A success Story:
The editorial system of tomorrow
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Arne Joramo: "We have great faith in the combination of newspaper and Net." |
Arne Joramo, editor-in-chief of Dagens Telecom, the daily Norwegian IT magazine published on the Internet, is a firm believer in the combination of traditional print and Web publishing.
The online Dagens Telecom is published in close cooperation with
its print cousin, Telecom Revy (Telecom Review),
one of Norway's leading IT publications.
A winning formula
Both publications are aimed at IT professionals, but Joramo stresses that the Daily Telecom is no mere rehash of the Telecom Review: "To attract online readers, you need a quality product."
At present, an average of 30 news items are published on the Net daily, and right from the start the Daily Telecom had no trouble attracting advertising - just three months after its launch it posted a surplus of ads.
Part of the attraction is that all its pages are designed so that adverts can be easily spotted. And thanks to its healthy advertising revenue, the future of the Internet publication looks rosy. "Already our income is higher than our month-by-month running costs," says Joramo.
A unique system: easy, powerful, flexible
According to Espen Bergh of Interface, the company who designed
and localized the Daily Telecom solution: "It is
both a Web server and a database publishing engine." Based
around the database HexBase from the German company HexMac Software Systems
(http://www.hexmac.com), other publishing companies have used
the program - but the Daily Telecom uses the very latest
version. "It really is state of the art." says Bergh.
Joramo agrees. "The editorial system we use almost automatically updates links, imports images, and inserts new sound files. Journalists don't need to work with HTML - they just place their material in a simple framework." The entire client system is run using Macintosh equipment in all vanations from Power Macintosh 9500, 8500 and 8200 to PowerBooks for use in the field. The Server is running on UNIX.
The Daily Telecom's publishing system makes it easy for QuarkXPress files to he turned into Web pages - you simply click on elements in the Quark document and they are exported into the database. The pictures are converted into jpeg or gif files and the database creates dynamic HTML per demand.
For Bergh what's also exciting about HexBase is that it supports news bureaus: "The database can import reports from agencies such as Reuters. All that remains for the editor to do is decide which files are published online.
The personal newspaper
Bergh feels that much of the praise the system has received is due to its behind-the-scenes functionality. As soon as a document is sent into the database, the text is checked and difficult words are automatically linked to explanatory text. And the readers reap benefits too: they can set up their own personal profile to receive customised information by email or fax.
Of course, this kind of dynamic Web site depends on a reliable system behind the scenes - provided by the HexBase technology. "It is an unbelievably fast system," says Joramo. "We have great faith in the combination of newspaper and Net." To see what the system can do, take a look at the end result: the Daily Telecom is at http://www.telecom.no