Adobe Digital Publishing

by Teresa Demel

Just in time for the giving season, Heifer International and Bates Creative Group released World Ark magazine and catalog, powered by Adobe Digital Publishing Suite. World Ark not only showcases the inspiring stories of individuals and communities impacted by Heifer International, but also includes “The Most Important Gift Catalog in the World,” which allows readers to invest in the lives of individuals in developing nations.

In this app of the week video, I share the story of a woman in Bangladesh, who was able to become financially independent through gifts from Heifer International. Her story of transformation is inspiring, brought to life by slideshows and video footage. In this example, we can see photos of children happily learning in school and a video of community members dancing together.

I also walk through the process of purchasing a cow through the catalog. Using buttons and slideshows, it is easy to navigate through the gifts, such as goats, chickens, and stoves, and learn how they will benefit recipients. Without leaving the app, readers can purchase a gift from the online store and return to reading about Heifer International’s work.

And yes, I did donate part of a cow on behalf of my dad. That wasn’t just my fine acting skills.

• Download World Ark magazine from the iTunes store
• Read the press release from Heifer International
• Watch the app of the week video here

Publishers looking for new ways to connect with audiences on the go need look no further than the device many people carry with them every day—their smartphone. Rodale, publisher of Men’s Health magazine, is doing just that with an enhanced version of the magazine now available on the iPhone. You have seen our App of the Week videos and news announcements. Today, you can learn directly from the Rodale Publishing team, featured in our latest customer success story.

Using Digital Publishing Suite, Men’s Health was able to create the iPhone version in-house in just 40 days, without hiring outside programmers. Icons and strong, consistent typography provide visual cues that help readers navigate and each animated workout exercise is presented on a single page, sequenced to walk the reader through the entire workout tutorial.

Built-in analytics in Digital Publishing Suite show that readers are spending up to an hour or more interacting with the brand. The Men’s Health enhanced edition is also causing spikes in circulation. In just the first 60 days after its release, Men’s Health for the iPhone grew to 16% of Rodale’s digital edition iOS audience. By 2013, the year marking the 25th anniversary of Men’s Health, the publisher projects that the digital editions of the magazine will surpass 100,000 paid subscriptions.

Read the Success Story PDF here:
Rodale Inc. and Men’s Health: Publishing icon—optimized for iPhone

Today, McPheters & Company released the iMonitor State of the App 2012, including its list of Best Consumer Publication and News-Related Apps for iPad. The top five apps, created with Adobe Digital Publishing Suite, received perfect ratings: Martha Stewart Living, Newsweek, Phoenix Home & Garden, Reader’s Digest, and Revista Época Negocios.

As company founder Rebecca McPheters stated:

The first five apps on the list are the only ones of the thousands we have evaluated to achieve perfect iMonitor App Ratings.  All of the apps on this list are outstanding – falling in the top fraction of 1% of all those tracked.  They are easy to navigate and appropriately leverage the iPad’s capabilities to both fully engage their users and to expand upon the service typically provided by more traditional media forms.

The iMonitor Report rates consumer publication apps on design, functionality, media, and advertising. McPheters evaluates nearly 8,000 apps from publishers worldwide.

To see the full list of apps, visit the iMonitor web site.

Join the Adobe Meets MPA series on Thursday, November 27^th to learn how to promote and monetize content built with Digital Publishing Suite. Presenter Gerald Farro will share strategies for growing digital audiences, developing incremental revenue streams, and extending brands with in-app stores, social sharing, and geo-targeting.

Gerald Farro has been working with many DPS publishers over the past three years. Prior to Adobe, he worked in the trenches at top media organizations such as Wenner Media, Source Interlink and Bauer Publishing. The Adobe Meets MPA lunch is intended to be an open dialogue with publishers to build creative strategies for monetizing digital content.

By Teresa Demel

As part of my job, I read a lot of magazines built with Digital Publishing Suite. (I know, I know… rough life.) I often stumble across great ads worth sharing, and you will sometimes see an “Ad of the Week” in your feed instead of an “App of the Week.”

For publishers, advertisements are an important revenue stream. For advertisers, their placement and value are carefully scrutinized to maximize return on investment. Ads built in Digital Publishing Suite apps can be extremely high value for both parties when executed well.

REI ad using the Scratch-off Effect

The REI advertisements built into Digital Publishing Suite are both targeted and engaging. REI, a supplier of outdoor gear, sponsored the “Gear Guide” issue of Backpacker, a surefire way to reach the target demographic: people passionate about exploring the outdoors. They use interactivity in order to not only lengthen the amount of time that readers spend in the ad, but also provide moments of joy and entertainment.

