I have updated the Acrobat Services UK site with a report on a talk about the web and newspapers by Alan Rusbridger, editor of the UK Guardian. This seems to have been intended for 'the blogosphere' without reaching UK newspaper readers. There is a claim that the New York Times has taken a wrong turn in charging for their 'comment' web pages.'Comment is Free', the new Guardian project presented as a group blog, is presumably intended to reach a wider audience so the advertising income may end up greater than would have come from subscriptions. Unfortunately the contributors don't seem to understand what a blog is. Most copy seems to be simply moved over from the print version. Readers are adding comments but there is rarely a response from the original writer. Jeff Jarvis is an exception to this. His printed coloumns benefit from covering topics previously explored online. This week he defines the nature of a blog in light of the discussion around Arianna Huffington's creation of a George Clooney 'blog' from various sources. Jarvis insists that a blog is 'a person in conversation', that 'transparency is our highest virtue' and then quotes the Cluetrain Manifest0- "The internet is enabling conversations among human beings that were simply not possible in the era of mass media."

So 'Comment is Free' could gain stregth through conversations rather than celebrity links.

My current concern is to get some sort of statement from Guardian staff explaining how they see the finances of a 'news organisation' based online and in print. The coverage of newspapers in MediaGuardian largely ignores web finances. This week (Mar 27) there is a (largely sympathetic) look at the Independant that mentions the 266,075 print circulation but has nothing about the website at all. An interview with John Micklethwaite, editor of the Economist, suggests that the online challenge has not hit magazines as directly as newspapers. The print magazine will remain the basic Economist product during John Micklethwaite's editorship. Interviewer Maggie Brown writes that this is estimated to imply the next ten years.

Victor Keegan has contributed comment on the book industry, seeing some advantages in the scanning project from Google. As of the weekend 'Comment is Free' did not include his comment on Citizen Journalism from Thursday. Maybe Technology Comment is not thought to be of general interest. At some point he could write about newspapers as well.

Last year Jeff Jarvis wrote in his Buzzmachine blog about a quote from Alan Rusbridger on the Man Roland printing machines purchased by the Guardian for the new Berliner format. "These may be the last presses we ever own." The direct quote was not included in the print version published in MediaGuardian, but the implication was explored for 'news organisations', publishing through various nedia.

This blog is about IPEX so one question is how long the Man Roland kit can be expected to lat. Spare parts may be available for ten or twenty years. This could be checked out in Birmingham from 4th April. Adobe and others will be using the term 'pre-media' as well as 'pre-press'. MediaGuardian reports on IPEX may include some informed evaluation of how 'news organisation' finances will work out.

I will snd in reports from IPEX to OhmyNews as a citizen reporter. The international English language version of OhmyNews is not on the scale of the Korean base, as reported recently by MediaGuardian. But in my opinion it maintains a high standard of reporting, especially about the social effect of technology. I find it encouraging as a context. Broadband is already assumed in Korea and has been for some years. this helps in imagining future developments in the UK.

Meanwhile the Guardian seems to be dismissive of 'citizen journalism'. Ian Mayes may be confusung this with 'witness reporting'. As Readers' Editor he writes about the Guardain picture editor's use of a photo from the public via Sky News to illustrate a heath fire in Dorset. Later study revealed the animals in the picture to be elk, rarely seen in Dorset. Apparently the photo was actually from Mintana in 2000. Sky pulled it as soon as it wqas established as ahoax. Ian Mayes reports that the Guardian picture editor has claimed this incident "points up a problem with citizen journalism". Picture agencies have rules about passing pictures off as something they are not. "There are no such rules for the citizen".

This statement is apparently ignorant of how a citizen journalism site such a sOhmyNews actually operates. There are editors and fact checkers. The citizen reporters appreciate the process and want to make an accurate contribution. The mainstream media practice os using occasional free of charge photographs is something rather different.

So there could be some clarification of the terms "witness contribution", "citizen journalism", "blogging". During IPEX there could be some exchange of views around this. It is clear that changes in media are happening alongside changes in content. Available print technology is a large factor in this.

Xerox have started up a blog for IPEX

http://www.inthebalanceblog.com/blog/2006/03/welcome.html

They even have a link to this blog. Definitely a breakthrough.

I can't work out how to post a new topic yet but comments can be added.

They also link to Andrew Tribute's blog page. Still nothing there. Maybe some of his writing will turn up on the Xerox blog instead.

Can't find any blog by Andrew Tribute yet. He used to do one and another special for Drupa. Nothing on the main site or where the blog used to be.

This makes things more difficult for other bloggers. It was possible just to lift his words and add some form of agreement.

However, there is a quote as part of the agenda for a Xerox open forum at IPEX -

"The health of graphic communications companies today is dependent on many factors in addition to ink on paper, such as declining marketing budgets and the growth of integrated communications vehicles," said noted industry analyst Andrew Tribute, president of Attributes Associates. "It is critical that IPEX attendees take the larger economic and business environment into account and apply the lessons they will learn from this must-see event."

You know something? Maybe he has got a point.

"integrated communications vehicles"
what is that all about?

I am thinking about two articles for OhmyNews around IPEX, one as it starts and one towards the end. Adobe is still the most interesting stand although there is almost no information about it so far. In 2002 I did a story on the Acrobat Services website about Adobe reducing their space. As far as I know they have not really had a stand either at IPEX 2002 or the most recent Drupa. It is possible they have taken space this time as there is something to announce.

Whether this is so or not, I think Adobe is a useful reference point to show the context in which the print industry is operating. Sometimes it seems that hard copy is no longer interesting for Adobe. It seems to me that most energy is now concentrating on Flash ( see story in OhmyNews ). Maybe one pressure is that the original pre-press functionality around PDF is now available from a variety of suppliers. The PDF-X standards really are open in the sense that there is a choice in how to create them. Adobe have some good pre-press features in Acrobat 7 but it is not their main business and other suppliers update more frequently and offer dedicated and consistent service.

I am still puzzled as to how the 'classic publishing' business unit is supposed to work from India. Do they have a marketing budget? How will this be spent? will they be at IPEX? ( see my story at IP3 )

From the few clues available it seems that the Creative Suite will be a feature. Adobe is now divided into business units with a clearly defined customer focus in each case. Sometimes the paper aspect seems to have gone from the Creative Suite view of things. Flash for the mobile phone appears to be much more interesting.

Still today I found a statement by Shantanu Narayen on the occasion of John Loiacono being appointed as senior vice president, Creative Solutions.

"As we build out the Adobe Engagement Platform, centered around PDF and Flash, our creative products ensure that the content our customers produce will look its best, whether its on the printed page, an interactive web site or a mobile phone."

At least the printed page is in there somewhere.

Meanwhile it is still Quark where there is most promotion for creating JDF from the desktop. The 'jobjackets' are another name for JDF files as far as I can see. Long ago I though of JDF as similar to PDF in that it allowed someone with a persoanl computer to create a job bag as well as a page description. Now it seems that someone else sets up constraints through a job jacket so that the Quark page is created as expected. The control and responsibility is getting complicated. Presumably a print customer and a service provider can communicate to set up a suitable system.

Things are not well explained. At Drupa Adobe seemed to be very tentative about JDF in Acrobat 7 and there was little information on how this would work with InDesign.

Reviewing QuarkXpress 7 in Image Reports, Simon Eccles wrote "the virtually automatic implementation of JDF is streets ahead of Adobe, which has no equivalent in inDesign, just a badly explained ability to generate and attach JDF Job Tickets via Acrobat." so things have now got any better.

Unfortunately there are still some issues with QuarkXpress 7. Nessan Cleary wrote in Print and Paper Monthly "In theory, the Job Jackets are an excellent idea, but an idea that has been so poorly thought out and the interface very badly executed that it is enormously confusing."

So JDF is possible from the desktop, but not obvious. The second article towards the end of IPEX is intended to have some better explanation on this.

Writing in Printweek (16 March) Lawrence Wallis seems to see "e-trade" (interaction and communication) as a different topic to production automation which is where JDF comes in. I still think it is possible for JDF to be part of what the print customer is aware of. They will expect to be able to load a PDF directly to a website and to write a blog or comment. JDF is just another XML open source application so it need not be a mystery. This is actually fairly urgent for print in general as the web offer is getting easier to use.


By the way,
Print and Paper Forum, JDF topic

I may have reached a limit on what can be said through contributions to Guardian Talk and 'Comment is Free'. The immediate problem is a lack of feedback on circulation numbers for the 'digital editions'. It could be that by working more on this blog I could get more attention and some answers from other sources.

I have contributed to Talk topics on OhmyNews and the PDF versions of the Guardian.

And another thing. The Guardian still seems to be ambiguous in support for 'citizen journalism', reader feedback etc. Inside the Media jobs section today is hidden a section on 'Changing Media', ahead of a conference. It includes some opinion about 'citizen journalism' sharing characteristics with the Beast of Bodmin Moor. "It's out there...but so far nobody's seen much of it."

