Prepress
vjoon and Catena Company Support E-reading/Cross-media Publishing Research Project
Thursday 21. April 2011 - Catena Company, vjoons Belgian integration partner, is taking part in a project called "from e-reader to e-reading". Funded by IWT (Innovation through Science and Technology) in Flanders, it aims to help small and medium-sized publishers to gear up for cross-media publishing.
Catena Company is part of a research group comprising 17 publishers, 8 integrators and software vendors, 5 public-sector organizations, and 2 universities. These organizations joined forces to analyze in detail the latest trends in e-reading. The group has already devised and sent an online questionnaire to 2,770 participants to learn more about their reading habits, media consumption, intentions to buy, and willingness to pay for content.
Another important goal on the research groups agenda is to analyze small and medium-sized publishers infrastructure and workflow automation systems to see where they stand now and to develop recommendations for the next steps. This research focuses on IT infrastructure, input formats, workflows, content management, layouts, outputs, and distribution systems, as well as pricing policies and strategies for e-publications.
All these research efforts will culminate in a technical roadmap and business plan that offer recommendations for small and medium-sized publishers. Offering advice on e-reading hardware, publishing software, workflow automation, and ways to create cross-media content, the technical roadmap will help publishers gear up for competitive cross-media publishing.
IWT is a Flemish government agency that helps companies and research centers realize their research and development projects. IWT provides funding, advice, and a network of potential partners in Flanders and abroad, and supports the Flemish governments efforts to promote innovation.
Members of the e-reading research group meet to confer and also communicate via twitter and a blog. In just three months time, the blog already logged 35,000 visitors by the end of March 2011!