Telephone interview with Igor Smirnoff, Director of Strategic Development for PressDisplay.com

With sustainability and environmental issues dominating business strategy these days I became interested in what types of applications were available to newspaper publishers to reduce their carbon footprint. I discovered NewspapersDirect and their Smart Edition ePaper solution. Smart Edition is a version of their PressDisplay.com offering for newspaper publishers to serve up PDF versions of their content online.

In the past I have been critical of newspapers simply digitizing their newspaper and putting it online. I feel this is an under-utilization of the capabilities which the internet and high speed broadband connections offer. I was skeptical of this application, but wanted to learn more about their technology which is more dynamic than a simple reader.

I asked for and received a temporary account to PressDisplay.com and dove in to check the offerings of their technology. Readers by the way can also do this by following THIS link, clicking next, and typing “be green” as the promotional code.

Right off the bat I’m impressed by the newspaper offerings. There are over 700 titles from over 106 countries available for reading, cover to cover. Here is the really neat par. The entire newspaper, advertisements and all, is capable of being searched for keywords just like you would on Google or any other search engine. Also, any email address, phone number, or link is live should you want to utilize those things. Even better, if you have Skype you can click on the phone number and make a call!

I set up a profile, made a few comments on articles, and read a few newspapers from around the world. Another neat feature is the ability to have any news story read to you in its original language. The English voice sounded a little like Stephen Hawking, but if you listen to other languages the tone and inflection changes. This is a pretty cool feature if you are using your mobile device to access the paper. You don’t have to strain your eyes on a small screen.

Meta: Who is your target audience? Your software is quite powerful and the access to over 700 global newspapers seems too much for the average person.

Igor: Our site is useful to anyone, but we target unique markets that are underserved by traditional publishers. We target cruise lines, hotels, libraries, universities, and government institutions. Our delivery system is more cost effective and less impactful on the environment than traditional print and delivery systems. We have also partnered with 1200 commercial print installations around the world to serve up the content in a larger format.

Meta: What about revenue streams? How do you generate money?

Igor: Our service is subscriber based. Our PDF’s are to Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) standards so publishers can count their ePaper toward their circulation figures. We have our own advertising platform called Adget which is an advertising widget. Participating advertisers can make their print ads dynamic with video, pictures, audio, and interactive contact capability like email and telephone. Adget is an up-sell for us. We also make money on royalties through revenue sharing with publishers every time someone views a page past page one. Our service is free to publishers. All we ask is that they provide us with a standard, readable PDF in a timely fashion. Often we put up content before it is even printed.

Another part of calculating readership is a reading application which tracks where on a page users are reading. The mapping technology and an algorithm calculates where the user is spending their time. The information is quite useful and the publishers love this kind of data they could never get with their paper product. (Author’s note. See the image below for an example of the reader tracking in action. The color coding is for illustration purposes only and the reader never sees anything.)

Meta: Anything interesting come from that data?

Igor: Yes, readers spend a tremendous amount of time where there are NO advertisements like the letters to the editor pages, comics, and puzzles. It’s up to the publisher to capitalize on this data

Meta: Does your service compete with online news aggregators like Google News?

Igor: Google news almost never offers up all the content that was in the days publication. We have an exact PDF of the printed newspaper and our world-wide print installations, so we feel that they do not, can not, compete with us.

Meta: Tell me about your “Green” initiative.

Igor: We see our product as an environmentally friendly alternative to a traditional printed publication (I say publication because we are offering up not just newspapers but magazines like Billboard and Hollywood Reporter). For example; Publishers can use our platform to deliver their Newspapers In Education (NIE) newspapers to schools. This saves on consumables and reduces the carbon footprint of the newspaper publisher.

On the upper right hand corner of the home page you will see a “Trees Saved” widget that shows how many trees were saved by utilizing our product versus the original newspaper.

Meta: What else?

Igor: We’re not only online, we also have an offline program for your computer and have mobile applications for the Apple IPhone, Blackberry, and others. The most exciting thing is going to be our application for the pocket eReader Readius. The reader will be available by the end of next month and is being launched in Italy. Check this thing out!!!

From Polymer Vision‘s website: The 3.5G HSDPA tri-band phone allows worldwide high speed instant updates from personally selected news sources, special services and email. The Micro SD High Capacity storage ensures easy access to other favorite information and eBooks. Readius® also features phone as well as audio capabilities (such as MP3) forpodcasts, audio books and music.

Readers can go to PressDisplay.com and view the front page of any news story for free, Just like if you walked by a news-stand or kiosk. To go past the front page you need to be a subscriber. Their packages run from $9.95 a month for a personal subscription to over $200 a month for a corporate subscription. Remember to use the “go green” promo code for a free taste of the offerings.

Meta: Thanks for the interview!

Igor: Thank YOU!! and check out PressDisplay.com