Neil McIntosh later states as fact that the international edition of Ohmynews "has had less success" than the base in Korea. Full disclosure, as Jeff Jarvis would say, I am a contributor to the English language OhmyNews and I consider it a great success for what interests me. It probably only has a few hundred citizen journalists, not tens of thousands, but it has a global balance that I don't find elesewhere. There may be more journalism students than might be expected from a random sample of citizens, but this also results in a discussion on web media that is remarkably informed.

It was recently announced that Softbank, a Tokyo-based technology and Internet investment firm, will invest $11 million in OhmyNews through a new international company. Some of the investment will be used for TV in Korea, some for a site in Japan using the same approach for 'citizen journalism'. The aim is to reach 40,000 contributors, the same number as in Korea. Following this investment, Softbank will own 12.95 percent of OhmyNews.

So my guess is that the next international phase will concentrate on Japan but there will still be more to say about the English language version.

Tempted to steal several thousand words from Martin Jacques at this point, but here is a link instead.

One thing I like about OhmyNews is that my reports end up on Google News as well. I have previously written reports for Acrobat Services websites, UK and .com , but these are mostly ignored by the US search engines. PlanetPDF and PDFzone are the best sources, they get interviews as well. Another problem is that less than 20% of the people visiting the UK site are from the UK, even though there is a front page suggesting the .com site instead.

Following the forum last year, OhmyNews published my story about the print aspects of online publishing. Both WikiNews and OhmyNews actually still use hard copy on occasions.

My main story on the UK Acrobat Services site has been about the 'digital editions' of UK newspapers. The ABC did issue rules for including information on the main certificates. But no UK newspaper has 'opted in'. My guess is that the numbers are still fairly small. And there still seems to be a block on publicising the existence of PDF and JPEG as a route to photography and illustration. Maybe they think that if nobody knows about this then the print will survive. I fear the actual consequence will be more websites like the current ones, based on text surrounded by Flash adverts. The option of subscription income for better content may not be working but it is not really tried out either in terms of promotion.

And now some direct quotes from the main Media pages. Kim Fletcher explains why proper journalists, the kind used to print, are worried about the idea of 'integration'. He appears to think that Rupert Murdoch cannot wite his own speeches and then speculates on which bits were written by a journalist. Not this, for example - "As long as news organisations create must-read, must-have content, and deliver it in the medium that suits the reader, they will endure." Personally I can't see a problem in understanding what this means.

Fletcher is also disturbed by a quote from a source at the Telegraph.

"We are now doing everything we can to take our content and well-respected brand into any distribution mechanism there is. We are the most successful newspaper podcasting organisation going. We must now embrace a state of perpetual change."

Fletcher comments

"No wonder journalists at the group are getting nervous. Managements need to be clear about where they are going and how they intend to get there."

So in the great mix of fact and comment, it is posible that this management clarity will come first and then circulation numbers will come later that allow a business model to be constructed. Meanwhile most of the writing about news organisations is completely missing the point, though great to read of course.

Over the next month or so I will be concentrating on IPEX and the print industry. I think the print media are a large part of this.

Before the London Book Fair there was an article in the Guardian Saturday Review objecting to Google Books and making content available online. See previous post. As I reported on OhmyNews, at the actual event the Google stand was busy and there was no sign of support for a boycott. A fortnight later the Bookseller summary reported that Taylor and Francis are now ok with Google Books as there is now a payment option.

My guess is that IPEX may follow a related pattern. Some objection to online, some exploration of how online supports print, and evaluation sometime later.

The Guardian Saturday Web Page last week included a statement by Emily Bell that the website Guardian Unlimited "will break even for the first time this financial year", largely through advertising revenue. The official Media pages on a Monday still have long articles about the mysterious decline in newspaper hard copy circulations. There is still not much about the numbers of paid subscriptions for the digital editions. We do know that the FT has about 80,000 paid subs to the full website. But in reporting the recent recovery of the FT to profit there was no breakdown i could find in the Guardian or anywhere about the numbers for web and print advertising. It is as if print journalists would prefer not to write about the switch to the web. It could be that much more is happening than appears.

The IPEX show will include some statement along the lines that print is now part of digital communication and that companies need to offer a full range of services. There will still be parts of the exhibits that appear to continue as on previous occasions.

OhmyNews have published my report on the London Book Fair.

This concentrates on Google Book Search and the benefits for the back list titles that are only available in small quantities. I wrote a bit about e-books. There was almost no publicity for them on the main stands. There was an 'e-content pavilion', aimed at academic libraries. Apparently many journals are now online and one of the meetings suggested that publishers would try to switch all journal publishing online so that the costs of print publishing can be avoided. So why is it that e-books for a general public were nowhere to be seen? ( Some Taylor and Francis titles are available for individuals but I don't think anyone other than specialists would have found the stand. Like Elsevier and Wiley there was one main stand for books and a more or less hidden bit for 'e-content'.

there is already one comment on my OhmyNews story, pointing out that there are a lot of free documents in PDF format downloaded on the web, including classic texts that are out of copyright. I could have written more about this but it would have been speculation. My guess is that the acceptance for e-books has progressed significantly though publishers are still not prepared to take a risk in promotion or else would prefer to think that books will continue as they are used to. It seems odd that library journals have developed in a different way.

I did mention a statement by Alberto Vitale, interviewed in the Publishing News Daily. He was described as "the driving force behind the now-forgotten Frankfurt e-book awards" and has recently studied Chinese policy on developing e-books rather than building libraries. He said "I think Western publishers need to have a broad vision, not a 'Gutenburg' vision." The e-book awards ran between 2000 and 2002, roughly the period that the dot com crash worked through to publisher attention. Bear in mind that to develop an argument to book length takes a number of years. The actual internet has continued to develop and there may be another promotional chance for e-books coming up soon. The file sizes are not a problem, compared to sound files or video. Mobile screens may get more available, such as the Sony Reader. Maybe e-books will arrive at the London Book Fair by surprise one day.

I have just found some video of Frank Romano from the Adobe 'Momentum in Print' event. He thinks that the print aspects of Acrobat only started getting much emphasis around version 3. Holding the 'high end' around print was an advantage for Adobe. The first launch towards 'knowledge workers' had only limited success.

So could the current user group approach have a bit more space for print? What harm could it do?

There is an interesting report on Planet PDF from Karl De Abrew about the PDF Forum

---------------

After the session, I had a quick chat with Ghent PDF Workgroup Chair David Zwang to ask him his thoughts. He felt that there had been a "genuine need" for the PDF-FORUM, and that there were some exciting things on the horizon, with expected updates to the PDF/X standards and Quark Xpress 7.0, with its "new approach to PDF and preflight."
---------------

So my take on this is that there was not much new from Adobe in this area. We are now getting closer to IPEX and announcements have started. there may be something new from Adobe but there will probably be enough from other suppliers to describe a PDF / JDF workflow.

The people around Ghent seem to be on this case long term and full time. I'm still wondering if the "classic publishing" unit in India will only appear on special occasions.

Today's Printweek has a review of Quark 7 by Simon Eccles. Seems to be based mostly on the Beta, but the actual release must be getting closer. There is quite a lot of space on job jackets, explained as 'metadata to define detailed job specifications that can be transferred between documents'. Simon Eccles explains that this is based on JDF "though that's well hidden".

So here's problem number one. Why can't Quark be more obvious about the use of JDF? All that is involved is another use of XML in an enterprise setting that happens to be print.

Whatever, the system works well. "This virtually automatic implementation of JDF is streets ahead of Adobe, which has no equivalent in InDesign, just a badly explained ability to generate and attach JDF job tickets via Adobe Acrobat."

A promising sign that Simon Eccles has made this point so clearly. Maybe it is because of the development of Acrobat as a product for 'knowledge workers' that the messages for pre-press get lost in the Adobe mix.

However there will be a stand at IPEX. I have mentioned this before but it is worth repeating. The spend on stand space was not that great at IPEX 2002 or Drupa. There could be some point that needs to be made.

Apparently Quark 7 is also good for web design and will embed Flash files. Simon Eccles suggests such pages will be imported into Dreamweaver anyway. Let's hope Flash is not the main talking point of IPEX, wonderful though it is.

On page 12 Gavin Drake, Quark European marketing manager is quoted as saying "The latest research suggests that only 40% of files are sent as PDF and of those 60% have errors." Presumably the percentage with a JDF attached is close to zero. That could be the problem situation for IPEX. Quark and Adobe can present JDF on the desktop.

The client audit section on page 24 quotes Chris King, from the Haymarket production department, on working with Wyndeham printers. "We're.. working closely with them in introducing JDF workflows and enjoying the bells and whistles of closed-loop control."

Of course this may be an illusion, but once magazine production people get the idea of what JDF offers, the printers may take a closer look. PDF first got serious UK attention when the Digital Ad Lab took it up.

OhmyNews have published my story - Adobe concentrates on Flash.

It was based on the recent webcast for financial analysts and other web sources.