Check out three ads featured in this video

• Watch a video introduction with a personal message from the people at REI describing why they are sponsoring this issue.
• Swipe the snow off the page to reveal an REI ad underneath. The designers used the scratch-off effect to create this interactivity.
• Rotate your iPad to change your perspective of a man standing on a cliff. This is the parallax effect in action, built with three jpeg layers and javascript, utilizing the iPad’s gyroscope.

A tutorial for the scratch-off effect is available in DPS Cookbooks. There is a great discussion in the DPS forum on creating the parallax effect. If you have found any other helpful tutorials on these effects, please post them in the comments below.

Watch the Ad of the Week video here:

Our customers who use DPS for retail catalogs will be excited about today’s news. This holiday season, Adobe forecasts 21% of U.S. online retail sales to come from mobile devices, with a peak on Black Friday when 24% of online sales will be from mobile. To put this in perspective, Black Friday is expected to bring in $2 billion for retailers, which means that $480 million will be driven by mobile purchases. You can track these data points, and many more, on the Adobe Digital Index Holiday Forecast Interactive Website this season. The Adobe Digital Index 2012 Online Shopping Forecast is built on anonymous Omniture data aggregated from over 150 billion online visits to 500 retail websites in the U.S. and Europe over the past six years. Adobe has big data and we are not afraid to use it.

The data shows that mobile retail shopping habits are rapidly growing – and it’s important for retailers to not miss out on these affluent customers. In the United States, sales from mobile devices is projected to increase 110% over 2011 sales. In Europe, sales from mobile devices is predicted to double.

While many retailers have websites designed for mobile, some savvy retailers use Digital Publishing Suite to drive traffic directly from highly designed digital catalogs to their websites. By bringing the catalog experience to life with videos, 360 rotation and other interactivity, they’re immersing customers in the product experience.  What’s more, with online shopping available in tablet catalogs, retailers are turning browsers into shoppers.

Data Points Worth Tracking
United States
24% of online sales for Black Friday will be from Mobile
-        13% Tablet
-        10% Mobile
-        1% Other

21% of online sales for the holiday season will be Mobile
-        13.5% Tablet
-        6.5 % Mobile
-        1% Other

Sales from mobile devices will be 12% of online holiday sales in Europe up from 6% last year. Online sales from tablets will more than double those in 2011 and sales from mobile phones will double those of 2011.

• Bookmark the Adobe Digital Index Holiday Forecast interactive website and track predictions for the coming year.
• Check out the Adobe Digital Index Holiday Forecast infographic
• Learn about retail catalogs built with Digital Publishing Suite, including Lakeland, ASOS, and Dick’s Sporting Goods

Digital Publishing Suite passed the test! The Audit Bureau of Circulations—now known as the Alliance for Audited Media (AAM)–has successfully completed an initial audit of the metrics captured by the Content Viewer included with DPS. DPS is the first digital publishing solution to be certified by AAM.

Working with Adobe customers, the AAM ascertained and verified how Digital Publishing Suite, as well as the metrics available through Digital Analytics included in the Adobe Marketing Cloud, are measured and reported. The following metrics have been certified:

• Number of readers for a magazine and each individual issue
• Total number of article and content views within an issue
• Total time spent with an issue by all readers

What does this mean for the magazine and newspaper industry? It brings publishers and advertisers closer to achieving the common goal of accurately measuring consumption and engagement of digital issues and delivering verified data that is critical to the industry as a whole.

And this is just the beginning. AAM will continue to audit DPS over time and expand the scope of its review to additional metrics.

Read the press release: AAM Certifies Adobe Digital Publishing Suite

Earlier this year, ASOS launched its weekly fashion catalog on the iPad, allowing fans from around the world to read about celebrity styles, browse through the latest fashion, and add products to online shopping carts – all without leaving the app.

In October, ASOS launched its iPhone app, and now on-the-go readers can purchase clothing and read the same great editorial content without leaving the app.

In this app of the week video, I point out the following features:

• A beautiful custom HTML storefront, displaying issues in a carousel layout
• Clear and eye-catching table of contents
• Embedded video for viewing celebrity interviews and tutorials
• Easy to use e-commerce, with clear instructions for adding content to the shopping cart

It’s always interesting to see how publishers adapt content for the small screen. ASOS has proven that smartphone catalogs can be just as engaging and user friendly as tablet.

Watch the video here:

As mobile devices and tablets become more popular with consumers, the opportunities for retail catalogers and direct merchants are continually expanding.  The casual, “lean-back” shopping environment of a tablet device provides retailers with enormous opportunity to discover new revenue streams.  In fact, a study we commissioned earlier this year found that tablet users on average purchase 20% more than web visitors and 50% more than smartphone users.

