if finally over.   Now, you can get both The Guardian AND The Guardian International Edition on PressDisplay.com.

What a great way to start your week, eh?

Gayle

NewspaperDirect Launches Video Contest!

March 30, 2009 by Gayle Moss

Hey everyone!
Time to put your creative juices, computers and cameras to work!  NewspaperDirect has just launched a new video contest called “What could you do with a 1000 newspapers?”

What would do with a 1000 newspapers?

If you are 18 years of age or older, you can submit your 60 second video through youtube and have a chance to win some great prizes like:

  1. iRex 1000 Digital Reader
  2. iPhone
  3. Flip HD Camera
  4. PressDisplay Memberships
    The top 10 winners will also receive an unlimited one-year membership to PressDisplay.com!

All you have to do to enter is:

  1. Upload your original video (60 seconds or less) portraying “What could you do with 1000 Newspapers?” to YouTube.com
  2. Fill out the contest entry form here and include the link to your video.
  3. Tell all of your fans, friends and family to rate your video on Youtube! The highest rated videos will win the top prizes!

See how easy it is?  Contest closes June 1, 2009, so hurry up and get your entry in.  Then promote it to all your friends through email, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter or where ever your social networking takes you.

Visit our contest page to learn more.

I am really looking forward to seeing your videos!

Gayle

PressDisplay meets World Soccer Daily – a “match” made in football heaven

March 4, 2009 by Gayle Moss

I remember my dad watching soccer (AKA football) every Saturday morning on TV, and although I appreciated the energy of the game, and I played it in school, it really didn’t appeal to me as did hockey or baseball or golf.  But then again, back in those days, we didn’t have World Soccer Daily. ;)

PressDisplay and World Soccer DailyWhat is World Soccer Daily, you ask?

WSD is a radio show created in 2002 to address the demand for “informed soccer dialogue across America.” Today it is Sirius’s top rated soccer program, with hundreds of thousands of daily listeners and almost 300K daily downloads. It’s not surprising that WSD is the nation’s most recognized resource for “daily soccer information, amusement and diversion.”

Now that sounds all well and good, but “marketing speak” really doesn’t do the show justice. Let me put it this way – this show is hilarious! – even if you don’t like soccer. 

Kenny and Steven

Kenny and Steven

Hosts Steven Cohen and Kenny Hassan are certainly well versed in all things soccer, but it’s their personalities that really make this show sing.  These guys are funny!

So why am I telling you all this?  And what has this got to do with PressDisplay?

Well, Steven and Kenny discovered PressDisplay.com a while ago and they love it. They use it all the time to prepare for their broadcasts and they recently approached us about wanting to share it with their listeners.   And I am happy to say that this week, PressDisplay made its debut on WSD and it was a big hit.

Registrations have been pouring in and so are comments like these:

“Hey Steven, I’ve checked out that PressDisplay site and I have to tell you it is awesome. I’m not sure if it will be for everyone, but my family comes from Italy and I am always on Sky Italia’s website reading basic stories, and occasionally I will check out the sites of some of the Italian papers, none of those can compare to this (so far) :) This is an excellent site. I talk to my cousins and uncles who are still living in Italy, on a regular basis, and the feeling that I get from them and we all get here from reading certain articles, about the reputation the Italian media has when it comes to football is really captured by this site. This site really does make you feel like these are your own newspapers you are reading, just by making them available. I have read in Italian only so far, but if the translation is even decent, Americans will pick up that same feeling very quickly. Awesome site, great job hooking up with them. I’m sure you’ll get a bunch of fools to call or email you that the site is rubbish and you can get excerpts of those papers on websites all over, well…….screw ‘em! The site is fantastic!

“I want to thank you guys so much for bringing us PressDisplay…or maybe I should thank Derek Rae?  I was listening to the podcast on the way to my night job and totally forgot all about the new sponsor so when I heard about it, I couldn’t wait to come home and give it a try.  Man I’ve been catching up on all of my favourite teams, Club America, Barca, and Napoli.  It’s greatly informative but more importantly, I love how it’s still in newspaper layout!  Thanks bunches, WSD!”

“PressDisplay is simply the best thing since Steven donned the Shankly shirt on national television.  I quickly registered and haven’t started my day since without reading all the London dailies as well as the other UK newspapers for all the skewed insight and biased analysis of Football in England.  In just two days I will embark on the trip of a lifetime for me and I need to be apprised on all current events in the UK so I can be conversant.  PressDisplay is my Bible for these purposes.  Without boring you with too many details, I will experience what I have coined the quadruple for football supporters.  I will in just a seven day period, watch football in all four major football leagues in England.  I will on March 7th, watch League Two football at Fitness First Stadium in Bournemouth to watch AFC Bournemouth vs. Port Vale, head up to Livepool on Sunday, Monday give a talk to the youth team at Kirkby, Tuesday Champions League Football at Anfield[I realize this isn't technically EPL but since Liverpool are in the league, I'm counting it], Wednesday League One , Tranmere Rovers vs. Leicester City at Prenton Park, and finally on Saturday next the Championship, Wolves vs. Charlton at Molineux.  Unbelievable opportunity for me and thanks to PressDisplay I can be conversant with my mates in England by time I get there.”