The main story is about Flash, both for video and through FLEX for forms and engaging experiences.

I repeated a short version of the "classic publishing moves to India" article in IP3 Today.

I may have overstated a few things but I think this is a reasonable view of where Adobe is at.

Even if Adobe concentrate on video for mobiles at IPEX, this will be a useful education for some people in the print industry. At the moment I think most information about JDF will come from other companies that have a longterm focus on hard copy.

while checking for this text I did find one recent Adobe white paper on JDF. Maybe there is other material I have missed as well.

My impression is that Adobe did not announce or draw attention to anything much on JDF workflow in InDesign or Acrobat during Xplor in Miami. Not much has turned up on Google News or Google Blogsearch.

There is a section on JDF in Noel Ward's roundup from Xplor conferences

---------------

- JDF is for geeks, not the average customer. It will remain "behind the curtain" and be transparent to document owners and creators while streamlining document submission and job ordering, reducing costs and automating workflows at print providers, especially when related to cross-media programs.

- JDF, when properly implemented, will also reduce employee training, make ready, and prepress complexity, provide a single interface for job management, and provide an easier upgrade path to new presses and even finishing systems. It's not there yet, but it will happen over the next 5 years.

---------------

OK so JDF is for geeks, but how exactly is this "transparency" arrived at. At the London Collegeof Communication conference last year there was a presentation by Jutta Koch on how JDF workflows might work. It seemed quite vague in some places. It is not available online anywhere as far as I know. My guess was there would be a more explicit presentation from Adobe US at some later date. Well, 'momentum' and pdf-forum have both happened and I can't find anything. OK I should have been there but if I don't experience the UK in Jan and Feb I won't be able to enjoy the spring when it eventually happens.

What I think is that the "document owners and creators" would like the idea of controlling every aspect of print production. JDF can help this idea even if it needs a few geeks to create the illusion. The actual print production can be as not automated as ever, except for the cost and time involved. This front end aspect will take a lot less than five years. Quark seem to be promoting job jackets with 7.

Adobe have booked a stand at IPEX so presumably there will be something on it. Flash for video is already widely understood.

Meanwhile Google News for "pdf+miami" turns up The Ghent PDF Workgroup. These people are consistently interested. A link finds PDFX ready in French. Is the English language discussion only about mobile phones?

What will it mean that the business unit for "classic publishing" has moved to India? Will they turn up in Birmingham?

The new IP3 online magazine has included a revised version of my earlier text on 'Classic Publishing Moves To India'.

There is now some info on Quark. Their software development moved to India a while ago.

The main point about this is the IP3 decision to publish articles online. this is the Institute of Print, Publishing and Papermaking. There may be a hard copy version later but the move online is a definite event.

Meanwhile the newspapers have still not decided to publish numbers for digital edition circulation. Maybe they won't till the decline of print circulation is completely obvious to everyone.

NEW SONY READER PUTS A LIBRARY'S WORTH OF READING MATERIAL IN YOUR POCKET

According to Simon Eccles in Printweek, "this turkey has 'loser' written all over it".

26 Jan, page 26, £2.95 where you can find it.

To be fair, Simon Eccles mentions benefits of technology. Phillips Polymer Vision will ship something "not scifi" in 2007.

But the price of the Sony offer is thought to be too high at £350.

Sometimes I think that the creative professionals live in a special kind of world. Simon Eccles is impressed that Nikon have more or less announced the end of film cameras. For most amateurs digital photography arrived some time ago.

When it happened the switch away from film was faster than Kodak was expecting. Maybe something similar could occur with e-book readers.

Guy Kewney is now working in this area as an extension to reporting on mobile devices.
http://www.newswireless.net/index.cfm/article/2551
there are some heavy duty reports from AFAICS.

The Hunky Mouse has leaked a large extract
http://hunkymouse.livejournal.com/13997.html

By the way, someone I met in the pub the other day was of the opinion that Guy Kewney was saying something very similar about twenty years ago.

Simon Eccles uses the word "balderdash" about "the same old rubbish about the end of printed books".

Maybe he has got a point but it would also be useful to think about how hard copy evolves to complement digital devices.

As memory serves, the first Sony Walkman was rather expensive but cheaper options came along later.

In her latest letter from the US for Printweek, Cary Sherburne reports that some printers will not be coming to IPEX becuase they prefer the web. "I am more interested in a webinar custom-tailored to me than a generic trade show presentation."

There is still a point to trade shows as they are a chance to ask direct questions and ask some questions. Having tried to make out as much as I can from the web aspects of two recent events, I am aware of a lot of missing information.

Adobe promoted "Momentum in Print" with a keynote from Frank Romano. I am mostly concerned with JDF and was hoping that Adobe would say a bit more about this. There is nothing new on the web that I can find. Frank Romano spoke later on a webinar where he said a bit about JDF. He still cannot see where the ROI is going to be for a print company to update production equipment. However he is ready to look at case studies and is open to being persuaded.

There are case studies on the CIP4 site, especially detailed for the winners of awards. At IPEX it will be possible to see some working examples, including the daily newspaper. CIP4 will have a day at Xplor, alongside the PDF Forum. This may have a wider discussion. Quark will be there and presumably will include something on Job Jackets, their version of JDF creation on the desktop.

It may just be that I can't find it, but I don't think there is much detail on how Adobe expect JDF to work with Acrobat and/or Indesign. "Classic Publishing" is now a product group run from India including JDF, but I don't think there were any speakers from India in San Francisco. Not sure about this, maybe it will become clear later.

Scot Petersen wrote in an e-Week blog about the event, reporting a joke from Frank Romano-
"What do you call a group of printers at a conference? Survivors."

Petersen is convinced that "print is dying, in some forms more than others--newspapers in particular." Print could evolve with technology "if the print industry learns to adapt". But even that is going to be a challenge. "Printers are stubborn," Romano said. "We do not like to make changes. If we do change it's because we have no choice but to change."

(The Scot Petersen blog was posted Jan 23rd)

Challenging though this is, I still think the people from print companies should have been at a meeting that had a wide enough scope to include all forms of publishing and media. There is rapid change coming and it makes little sense to consider print just in itself.

Many companies and publishers can create for the web fairly easily so they expect print to be as fast and controlled. JDF is a marketing opportunity, not just a production efficiency. Print needs to be presented as if it is conscious of a place in digital communications.

I realise I am repeating myself quite a lot. IPEX seems to be shaping up much like Chicago last year. I managed to write an article for OhmyNews based on press releases and websites. Quark were interested in JDF. This year Adobe have a stand at IPEX so some more detail should appear.

The PDF forum includes a beach party. It may be warm enough in Miami. Somehow the reality of January and February in the UK is a lot to cope with by comparison.

I have now found the copy of Printweek with the 'opinion' piece by Frank Romano. It is dated 15 April 2004, ahead of Drupa. the headline is 'A premature JDF gamble is not the answer'. "JDF is a great idea but its time has not yet come". Problems include the multiplicity of vendors and the age of existing equipment. Cost savings are hard to demonstrate given other automation possibilities. Speed improvements could depend on originators integrating job information when the job is created. Maybe not a good idea as these same people mess up fonts, images and colour spaces.

Point one obviously is that they should read one of Frank Romano's books on PDF.

Point two is to ask what has changed in the last couple of years? My impression is that both Quark and Adobe have an idea about JDF workflow as part of page design. There is some form of template that can be set up similar to a file for distiller settings as required later in the process. This seems to be fairly clearly stated in the description of 'job jackets' for Quark 7. I am not as clear on what Adobe intend. Maybe it will vary with the OEM partners.

At Momentum in Print there could be some more information, even if it is to clarify the outstanding issues.

Michael Jahn joins ELAN GMK ? ELAN GMK Portal


link from browser

"Classic publishing" moves to India

The new shape of Macromedia and Adobe is beginning to appear. This post is a first attempt to describe it. There may be something different later. The main impression is that the original Adobe project around Postscript and PDF is no longer at the front of priorities. Macromedia concerns around Flash for animated web design and mobile devices have more of a future. There is now a business unit in India for 'classic publishing'. The word 'classic' is possibly like the word 'legacy' for some computer people. It sometimes means those lumps of content you might want to switch to something else.

The business units are arranged around the customer segments, as explained by Shantanu Narayan, president and chief operating officer of Adobe Systems, in an interview with Forbes. The Creative Suite will now work seamlessly with Flash and Dreamweaver for creative designers. For knowledge workers, Acrobat will now work with Breeze for collaboration and video conferencing. For enterprises and government there is a life cycle of documents. This will now inlclude Flex as well as PDF.

"Finally, there is mobility: The possibilities inherent in alternate devices excite me the most. There are a billion people in China and India who are never going to connect to the Internet using a PC. They're going to connect through a cell phone or an alternate device. We have the opportunity to also provide an environment for people to engage with that information on those devices like what Macromedia has done with Flash Lite [for cell phones] and we have done with DoCoMo by bringing Adobe Acrobat to its cell phones. There are so many opportunities."