To not miss out on this revenue opportunity, companies like Sotheby’s, Dick’s Sporting Goods and ASOS are bringing their catalogs to life on tablets using Digital Publishing Suite. With rich, immersive interactivity, consumers can experience products in the catalog in an inspirational fashion that inspires them to buy.  What’s more, by using designers to produce this digital catalog content, retailers avoid the costs of hiring an expensive custom app development shop.  Even better, with integrated in-app analytics, retailers can see how their catalog is performing – and make adjustments to the content in order to maximize their marketing spend.

We’ve outlined some of these thoughts on how retailers can take advantage of the tablet opportunity in a new whitepaper that explores the future of shopping in digital catalogs.  Download the white paper below and let us know how you’re using tablets to drive revenue in the comment section.

Download the whitepaper “The Future of Shopping: Digital Catalogs and the Omnichannel Consumer” (PDF, 1.7M)

Digital Publishing Suite, Release 24, is now live. We are excited to announce support for new devices, analytics on end user behavior, and improvements to the publishing workflow and reading experience. For more detail on any of the features, visit the Adobe Digital Publishing Suite Help Site, hosted by Bob Bringhurst.

REACH MORE READERS: EXPANDED DEVICE SUPPORT
Support for iPad Mini
DPS apps built for iPad2 will automatically work for iPad Mini. With no extra effort, your app will be available for iPad Mini users as well. This benefits our Single Edition customers, as well as Pro and Enterprise.

Support for Kindle Fire HD 8.9” Device
The Kindle Fire HD 8.9” device is planned to ship on November 20^th, and your publication can be immediately available for early adopters. In order to target the device, designers can develop a 1920×1200 folio.

Web Viewer on Windows 8
If you use social sharing, articles shared by your readers can be viewed on Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8 web browsers.

IMPROVEMENTS FOR READERS
Folio Download in the Background
Your readers can now download a folio, leave the app, and do other activities on their iOS devices (check email, play Angry Birds) while the folio finishes downloading.  Publishers must update the app to R24 in order for this to work.

UNDERSTAND YOUR AUDIENCE WITH NEW ANALYTICS
Track Reader Behavior
For Site Catalyst users: Find out how long readers are using your app, the number of times they are opening it, total days spent reading, as well as peak usage hours. See a sample “App Usage” chart below.

URL Navigation Tracking
For Site Catalyst users: Track the number of readers that click on URLs associated with hyperlink overlays (e.g. “Buy now” button) and web content overlays (e.g. Twitter feed) and also understand how people are opening the URLs (in Device Browser or in app Viewer or in Webview). Now you can tell advertisers how many people opened up their website within the app or clicked on a link in a web content overlay. The chart below provides a sample of URL tracking.

Track User Device and Operating System
New analytics will show the devices and operating systems that are being used by readers to download your publication. Data will be broken down by the following information. See the chart below for a sample.

• Device type (e.g. mobile phone, tablet)
• Devices (e.g. Apple iPad, Amazon Kindle Fire)
• Device name (iPad 2, iPad 2 CDMA/GPS)
• Manufacturer (e.g. Apple, Samsung)
• Operating System (e.g. iOS, Android)
• OS Version (e.g. iOS 5.11, Android 3.2)
• Connection Type (e.g. LAN/Wifi, Mobile Carrier)
• Carrier Name (e.g. AT&T)
• Screen Size (height & width)

ACCOUNT ADMINISTRATION
Renewal Options
When it is time to renew your DPS license, you will be able to update your account through the reseller you purchased from or if you purchased online you can renew on adobe.com.

STREAMLINED WORKFLOW
Workflow Enhancements for Designers
The engineering team has made several changes to improve workflow efficiency for your designers:
1)   They can update multiple articles at once, instead of needing to update a single article at a time
2)   If a folio fails to publish due to server error, the publishing process resumes from the point where it stopped publishing.
3)   Folio Builder UI enhancements force designers to select the folio orientation before proceeding. This helps prevent publishing issues down the road.
4)   Error messages now point designers to Knowledge Base articles to aid in troubleshooting.

Workflow Enhancement for Enterprise Developers
You can now sign an in-house application with an enterprise mobile provision file that contains an explicit (non-wildcard) application ID. This change lets you manage the application independently from other apps in your organization.

Small changes

• Publishers can disable the Cover view in the iPad viewer library
• The dialog box that asks readers to restore purchases has been eliminated. Readers can restore purchases using a button in the top right-hand corner.
• Publishers that distribute private publications can remove an app from the collection without removing others.

Visit Bob Bringhurst’s site for details on any of the new features.