Well, looks like we have some pretty happy soccer fans at PressDisplay!  And here’s one that is even happier.  Dan from Santa Cruz just won a 1 year personal unlimited subscription to PressDisplay.com by answering today’s trivia question on WSD.

We’ll announce new winners every week, so why not listen in to Steven and Kenny, have a few laughs, phone in to talk to them and try your luck at their trivia question.   To learn more about how to listen in or download their podcasts, visit their website.

I’m listening to Monday’s show right now, before I tune into the live show at 10 AM PST.

I love my job!

Gayle

PressDisplay on the coolest gadget at O’Reilly’s TOC conference

February 12, 2009 by Gayle Moss

Readius and iRex at TOCHave you been following O’Reilly’s Tools of Change for Publishing conference?  Well if you have and you are also  a Twitterer, then you’ve probably seen a ton of tweets flashing by – all with their #TOC tags. 

Well, today you’ll probably see our press release announcing our new our new iPhone Application that will soon been released and  this article by Robert Ivan of Metaprinter.  Robert wrote a post saying that the coolest gadget he saw at the show was not the hyped-up Plastic Logic Reader (he said every working model had terrible verticle lines on the screens), but the Readius device our own Igor Smirnoff was demonstrating at the PressDisplay booth.

He said as soon as Igor pulled it out, within seconds people started to gather round. I’m not surprised, its foldable screen is pretty amazing.

Anyway, check out the post.  Robert gives you a lot more details about the device and even a video.

Gayle

The e-Reader Tipping Point – Is it already here?

February 10, 2009 by Gayle Moss

e-ink on Minority ReportIt’s been 7 years since Stephen Spielberg introduced movie goers to e-ink in his sci-fi thriller, “Minority Report”. Back then it seemed a bit far fetched to think that people would ever read a newspaper on an e-Reader. But some pioneers took heart and we started to see e-Readers (in primitive form) hit the market a few years later.

Today, everyone seems to be in the game. And the excitement has fueled publishers of books, magazines and newspapers all over the world to get their content on these hot new devices as fast as they can.

This week O’Reilly is sponsoring a conference called Tools of Change for Publishers and the buzz  is all about e-Readers. Amazon announced a new release of Kindle, but it’s still limited by its primitive RSS interface.  It’s really too bad – they just don’t seem to get it.  Kindle is fine for books I guess, but it sure can’t give readers what they want from the news.  Website RSS feed content doesn’t cut it – people want all of the newspaper content in the palm of their hands. 

Meanwhile, other folks are trying to get on the bandwagon by announcing they will support devices that won’t hit the market for another 12-18 months!   They have nothing to offer but hope, but that doesn’t seem to stop them from  making a lot of noise.   ;)

PressDisplay on iRexHowever, despite the fact that some manufacturers are struggling to get their devices out the door, today, we are already seeing some pretty amazing technology being used by people who want all the paper without all the paper.

Take the iRex for example.  We announced support of the iRex DR 1000 before it hit the market last year and we just announced new features on it.  And then there is PolymerVision’s Readius device – we are demonstrating PressDisplay on it this week in NYC.  Our iPhone Application will be released in a matter of weeks.

NewspaperDirect has seen an incredible shift in the attitudes of publishers who once thought e-ink was a fad, but now understand that this technology is the way of the future.   They also understand that people really do want to read their publications on small devices like the iPhone.   The numbers speak for themselves and are growing monthly.  We have thousands of subscribers accessing PressDisplay on their iPhones and iPod Touch devices everyday.

iPhone PressReader ApplicationYes, the tipping point in e-reading technology is just around the corner, if it’s not already here.  And at NewspaperDirect, we’re ready for it.  We have engineered our PressDisplay and SmartEdition ePaper technology so that the moment a device is announced in the market, we’re already on it!  

We’ve made a promise to newspaper, magazine and book publishers that we will continue to offer their full-content publications on devices that are designed to support what people really want – all the content anywhere, anytime, any way.  And what that means is that their content will be monetizable AND it won’t cost our publishers a dime!  Our “zero cost” business model makes it all possible.

Yes, there is so much exciting news in the publishing market today.  They key thing is to know what’s real and what’s vaporware.   But let me clearly state right here, “The buzz at NewspaperDirect is not just noise – we’re the real deal.”

If you are a publisher and want to learn more, contact us at digital@newspaperdirect.com.  And if you want to try PressDisplay.com to learn what all the buzz is about and enjoy your favorite publications anywhere, anytime, any way,  just register here using offer code e-Reader for a full month FREE, compliments of NewspaperDirect.

Gayle