Notice that, as far as I can make it out, there is no mention in the interview of the "classic publishing" business unit. More on this later.

The enthusiasm for mobile devices continues with a robust view on infrastructure in the USA. "....when I talk about alternate devices--our telecom structure here in the U.S. is significantly behind. Look at Korea, China, India and Eastern Europe--that's where a lot of the mobile revolution is happening. It's the people there who are going to figure out what new solutions and services are required."

As part of the presentation of quarterly results, Adobe have published a guide to products and business segment classification. Also on the website are executive profiles. These show there is Macromedia representation in the business units. The 'Creative Solutions' includes Fireworks as well as the bundles of Creative Suite and video. Brian Lamkin is the 'acting' VP for this unit. 'Knowledge Worker Solutions' includes Acrobat, Breeze and FlashCom Server. The VP for 'knowledge worker solutions' is Thomas Hale. At Macromedia, Hale was senior vice president and general manager of the Communications, Publishing and Training Division. Enterprise and Developer Solutions now includes the Live Cycle server PDF products and Flex and Coldfusion. The VP is David Mendels. At Macromedia, Mendels served as executive vice president and general manager for Macromedia's tool and server product division. The 'Mobile and Devices Solutions' only shows Flash products. The VP is Alan S. Ramadan. At Macromedia, Ramadan was the executive vice president and general manager of the Mobile and Devices Division and performed similar responsibilities to his current role.

On the Business Segments Classification for Financial Year 2006, the final section is shown as "other", otherwise known as the "Print and Classic Publishing Solutions Business Unit". The VP is Naresh Gupta, who has worked for Adobe since 1997. He is also Managing director of India Research and Development. He started the Noida research campus and is now integrating the Macromedia campus at Bangalore. The product range may reflect those being developed in India as well as a focus starting with print and "classic publishing". The scope mentions 'e-learning', probably refering to Contribute. The base product seems to be Postscript, arguably the basis of classic print and publishing as developed over the years since Charles Geschke and John Warnock left Xerox Parc. Mostly the products seem to be for desk top publishing other than InDesign. Freehand in recent years has not had much promotion from Macromedia but it has gathered up several hard copy features such as support for multiple pages. Many people still believe it has advantages over Illustrator in some circumstances. Pagemaker is definitely a classic. Framemaker has a history on UNIX platforms and is designed to work with long structured documents, often linked to data such as XML. It is unclear when InDesign will be able to cope with long documents adequately.

As reported by Hindu Business Line, Adobe will hire an additional 300 staff in India. Naresh Gupta is quoted as saying "The Print and Classic Publishing Unit in India would be responsible for profit and loss of various products from both Adobe and Macromedia."

"This is a big move for India, as it demonstrates how we are moving up the value chain. Many companies do product development in India, while others undertake functions such as maintenance and support. Adobe is not only looking at product development, but also business development from India. I believe this is the first time a global brand is bringing business unit functionality to the country," Mr Gupta said.

Up to this point, this post is more or less based on facts, some from Adobe, some from other sources. Below is speculation and opinion.

The PDF theme seems to me so scattered about that it could become obscured. The market segmentation may make some kind of sense in launching products but it makes it harder for people to have a coherent view of the technology. Creative professionals understand there is some need for forms and corporate information. The 'intelligent document' marketing stream could include the original user base for PDF. (more below on the Job Definition Format). Knowledge Workers seem to be assumed to be only interested in the desktop. Generally,they do realise that something happens on a server.

Probably Flex will get more attention as a forms front end based on Flash. As with PDF forms the aim is to collect data as XML. Many developers will concentrate on the XML aspect and not be too concerned by the design aspects.

SVG Reader is not mentioned on the list of products. Open source needs to be promoted for itself.

There is no news I can find as to the Postscript work being done in Norwich, UK. This site works with Postscript OEM partners, several based in Europe. Actual production work for publishing and pre-press is now outsourced to India to an increasing extent. Maybe there is a logic in getting technical knowledge closer to this user base. Many publishing professionals will be happy enough to continue with Framemaker. Freehand still has a lot of supporters, including creatives who have managed to find out about it. Judy Arndt recently commented "Illustrator is now based on PDF, not Postscript. It's very interesting that Adobe PostScript technology is in the 'Classic' group as well. It might not be a bad thing for FH, to be in the hands of some Postscript experts. Adobe can't wean the whole pre-press world from Postscript, overnight."

Given this apparent priority for Postscript, it seems strange that Adobe are promoting a conference in January intended for the printing industry. I can't see how it makes sense not to confront print service providers with the full picture of what is happening in publishing and media. Maybe this is part of the intention but it is far from clear. In my opinion JDF is the minimum that print companies should be offering as part of a mix of services. It is part of the agenda for Momentum in Print but there may be a view that nothing happens very quickly in print so there is no need for urgency. The views of Frank Romano will carefully considered as he has raised issues around JDF on previous occasions.

Shantanu Narayan could be right about the potential for mobile devices, but for most of the planet hard copy still has a future. Postscript and PDF-X are both open standards to practical effect so there is wider support available. Maybe this will be needed as the Adobe marketing emphasis moves more towards online animation through Flash.

There is talk of developing better connections for PDF and Flash. It is possible to capture Flash in PDF but it needs reloading. Generally PDF files have not made good use of the capability to contain movies or sound. This may be because of a lack of bandwidth or a lack of understanding. A future PDF format (2.0 for example) might be more suitable. Then again if everyone was online all the time there could just be Dreamweaver sites with occasional Flash Paper.

I have been looking for a copy of Printweek with an article by Frank Romano about JDF. As memory serves, he questions whether print customers could contribute anything useful as detailed instructions given the number of problems they cause through unskilled creation of PDF.

Now this is strange given his enthusiasm in writing various books about how to create PDF. There must have been a time he was more of an optimist.

Meanwhile I have found an article on the web making similar points. The argument seems to be that there is no sudden return to justify replacing all equipment with new JDF compliance.

Also it is pointed out that only 12% of printers have IT staff ( could be less outside the US).

Can't find anything more recent to suggest his biew has changed. This could be an issue if he says much the same as at the Momentum in Print event in January. There may be some printers who would like to hear that technology issues can be postponed for a while, but are these the people who will turn up for the event?

According to the Editor and Publisher website the circulation for the San Francisco Chronicle is down 16.58% for the six months to Sept 05. The audience for the Adobe event may be expecting an integrated presentation covering the web as well as print. ( see 'the last presses' for discussion on web as an explanation for declining print circulations)

As far as I can make it out the front end of JDF is likely to be a set of constraints for people creating pages on Quark or InDesign. Quark have described 'job jackets' in some detail though the final release is not yet out. Adobe presumably will present something as part of the Momentum event. I have a vague memory of the presentation by Jutta Koch at the London College of Communication conference during Digital Print World. The slides are not available on the web. Maybe there is more to clarify in ways Adobe is working with OEM partners.

The original idea with Acrobat 7 seemed to be that the JDF could be created from the desktop in a similar way to PDF. This is the 'intent' level of JDF. Now maybe the details of the job have already been decided before page makeup happens. So the 'print service organisation' provides some kind of format or template, possibly for the print customer.

This would not require any great cash investment by a print service organisation. Maybe a recent PC or Mac and some current software. The time investment would be to get to a point where print customers believed there was an understanding of how JDf can be used. If it is getting easier to publish a PDF document to the web then it will seem strange if setting up a print request is more complicated.

After that it might not matter. Works instructions could continue on paper. The print industry may be no closer to computer integrated manufacturing than ever it was. Though probably some companies would be cheaper and faster that others so the reality of JDF would follow.

I posted a comment on the new blog from Bill McDaniel. He has left Adobe so has a new blog at
http://worldbehindtheglass.blogspot.com

I suggested my first thought, that Adobe has finished the phase of Postscript and PDF as a way to represent flat documents on the web. He replies that he hopes "Adobe will expand the concept of PDF into something that encompasses the animated web as you call it. They have an excellent opportunity to find the correct blend of classic PDF-style documents and the new world of Flash style documenting that is emerging."

Let us call that PDF 2.0 or something like that. PDF as a container has some way to go. I still think there is a mass of stuff in the previous Adobe project that is now stable and will probably be included in offers from other companies, both for office documents and for prepress.

The Adobe Macromedia merger is now a fact. I don't think it is just an Adobe takeover although the Macromedia name has gone. My impression is that the Adobe people have more confidence in the future of the Macromedia products than in the Postscript backlog they were working with. PDF was a way to transition from the printed page to the web. Maybe this is no longer exciting in San Francisco.

I am still mostly interested in PDF and I think it has a long way to go. Bandwidth like the future is not evenly distributed. On the planet print is still the main way of communicating.

Open Office and Microsoft Office 12 will both create PDF so it will stay around even if 'design' tends towards animation.

Cary Sherburne also reports on US interest in e-paper. An announcement form E Ink and LG.Phillips.LCD was previously reported in Printweek.

