This is the second tablet publication from the Daily Mail’s publishing house created using Digital Publishing Suite and follows the successful YOUInspire fashion supplement that was released in February.
The Royal Wedding book contains photography and commentary from the special day that attracted a massive 2 billion viewers worldwide. The book begins with photos from the early morning when various distinguished royalty, prime ministers and guests from around the world began to arrive at Westminster Abbey, exclusive shots from the actual ceremony, and then the famous appearance of the newlyweds on the balcony at Buckingham Palace, as well as the fly-by from the Royal Air Force.
The publication was created in just hours to ensure that it was available to download on the night of the actual wedding. The small design team from The Daily Mail worked on the content as soon as it was available from the publisher’s official wedding photographers that were at the event, allowing them to create this one-off interactive Royal Wedding publication within the extremely tight timeframe.
The app has a preview sampler free to download from the App Store, from which you can then upgrade to buy the full keep-sake version of Prince William and Kate Middleton’s big day. The digital version has been designed to complement the print version that was featured in last weekend’s newspaper.
Today, I’m excited to announce that the Professional Edition of Digital Publishing Suite is now available. Following the availability of Enterprise Edition, which shipped last March, Professional Edition is now available as a ready-to-deploy tablet publishing solution that allows publishers to quickly publish content to the iPad, BlackBerry PlayBook or a host of Android devices. Because Digital Publishing Suite integrates tightly with the new Folio Producer tools publishers can use the existing skills of their design staff to cost-efficiently produce this tablet publishing content.
The Professional Edition of Digital Publishing Suite includes services and viewer technology to get publishers up and publishing quickly on tablet devices. Publishers can create interactivity natively in InDesign CS5.0 or CS5.5 with the Folio Producer tools, then transfer those layouts through the new Folio Builder panel to the hosted services of Digital Publishing Suite. These services include:
Folio Producer Service (newly released with the Professional Edition, also available to Enterprise customers) – after a designer uploads layouts from InDesign, the Folio Producer Service allows production staff to organize layouts via drag-and-drop in the cloud, add metadata, share content with others, and publish a final .folio file.
Distribution Service – host final .folio files and deliver them across a variety of devices, including on iPad, Android and BlackBerry PlayBook
eCommerce Service – enables publishers to support single-issue, multiple-issue, or subscription-based in-application purchases directly from within readers’ Content Viewer for iPad. In-app purchase for Android and PlayBook will be available by Q3 2011.
Analytics Service – delivers insight into content performance via prebuilt dashboards, including .folio files purchased & downloaded, top content & ads and application installs
Viewer Builder Service – allows publishers to create a publisher branded instance of Content Viewer, without restriction on number or file size of apps created.
Major publishers are excited about using Professional Edition to publish now to tablet devices. “We needed a method of creating apps that would seamlessly integrate with our current workflows here at Backpacker, and Adobe Digital Publishing Suite was a natural evolution,” said Anthony Cerretani, deputy editor, digital director, Backpacker Magazine. “Fairly quickly, we were able to take our Adobe InDesign CS5 base of knowledge and run with it, working off the strengths of our design, edit, and digital teams without skipping a beat. The intuitive nature of the tools was a huge plus for us. We didn’t want to reinvent the wheel when working with apps. Our goal was to extend the core service and mission of Backpacker into an exciting new medium. With Adobe Digital Publishing Suite, we didn’t have to outsource anything; we did it all in-house. That makes us nimble in a digital environment that evolves daily. We’ve already launched one app, www.backpacker.com/survivalschool, using the Adobe tools and we’re on track for launching a number of others, the next focusing on our annual Editors’ Choice Awards. So we’re already on the move and going digital, thanks to Adobe.”
Reader’s Digest, the world’s largest paid circulation magazine, is also using Digital Publishing Suite to engage its readers across a variety of tablet platforms. Learn more about how Reader’s Digest is using Digital Publishing Suite in the video below.
Professional Edition pricing includes a platform fee plus a service fee. Today, we’ve also updated the pricing (for Professional and Enterprise Editions) to include Gold Support now included as part of the platform fee. More information about Professional Edition, including detailed pricing, is available using the links below. As mentioned, Enterprise Edition shipped previously in March and is also available for publishers that need integration with backend publishing systems. To purchase Enterprise Edition or Professional Edition, please contact a Digital Publishing Suite partner or email dpsales@adobe.com
To date, we’ve seen many media publishers – organizations who make their money by producing and selling content – taking advantage of new digital publishing opportunities on tablet devices. The next big wave on the horizon involves business publishers – organizations who make their money in ways other than selling content and use digital publishing to extend their brand and engage their audiences. Major brands like Mercedes-Benz, EMI Music, Deloitte, Audi, Red Bull, the US Marine Corps and others are seeing tablet publications as a way to engage their constituents with extended information in a highly designed format.
For example, Mercedes-Benz South West, a Mercedes dealership in the United Kingdom, published a magazine highlighting lifestyle and product content targeted at the Mercedes customer (download app). The goal, according to Mike Wickins, managing director, Mercedes-Benz South West is to further engage with customers. “Mercedes-Benz is a brand that is known for quality and innovation and our new Points West iPad app continues in that tradition. With Adobe Digital Publishing Suite, we redesigned what was a product-focused print magazine into a format that is more engaging to the Mercedes-Benz consumer,” said Wickins. “With interactivity, videos, and sound clips, the Points West iPad digital magazine let us show off our vehicles in a manner that is informative and unique. At the same time we were able to bring the latest Mercedes-Benz news and South West related content to life, keeping our brand relevant and current in the eyes of our clients.”
Other organizations are using digital publications to engage with their constituents.
The US Marine Corps publishes Marines Magazine, a media vehicle used to engage Marines, their family members, veterans’ service organizations, and educational institutions (download app). Since releasing the second edition of the magazine on the App Store, the Marines experienced more than a thousand downloads in the first week alone – all without any specific marketing campaign.
EMI Music released an app featuring dedicated to one of its artists, Swedish House Mafia (download app). The Swedish House Mafia app connects passionate fans with the music they love. In the App fans can flick, swipe, slide and tap their way though a rich audio-visual narrative account of life in Swedish House Mafia. In addition to the full nine-track US version of the ‘Until One’ album the app includes multiple video segments from the band’s ‘Take One’ documentary, a beautiful interactive black and white photo gallery of over 150 photos and links to live Twitter and Facebook pages to keep fans up to date on the very latest Swedish House Mafia news.
Credit Suisse, the global financial services firm, was one of the first business publishers to take advantage of this new form factor with its client magazine – Bulletin (download app). Published five times a year, bulletin provides highly focused information about banking, the economy, and technological trends to Credit Suisse clients. This medium allows the banking firm to extend its brand and reach its constituents in new and engaging ways.
In addition:
TED Conferences uses the solution to create program guides for its events (download app)
Carlsberg Group, the Danish brewer, published its annual report using the solution (download app)
The State of Colorado published the official state vacation & travel guide in this digital medium (download app)
Red Bull (download app) and Audi (download app) both publish customer magazines that immerse readers in interactive content.
Now the Royal Wedding will live for time immemorial with a new interactive Royal Wedding souvenir app for the iPad, created with Adobe Digital Publishing Suite. The souvenir book commemorates Prince William’s much anticipated marriage to Kate Middleton on April 29, 2011 and was published by the UK’s Daily Mail newspaper.