The previous week Printweek's resident columnist Lawrence Wallis described as 'arrant nonsense' a reported view from Bill Gates that print "will become virtually redundant in 10 years". The forecast is partly based on the latest iteration of e-paper as a foundation for comuter tablet technology. Wallis points out that the demise of print has been predicted "on umpteen occasions" since he joined the industry in 1949. He consider that print remains dynamic as new technologies support print production itself.

He lists some features that give print an advantage

• no need for special equipment
• no need for electricity
• no need for telephony ( web access )
• referable
• comparatively cheap
• portable
• editorially disciplined
• congenial to a user

These could be looked at as factors where print and online can be compared. Many people find a screen congenial on occasions. On the planet most people do not have access to a phone, let alone a tablet PC. I'm not sure about the 'editorial discipline'. There are some web news sites that employ editors. I submit stories for OhmyNews and find they are improved by the process. Often there are more interesting stories from other people that I find while looking to see if my own are accepted.

The heading "referable" may imply that the indexing on books can be relied on. The theme of Online Information is that 'everything is miscellaneous'. This may be something that could only work on the web. Searching for "Lawrence Wallis" on Google turns up a Seybold review of Typomania from 1996. I wonder if you would find this title from browsing in a bookshop?

There seems to be a trend for Adobe to insist on events that are centred on Adobe, rather than attending general shows. Adobe Live has been well attended in London and other European cities. However, I think something is lost by the lack of context.

Printweek now features a regular letter from Cary Sherburne, senior editor for WhatTheythink.com. This week she reports on Seybold's 'abandonment' of conferences -"once the most influential trade shows in the printing and publishing industry"- and states that Adobe have 'stepped in' with a new initiative. My impression is that MediaLive made every effort to continue the conferences. The original New York dates this year turned out to be close to Adobe Live in New York. Later dates were announced. The Amsterdam dates turned out to be close to the series of Adobe Live events in Europe.

Based on downloading the presentation files after the event, my impression is that the Chicago conference made a real contribution to the discussion around print. Quark made the first public demonstration of Quark 7, including ways to create JDF files from the desktop. So far I think Adobe have not fully described what may be possible using the JDF features in Acrobat 7. The fact that both companies are working on a new phase in workflow is obviously to be welcomed. At an old-style Seybold event there could have been some comparison, plus some research based comment on general trends.

It seems unlikely that Quark will be part of 'Momentum in Print' so many people will make their minds up later.

Adobe is also part of the PDF Forum for Print Production in Miami. The 'state of the art PDF creation' session includes speakers from both Adobe and Quark. The PDF Forum will be moderated by Stephen Jaeggi from Binningen, Switzerland. On the panel at Seybold Amsterdam he was on good terms with a 'wish fairy' that conjured up a group vision of a better future. His own contribution was that Adobe PDF server software be priced at some level more people could consider, given the realities of available budgets. This is the kind of issue that may not come up at an Adobe hosted event. Adobe Live in London had limited coverage of Acrobat as part of the Creative Suite, limited mention of JDF in PDF for print production, and almost no coverage at all of 'intelligent documents' or LiveCycle. Something like Seybold did a better job in presenting an overall picture of Adobe capability.

Seybold Amsterdam in particular was a major benefit in Europe for connecting with a web discussion linked to print issues on which Europeans made a contribution. This will not be easy to replace.

I am not convinced that San Francisco is still a place where there is much interest in hard copy. Again my impression is based on browsing the web, but I found a lot of interest in Web 2 and the recent event organised by MediaLive and O'Reilley. Macromedia were involved but there did not seem to be much interest from Adobe.

Maybe MediaLive would consider bringing a version of Web 2 to Amsterdam next summer. With a corner somewhere for print.

This coming week in London there is an Online Information show. Print is there by implication. Scholar journals are moving online but Oxford University Press for example is still mostly hard copy. There will be more on this later. Not much about Adobe as they don't have a stand.

IP3 are organising a debate at the House of Commons about digital printing. Sometimes these turn out to be panel discussions. This year the issue is around the possible excess capacity for long run books given the growth in digital publishing.

I think that 'digital publishing' now includes online pages and downloads, especially PDF. a related issue is the authority assumed to be associated with different media. I think online is getting better. The Wikipedia is often updated so a stock of printed books may be losing in value, however well edited before publication.

The Online Information show will focus on wikis and blogs. After all these years it is still possible that some of the poeple attending assume that an article in a printed journal is somehow more convincing as a source of information.

The conference at the Digital Printing show last week was organised by the London College of Communication. I did an article for OhmyNews.

Some people would rather keep the name 'London College of Printing' but i think the conferrnce showed that the context of printing is changing.

Not many people turned up from the Institute of Printing, Paper and Publishing. Maybe it will be better promoted next year. The speakers were really interesting.

There is a conference in San Francisco about 'web 2,0' . Not sure what this involves but I am having a look as stuff becomes available. It has been going for a couple of years but I only found it recently.

There was a link on the Seybold site that turned up as Seybold Seminars were cancelled for New York and San Francisco. Medialive are now working with O'Reilley on this new conference.

I found an article by Tim O'Reilley explaining web 2 and this includes two coloumns of the old and the new. So 'publishing' is old and 'participation' is new. Presumably this means publishing as in chunks of knowledge as in books or static web pages.

I don't think Seybold was just fixed on that but the origins were in digital typesetting. I don't think this has gone away but there seems to be a major move in San Francisco.

One strange thing is that Adobe seem not to be there much. They came to dominate the previous world of Seybold and Adobe Live took over in soime ways. Maybe Web 2.0 works better with a wider range of companies so there is a better discussion.

Macromedia are still there. More news coming out so things could be clearer later.

OhmyNews have published my article about ABC certificates and Digital Editions.
Accountancy Age has made a move.

The OhmyNews headline picks out the evidence of falling print circulation. I think this is fair comment. OhmyNews is working well as a context in which to think more clearly about what is happening.

Media Guardian this week has nothing on ABC or Accountancy Age that I can see. One day they will write about digital editions, including their own. Maybe soon.

Adobe have plans to create some form of Acrobat User community. As I am involved in the UK Acrobat User Forum I can see some problems with this if it is true that Adobe will not support groups that include discussion of other PDF products.

See interview with Carl Young in Planet PDF
http://www.planetpdf.com/enterprise/article.asp?ContentID=7178&fa
He seems to have been not much clearer on Adobe pland after the PDF Conference and had some doubts about the '100% Adobe focus' - ''not being open to any solutions from any other, third party vendors, however valid or useful they may be". I think he has got a point. PDF has been intended as an open standard of sorts. Adobe has built up trust around this and there are ISO supported standards for pre-press and archiving. How are these to be discussed? So far the development of Acrobat has been helped by wider support for PDF.

Recently Seybold Seminars have been cancelled. Adobe Live is a great event and explains a lot about Adobe. However this is not the same as a Seybold event with editorial comparison of different choices. Once Macromedia is gone maybe there is not much to talk about. Still, something has changed.

Moving into the enterprise area is a new phase for Adobe and PDF. The established decision makers already have forms of communication. Adobe is only a part of this. Response to closed situations is likely to be limited.

OhmyNews have published my article about JDF at Print Chicago. On the Technology page.

More later. There is a demoscene event near Exeter that I need to get to first. At Budleigh Salterton in fact.

http://www.sundown2005.org/

Meanwhile CIP4 seem to have a really good presentation together. New directory on their website.

Falling asleep to the World Service one early morning I think I remember hearing that the Indian rope trick was actually invented by journalists in Chicago. Magicians in India then worked out how to do it. Maybe if there are enough reports about the potential of JDF there will later be more efforts to make it work.

Ohmynews have published the text on the use of print by themselves and WikiNews. They have added the fact that they also do a free PDF download of their print edition, something I did not realise. And they have left in the link to this blog.

Just as well as towards the end I started to write about something else that may become a suitable story for OhmyNews later but is better for a blog at the moment.

In the current Print Media Management Jonathan Levy is writing in a way that is open to interpretation. I think he might be saying that the print industry is not really offering much to the magazine production people who are becoming more technically aware. I may be reading too much into this. There is no mention of a rush towards web versions of magazines, although I think this is happening. there is reference to 'the rise of JDF and end-to-end digital workflows'. Maybe the magazine production people are aware of what this means and the print companies have not yet made the investment.

Printweek recently ran an article by Simon Eccles on the history of DTP from twenty years ago, a reassuringly safe distance. Both Chuck Geschke and John Warnock get a photograph but there is no reference to PDF or Acrobat, let alone JDF or XML. There is more going on now than is generally realised. I have suggested on the websites for Acrobat Services and WWWatford that John Cunningham from Adobe UK should be included in the Printweek Power 100. Companies like Heidelberg are represented. One of the criteria is 'influence'. The new version of InDesign has a way to create JDF. Probably before IPEX next year there will be ways to link in with this. For example Xerox Freeflow. Meanwhile Martin Bailey from Global Graphics has dropped out of the Printweek Power 100. I think this must be a mistake. Global Graphics actually concentrate on the print industry. Adobe may lose interest if they get somewhere with video. My guess is that they will not have their own stand at IPEX but maybe some small spaces c/o Xerox and others.

Printweek is published by Haymarket, who also publish Marketing. The Marketing article about the Wall Street Journal shows the print and online circulation in the same sentence. Presumably the people who work on Printweek sometimes talk to the people who work on Marketing. I think there will be some changes before IPEX in the way the print industry is positioned.

Link to article at OhmyNews

This is a version of a report from the Citizen Reporters international forum. It may be edited later. they may leave out the link to this blog.

It was surprising that OhmyNews has a printed weekly version. Apparently this is to reach the people who still rely on newspapers and encourage them towards the website. WikiNews has a PDF for download and some people are distributing short runs on campus or for a locality.

I realised I was going off topic when I got to a recent editorial by Jonathan Levy in Print Media Management. I am not really sure what he is getting at. He attended 'Vision In Print' and now fees that 'vision in print' is inadequate 'with the rise of JDF and end-to-end digital workflows' . the suggested phrase is 'vision in print media' 'to deliver the promise of a leaner and more sustainable future'. Previously I had thought of PrintMedia Management as pretty much part of the printing industry. Maybe the people in magazine production are now thinking about media in ways that include the web. Clearly there are now publishing organisations that offer something in print and online. This is something to come back to. Probably there will be more explanation in PrintMedia Management even though Jonathan Levy is no longer working as editor.

There is a recent book we were given in Korea called 'Media Big Bang'. I have started a page about this looking at the implications for ideas about quality. One term they use is morphosis, some policy on change. Maybe this applies to print and other media. 'Vision in print' seems to emphasise quality as consistency of current products. Improvement can happen within existing manufacturing processes. There may be some wider change going on. I have only started to read the book so more will follow later.

I have been invited to a forum for Citizen Reporters organised by OhmyNews in Seoul.

This blog may be updated over the next few days but more likely will be a short report at Guardian talk

http://mediatalk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?50@ohmynews@.7747ecc2

My hope is that the Guardian reports this event and makes some connections.

I have sent in an email to Printweek suggesting they include John Cunningham as part of their Power 100 feature. There is an update on the semi-fixed part of this blog
http://www.acrobat-services.co.uk/watford/blog3.html

This has photos. I realise I could have photos here but the other page is done now. Things do change very slowly. The selection of photos seems ok still. The Adobe video box is from the software parc at drupa. This will now go on tour so could be the highlight of IPEX next year.

My guess is that Adobe will not have a big stand. Xerox will probably find them some space as part of Freeflow. This will not mean that the Adobe software should be ignored. Acrobat 7 now has the capability to create JDF. Not many people are using this.

I'm at Charmouth for the Home Education Seaside Festival, campsite music and talks etc.

The internet marquee is put together by Psand and Bristol Wireless. Satellite broadband and wifi. Mostly cable though.

What strikes me is that the web acces has been there for about 40 minutes now and the official opening is almost an hour away. Yet there has still been a request for full colour printing.Someone walks in wanting promotion. No solution so far but there may be a printer somewhere.

So the web and print can work together.

Adobe here in Hall 9 with the public sector. Also on IBM and SAP stands. I still have not found an online example of a PDF form supported by Reader Extensions but there are some clues to follow up.

No Adobe promotion on hard copy as yet. But Scribus are here in the open space at the Linux bit. Apparently paid for by the German magazine, there is a lot of Linux stuff here. Scribus can do most of DTP functions and export PDF up to 1.4.

Weblinks later. This place is enormous and I keep muddling it up with drupa. Suggest IPEX looks at CeBIT as a benchmark as well as drupa. There is time for one more CeBIT before the next IPEX. The technology available will influence what is possible with print.

On my way to CeBIT at the moment. It seems Adobe.de will be there with an actual stand. At drupa it was quite hard to find them. The image on their site is of a struggle with a pile of paper.

I still think PDF is a benefit for the printing industry. Adobe just seem sometimes to be promoting the enterprise aspect as if it was a different product. Not much prospect of JDF turning up though.

http://events.adobe.co.uk/events/cgi/main.cgi?country=de

ICS Registry

just testing blogthis from Firefox

not sure how this started , right click to save PDF, then this option came up

is Firefox connected with Google? Quite possibly.

Simon Eccles, emphasis added

The Printweek from last Thursday (27 Jan) included a letter from Graham Pearce of Island Printers complaining about Adobe and the release of new versions of PDF that his software could not cope with. At first I could not see what the problem was so phoned him to talk about it. (Google found a phone number on the second suggested site)

Island Press has not yet invested in Mac OS X. This seems to be the crunch issue. To buy a new Mac and Creative Suite may cost £5-6,000. There are still many files in Quark 3.2 that work perfectly well. The few customers that have bought InDesign are prepared to supply PDF, so that's ok. They don't have Windows XP but do have Acrobat 5 running on Windows 2000. On the Mac they have Acrobat 4 and obviously could not buy Acrobat 7 without buying Mac OS X.

The problem seems to be that some customers have found out about Acrobat 7 and are sending in files in the new format. It might be possible to insist that customers saved in 1.3 or 1.4 and use the PDF/X pre-press standards as a basis for this. But some customers just create PDF without much training and don't really understand the best choices for print or web. Some customers may expect a print services company to be able to change the format version of a PDF.

However, is it reasonable to expect Adobe to stop with the features of Acrobat 4 just because this meets most of the requirements for print?

Printweek also features a review of Acrobat 7 by Simon Eccles (p 28) that covers the potential consequence of JDF for print workflows but without any sense of urgency or excitement as far as I can make it out. The opening question is 'who needs another PDF format?' coupled with the view that 'whenever Adobe updates Acrobat, all the service providers have to go out and buy a copy anyway'. 'If customers supply files in the new format, you need to be able to open them.'

About two thirds of the way through there is mention of the JDF feature, the ability to create JDF files with the PDF. "It's the first time this has appeared in a mass market application in a reasonably usable form.It lets you write a job ticket which defines the 'creative intent'". Actually although most print customers will be concerned with the 'creative intent' I think Acrobat 7 could create a JDF ticket at any level of detail required.

This has just as much potential to change the print industry as Postscript or PDF. The conclusion that this will make 'quite a difference' to 'some customer-supplier' workflows is a bit under-stated.

My impression is that PDF became established in UK print following discussions such as at the Digital Ad Lab. Publishers and agencies became aware of what PDF made possible, greater control over design, faster communication and reduced costs. Later print service companies responded to customer demand. Obviously this is a simplified view and there were some exceptions. Possibly JDF will be adopted in a similar pattern. Adobe seemt to think that most copies of Acrobat 7 will be bought by large organisations and architects or engineers. Some of these people will eventually discover the pre-press features or mention them to people in publishing.

Maybe I'm going off topic here. Obviously there are print service companies that can support JDF and offer training to customers. In the UK it seems most of these are the 'print management' companies that have created a link between customers and print. TripleArc are reported as moving into the 'data management sector' ( same Printweek, page 26). As mentioned previously on this blog, TripleArc were at IPEX 2002 trying to sell JDF software to the British printing industry. It has taken a while for JDF to become more obvious but there is no fundamental reason why print service companies cannot offer a JDF style directly.

If print companies do not want to invest in software they can still carry on printing with the same technology available now. There may be an issue with margins however if print is seen as a commodity and the value creating services are not seen as part of 'print'.

Now that Acrobat 7 is available there will be changes in the various web sites I work on. There will be an update of 'Hello Spiders', a version of my home page
http://www.willpollard.eurobell.co.uk/

It is still needing an update but this should be soon.

More evidence that the title of this blog is still sensible. IPEX 2002 was close enough to the 'dotcom boom' for broadband to be assumed. Some ideas went back a bit around the time of drupa last year. For example the collaboration and markup on proofs seemed a bit less obvious. Adobe server software is still expensive and not everyone will buy the full Acrobat. I now have a copy of Acrobat 7 and it works ok with Reader 7 for comments. Notes and mark-up are now available in Reader. However you can't also have signatures and form fields so you may yet prefer full Acrobat software. Not sure why this should be so, it may be a marketing policy. Basically you have most of Acrobat when you download the Reader, except it is mostly turned off.

Anyway, why quibble. Adobe Reader 7 is wonderful. You should download it soon if you havn't already.

The Job Definition Format is hidden away. It is not obvious that Adobe are promoting this. However it is there, under pre-press tools. Eventually several million designers will discover they can add a JDF job ticket to a PDF package with whatever level of detail they choose. Saved as XML.

Printweek includes the news that TripleArc has bought HFS Projects, expanding into data management and direct mail, described by Jason Cromack as 'data-centric solutions'. At IPEX 2002 the TripleArc presentation on JDF had a mixed response from print companies. Print Management has benefited from offering a database service.

Adobe have released Reader 7, just the other day. This appears to be the most amazing thing since around version 3, the one on CD. Commenting features do seem to work ok for the sample PDF on their site. However, this is not the best time to write it up. More will follow in the second week of Jan.

Meanwhile the other Acrobat sites need an update as well. Future corrective action required to encourage people to check the blog if they think some news is missing.

Meanwhile, whenever you have the time, download Reader 7. Seems to load quirte quickly for one thing.Yahoo local search on PDF. Suggest you give this a try. Quite slow but may be quicker on later searches. No time to check this now as I need to buy some wrapping paper.

Found a link to a story on digital downloads

http://www.mediapost.com/dtls_dsp_news.cfm?newsID=281153

ABC and BPA Worldwide are talking to each other about how to define a download. I think the SVG option that the Independent is looking at could change things. The issue seems to have started around a PDF option for the Guardian showing the complete photo and illustration content. This is different to the text content freely available on the website. But the web through SVG could offer a completely new graphic experience, different not worse to what is on the printed page.

The advertisers can probably influence this when they work out how the advertising should be designed. The figures in the mediapost article show they are now increasing the spend through websites, back on growth and almost twice the level of 2000.

http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?article_class=4&no=199907&rel_no=1

Links to OhmyNews Technology page with my recent post on Google and the Online Information show. The introduction has been rewritten to be easier to follow.

The story still includes the information about the Independent and SVG. So Inow havesent in four stories to the talkboard, three of which have made it to the Technology page. Each one is about the effect of the web on print publishing. As news, the first one is about the ABC UK decision to include 'digital editions' in print certificates. The second one is the news that actually nothing has happened as not one newspaper 'opted in'. The third is about the BPA Worldwide publication of actual figures for VNU publications IT Week and Computing. This did not make it to the Technology page. Maybe it is a bit detailed. There may not be a lot of people in Korea who follow what ABC and BPA Worldwide are up to. I'm not sure who reads the English version of OhMynews. There is a lot of interesting stuff on the technology pages. Much of it is about the effect of technology, especially the web. OhmyNews assume that the web exists so they are able to report it.
Meanwhile in today's Guardian I think Roy Greenslade may be missing some aspects of the situation around the Financial Times. The FT may have lost over 50,000 print copies intheUK but gained 75,000 subscribers on the web. So surely something fundamental is happening. News is viable online. Over time for the FT and later other broadsheet papers, the web will be at least as significant as print for subscription and advertising income. I am repeating earluier posts but I think the point needs to be made as Roy Greenslade's article is typical ofa lot of coverage by print journalists.

It seems that Jakob Nielsen did not mention PDF in particular as part of his keynote. I spoke to someone who was there and nothing striking is remembered about PDF. There is a lot of PDF evident in the exhibition. The British Library are still offering to email a PDF of any document within two hours to anywhere. They have to scan it each time. The publishers apparently would not like the idea of a store of scans. There is an additional charge of a copyright fee so the publishers are benefiting from the service. The PDF is tied to a particular computer so cannot be copied to another screen. Only two printout copies can be made. There is a problem for people who do not realise that they need the latest version of the Reader for the Digital Rights Management aspect to work. Sometimes people with earlier versions complain that something has gone wrong. I guess Jakob Nielsen would call this a 'usability' issue. Somehow people get used to it however.

No sign of Adobe or the 'intelligent document platform'. Documentum are sposoring some of the talks on content management but have no information on the PDF server software except that if pressed they state that it does work. This is arguably the most relevant UK show for intelligent documents. M aybe Adobe believe their message will get across online anyway. What appears from the show so far is that XML is the main format people wanr to work with. PDF is attractive for publishing when the design is fixed and security is required.

More on 'e-publishing' tomorrow. Theatre B, starts around 10.30

On Wednesday there will be a question time at the House of Commons organised by IP3, the new institute formed by merging Paper, Publishing and Printing. One consequence of the merger is that web publishing is now part of the debate. One question is expected to be 'is the printed book dead?' The answer will be no, probably, but it is interesting that the question is being asked.

http://www.ip3.org.uk/commonsdebate.htm

More on this later in the week.

I have sent a new post for OhmyNews based on the circulation figures for Computing and IT Week.

http://english.ohmynews.com

"BPA Worldwide releases certificates for VNU digita" on the Talkback board.

Jakob Nielsen is wrong and dangerous

Next week in London Jakob Nielsen will be a keynote speaker at the main conference for Online Information. His idea of usability seems to be to limit technology to what people already know about. He has often suggested that PDF should only be used for documents intended to be printed. This opinion has not changed over the years when the growth of PDF on the web would seem to suggest that many people are now familar with the Reader.

The Online Information event is attended by broadly two groups of people. Information professionals and librarians are often interested in the actual content. Gradually there has been a larger audience of people concerned with technology as such. There is now a part of the exhibition described as 'Content Management Europe' with specialised sections on Documents and Records and also e-Publishing.

The Content Management area is broadly the range of functions targeted by Adobe and the new server software promoted as the 'Intelligent Document Platform'. It appears that Adobe have not taken a stand but they work with EMC Documentum who will be represented. In the technology area, PDF is almost certain to be seen as one of the options, alongside XML with claims that the two are compatible.

At least Jakob Nielsen is prepared to engage in dialogue. On a previous visit to London he took part in extensive discussion as part of a Guardian Talk special. There was not much change in his opinion however. At Planet PDF they have despaired of convincing him and their rejection of his views is closely argued and totally convincing as far as I can tell. See 'Jakob Nielsen's PDF Phobia is seemingly incurable by Kurt Foss , Planet PDF Editor, in July 28, 2003. The only constructive attempt to relate to Jakob Nielsen is to show how Google can be set up to avoid PDF altogether.

There has been some comment on Forms, the leading aspect of the new phase of Adobe software. "Forms are the wrong metaphor for workflow support. It's much better to view data entry as an Internet-based application (or intranet-based application, as the case may be) and design a true user interface -- one that takes advantage of all of the GUI elements, conditional workflow structures, and user assistance techniques that have evolved through decades of interaction design for applications." This from an Alertbox in July last year. PDF forms can have most design features of any web page. Maybe Flex and Flash appeal to a certain aesthetic uniquely but there is not much in current web pages that cannot be done in PDF. There may be design and training issues that need discussing. If there is mention of PDF, maybe some detail on forms would be useful.

I think it unfortunate that Jakob Nielsen is influential. His ideas on Flash is not much more helpful than on PDF. Maybe the explanation of his position is that the result is very conservative. Any new technology can be sesisted on the grounds that users need to get some new understanding. One result in the UK is that the New Opportunities Fund paid for a lot of scanning of archive material, very little of which is available as PDF for public download. This is one of the few functions for which Jakob Nielsen would suggest PDF as being suitable.

At a recent Adobe webcast Ivan Koon stated that there will probably be an ISO standard for PDF archiving sometime next year. This will be similar to the PDF-X series for pre-press. There is interest in this, so it may come as a shock to people who rely on Jakob Nielsen as a source on how much time to spend looking at PDF.

I may be quite wrong to go on so long about this. There may be nothing said at Online Information about PDF, or Jakob Nielsen may have eventually found something positive to say. (There are reports for sale in PDF format from the Nielsen Norman website. Unusually the PDF icon leads to an ordering page, not a PDF file, quite a surprise for people raised on web conventions) I think whatever he has to say by the end of the show PDF will be reasonably established. Last year the British Library launched a document service based on PDF. So far as I know this is still on offer. On Thursday there will be some free talks on e-publishing. There appears to be interest in XML but PDF will probably be in there somewhere.

Net browsing beats going out in the cold
Established retailers, big or small, have to adapt quickly to replace in-store customers
Edmond Warner
Saturday November 20, 2004

Can't quote anymore for copyright reasons. You can follow this link though.

'Denial' ( as described by Emily Bell ) works in strange ways. the Guardian is quite capable of publishing an article about bookshops in which the reality of Amazon and the web is made clear. They still have a problem writing about newspapers or news organisations however, in my perception.

Blackwell's has been a major resource for academic sites throughout the UK. If the web takes over then a) academic books are just part of the CDs etc. b) not sure why the academic sites are worth a visit

Going off topic a bit. My main point is that things are changing faster than appears for newspapers. This will get some attention sometime soon. 'News' is part of the web, just as much as bookselling.

Roy Greenslade at least is considering the web as well as decline for newspaper circulation

http://media.guardian.co.uk/mediaguardian/story/0,7558,1351135,00.html

However, he writes about newspaper web sites as if they have no income such as advertising or the digital editions as in the Guardian. It really is a bit silly to have such reporting. The Guardian seems to have a policy not to mention the digital editions in the UK print version. Apparently they do promote them in the print versions outside the UK. It is up to the guardian if they want to keep the PDF option a secret. But it makes the journalism less than it might be if Roy Greenslade ignores them in an article like this.

News organisations will eventually regard the web as part of mainstream income flows so why not start looking at this soon?

Adobe announced Acrobat 7 today. It seems to be mostly improved presentation and value. Apparently people with the Professional version will be able to create a PDF with commenting functions enabled for people who have the latest version of the Reader. And Elements might be available in quantities lower than 1000. The forms design kit will be included so more people will begin to think about the server software.

Already some people think it could still be cheaper.
http://www.pdfzone.com/news/1903-PDFzone_news.html

Macromedia have something to offer with Contribute. This is priced for volume in a way that education can afford. Contribute allows commenting and also creation of PDF or Flash Paper. Flash Paper loads very fast assuming you already have Flash working. The claim is that Adobe Reader 7 will load quickly anyway. Something to come back to.

Andrew Tribute has now posted PDF versions of his presentations from New Zealand.

http://www.attributes.co.uk/AttributesFrame.html

JDF now official.

Another Guardian article today, this time about the Independent. Again, no mention at all of the website, so the article makes little sense.

Can't find anything on the media site about the BBC or their relation with commercial sites. The print version puts little teasers in without a proper link. The Guardian often has editorial written by or quotes from people who think their web project would benefit from the BBC not doing something. Actually the BBC remains one of the few UK brands that are visible on the web. Also they are clear in that they have a policy to change their means of communication to include the web. Newspapers such as the Guardian may actually have a web policy but they seem to choose not to reflect this in their print copy.

Meanwhile on the webpage is an interesting stat on how in broadband Europe many people spend more time online than reading newspapers

http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,7496,1347160,00.html

There is an article in th Guardian today about possible issues at the FT.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,3604,1346602,00.html

Apparently the media coverage could be cut back because of a lack of advertising.

What is really strange about this article is the complete lack of any reference to the internet, the FT subscription or advertising income from the internet, or the scale of investment in the future FT website. My guess is that future advertising will use a blend of media. News organisations that have relied on print will change. ABC did announce that there will be circulation certificates showing figures for 'digital editions'. The 75,000 subs to the FT website are possibly not counted as 'digital editions'. So it is not obvious from ABC sources how to form a picture of what is happening for particular titles. Do print journalists imagine that these issues will go away if there is no reporting?

OhmyNews has accepted a second story on print and the web. This is headed 'Publishers Awaken to an 'E-Book Society' 2004-11-04 . The news angle of this is a report from AFAICS on e-books. They think the price for e-book hardware will drop to $35 over four years. Guy Kewney believes this will have an effect on paper publishing. 'Things change'.

The first story was based on the ABC decision to publish numbers for 'digital editions' along with print circulations for UK newspapers. This was headed Web Influence on Print Media Growing and was posted 2004-07-28. However since then I think no newspaper has 'opted in' so there are no actual figures.

I think it is obvious that part of the explanation of the decline of newspaper circulation is that more people use the web. Newspapers are now news organisations with a mix of income and cost over print and web. It is about time some accurate numbers were available. As Guy Kewney and others are reporting, publishing through mobile devices is beginning to happen. Newspaper articles on circulation that make no mention of the web will not be credible for much longer.

There will be some more on this in this blog and longer pieces for OhmyNews when more definite information is available.

Reading a couple of magazines picked up as samples from Digital Print World. Usually I rely on the dotprint website to keep up with Printing World. PIRA publications are fairly expensive but digital demand is interesting. The September/October issue includes an article on 'the future of print' that is fairly reassuring. 'The gentle downward drift of newspaper circulation is forecast to slow slightly over the next few years'. I don't find this convincing however. The web has still got a long way to go. And whether or not e-books take off within four years ( see previous post) to say that books will grow by 1.2% over the next decade is potentially inappropriate if technology is disruptive.

In Printing World Rod Hayes reports from Graph Expo and a presentation from William Smythe, vice president of NPES. "The print portion of a printer's revenue has actually been declining for several years now and this trend is set to continue. Unless a printer has been implementing diversification plans, the future is very grim." The decline can be traced back to 1992. The new ancillary services include mailing, fulfillment management, warehousing, DTP consulting, CD-Rom services and forms of database management. The article is titled 'The storm gathers' and fits well with an editorial from Gareth Ward-

"Many have battered down the hatches and have so far survived, but we need to understand that there is a changed landscape out there and that proceeding as we have over the last few years will not be enough to prevent companies being swept away with the next spell of bad weather."

Digital Print World is now an established event. It will influence opinion not just because digital print will grow in proportion to litho. JDF workflows will be standard for all forms of print. Print is part of communications based on the web.

There is almost nothing in Guardian media today about the web.

Since they dropped the bit at the back on 'new media' there has been less and less. But buried away in an interview with Martin Sorrell in a section on 'my media' is the information that 'I find I am reading periodicals less' and 'I consume more online'.

There is a letter from Greg Paine of AOL claiming that in broadband homes people are online 13 hours a week, roughly 12% of media consumption. "It's finally time to realise that broadband internet is both mass market and mass media"

This may be reflected in Guardian media reporting eventually. Still nothing in print about 'digital editions'.

No sign of Adobe. I'm not sure that InDesign is doing so well that the general print market can be expected to pick up on it by default. Quark have sponsored the Workflow presentations and are answering questions with plenty of people on their stand.

Xerox still expect Adobe to ship a plug-in for InDesign and Acrobat that creates a JDF file for each job. At drupa I thought Adobe were a bit vague about this idea but Xerox have a definite interest in hard copy. Maybe when this might be available it will be Xerox where information can be found.

Back in the days of a floppy disc it was thought a bit of a security risk to move files on disc between pcs. Tharsten and Positive Focus however have now started to use a USB keyring to show off JDF. It works fine with a web-based MIS linking in to Creo Upfront. Maybe by IPEX wi-fi will be free everywhere.

According to Alan Dixon from Positive Focus, JDF stands for "Job Done Faster".

The actual title of Gee's talk is


JDF for Dummies

It is remarkably clear as an introduction but also as a statement that JDF is not science fiction, something to think about after the next IPEX, something that might work one day.

DALIM support about 350 sites worldwide where JDF is part of the current workflow.

Links to Guardian talk. Please add something, there could be some explanation needed.

PDF Guardian

What is going on with the 'digital edition'?

http://mediatalk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?50@pdfguardian@.597aa1a3

Oi Printweek Face the Facts

follows Printweek article on Guardian coverage of alleged print decline in London

http://mediatalk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?50@oiprintweek@.77476434

Since some time last year I have been contributing to the Guardian talk board on Press and Publishing as part of Media. During this time the 'digital edition' appears to be live though there is nothing ever about it in the Guardian print version. Just possibly there is a policy about this or else Roy Greenslade is not very interested in the web anyway.

Today Emily Bell writes about 'denial' - her word- as some media folk think about the internet and 'mainstream' media. So far, so welcome.

http://media.guardian.co.uk/mediaguardian/story/0,7558,1335024,00.html

However there is still nothing about the Guardian itself as an example. Like Roy Greenslade she refers to the 'redtop' circulation decline. From the last set of figures the decline for the Guardian seemed to be in the same range as for the Daily Mirror. Anything over 5% a year is interesting.

There was an ABC press release on a decision to publish figures on paid circulation as 'digital editions'. Since then nobody has 'opted in' as far as I can tell. This is only a blog. Obviously Roy Greenslade could find out more if he wanted to.

There is not much point in repeating myself on the Guardian talk board so I will put some content there about XML and publishing. I recently got some feedback from text that was about a year old so the web is not always as immediate a medium as is sometimes supposed.

There is a new phase for this blog, a quote from Gee Ranasinha who I emailed with a quote from Andy Tribute's blog. Next week there will be an update of the http://www.atford.co.uk site. Meanwhile the text of Gee's message is below.

-------------------------------------------
From Gee Ranasinha,
Director of Marketing
Dalim Software GmbH

Regarding Andy T's quote - I've been describing printers as being "media distributors". I think that this better describes their new role in things.

If you're looking for a JDF-based quote. how about the following:

Make no mistake: not only WILL JDF-driven systems be the industry’s future, JDF–based systems ARE ALREADY becoming the industry’s “present”. There are printers today using JDF as a cornerstone to their production processes, and more companies are moving to JDF-based systems every day.

But put JDF into perspective. JDF is a set of rules for vendors such as us to follow when we design new products. It’s also the way that vendors have agreed upon to allow their products to communicate. Our job, as a equipment vendor, is to build systems that offer feature benefits to you, our customers. How JDF is deployed within that system is, to a large extent, irrelevant to the user.

Finally, a word of advice. Many vendors are talking the JDF talk, but there are only a handful of vendors today that can really boast true JDF systems interconnectivity. Vendors such as Dalim Software invest thousands in ensuring cross vendor connectivity by actively participating in all areas of the CIP4 organisation. So take the time to separate the companies who say “JDF Will be” from the companies who say “JDF is”.

----------------------------------

Comment from Will
This is obviously from a vendor point of view but the general interest is in the clear statement that JDF has happened.

Gee will be speaking in the Quark Workflow Theatre on Tuesday and Wednesday (15.20) next week at Olympia. the show is called Digital Printing World but some of the issues relate to printing in general.