Adobe Rolls Out New Digital Publishing Suite

At its annual Adobe MAX developer conference, Adobe Systems announced the Adobe Digital Publishing Suite, providing publishers with a set of turnkey hosted services and viewer technology to create, publish, optimize and sell digital content direct to consumers, through content retailers or leading mobile marketplaces.

The new Adobe Digital Publishing Suite is built on the foundation of Adobe Creative Suite and Adobe InDesign CS5 software, and it enables the design and delivery of publisher-branded reading experiences, paired with flexible commerce models and support for deep analytics reporting, Adobe said in a press release outlining the technology. Adobe announced the new Adobe Digital Publishing Suite at Adobe MAX 2010 in Los Angeles on Oct. 25.

Using InDesign CS5, PDF, HTML5 and the Digital Publishing Suite, publishers will be able to author both fixed and adaptive layouts, natively build new levels of interactivity directly in InDesign, distribute and monetize their digital editions, and optimize their editorial and advertising content for a complete end-to-end digital publishing workflow, Adobe officials said

"The publishing industry is reinventing itself, and a new era of editorial and advertising innovation is upon us as publishers target new mobile hardware platforms," said David Wadhwani, senior vice president and general manager for Creative and Interactive Solutions at Adobe, in a statement. "By leveraging the InDesign CS5 workflow and the services of the Digital Publishing Suite, professional publishers can design and commercialize a new class of innovative digital magazines to create a richer and more dynamic reading experience that will attract high-value subscribers and advertisers."

Adobe Chief Technology Officer Kevin Lynch will officially unveil the Digital Publishing Suite during his Adobe MAX 2010 keynote on Oct. 25 at 9:30 a.m. PT. Sign up for live streaming of the keynotes on the MAX 2010 Website at here.

The Digital Publishing Suite includes enterprise-level services and viewer technology:

• The Digital Publishing Suite will support the Adobe Content Viewer for Adobe AIR and iOS that can be fully publisher-branded to support immersive reading experiences on tablet devices, such as the BlackBerry PlayBook, Samsung Galaxy, Apple iPad and the many Android-based devices expected to come to market soon. Minimal chrome, innovative navigation features such as the zoomed out "browse mode" and dual-axis navigation allow readers to engage with content in new ways.
• Production Service: Upload articles directly from InDesign CS5 into an intuitive hosted service in which publishers can collaborate on design, assemble final content in the correct order, add issue and article metadata, and preview the complete issue as it will appear in final published form on the desktop and tablet devices. The Production Service will support a range of file formats, including PDF and HTML5.
• Distribution Service: Securely store, host and distribute digital content across leading tablet devices and desktops for broad reach and audience access. Publishers can manage content available for fulfillment from within a library content dashboard, including publication metadata and archival as well as seamlessly notify readers within the Content Viewer when a new magazine issue is available for purchase or download.
• E-Commerce Service: Leverage flexible payment and merchandising models with the ability to monetize content directly, through retailer platforms or leading mobile marketplaces such as the Blackberry App World, Android Market, Google Apps Marketplace or Apple App Store. Publishers can create high-value merchandising programs such as print and digital content bundles and enable readers to seamlessly purchase content directly from within the magazine application on their device. Direct publisher e-commerce support for interoperability will allow readers to purchase content once and read it on their desktop or tablet devices.
• Analytics Service: Gain valuable customer insights to better optimize editorial content and drive higher advertising monetization using best-of-class online analytics from Adobe SiteCatalyst, powered by Omniture. Publishers can access prebuilt dashboards directly from within the hosted publishing workflow to view key advertising and subscriber data including total ad views, issue download and purchase metrics and engagement with interactive content such as video. Valuable viewer-profile analytics can supplement traditional offline point-of-sale (POS) data to build a more comprehensive understanding of an individual subscriber. Drill-down reporting and analytics are available through a separate Adobe SiteCatalyst subscription. Additional dashboard and reports can be custom-tailored to meet a publisher's unique business goals.

Adobe is already working with the largest publishers in the world, such as Condé Nast and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, to create and monetize dynamic digital magazines.

"Our pioneering work with Wired and The New Yorker has enabled Adobe to deliver a set of workflows and tools that will leverage emerging hardware platforms and make our magazines stand out in the digital format that will attract advertisers and keep readers engaged in new ways," said Joe Simon, chief technology officer at Condé Nast, in a statement. "I can't think of a more exciting time to be involved in the publishing business."

Gael Towey, chief creative and editorial director of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, also in a statement, said, "Adobe was attuned to our needs as designers, editors and content creators and was able to meet those needs in a way that not only distinguishes our forthcoming digital issue of Martha Stewart Living, but will benefit all magazine publishers."

The Digital Publishing Suite is expected to be available in the second quarter of 2011 and offers both a Professional and Enterprise Edition. Pricing for the Professional Edition is expected to be $699 per month plus a per-issue fee, which scales with publisher volume. The Professional Edition price allows publishers to access the Digital Publishing Suite and create applications for all of their titles and publications. The Enterprise Edition is a custom, multiyear platform agreement that includes access to APIs for integration of back-end publishing services such as subscription management, print fulfillment and e-commerce. Adobe also offers professional services to support enterprise-level custom engagements.

Professional publishers that would like to deploy and sell commercial applications prior to general availability of the Digital Publishing Suite are invited to join the Adobe Digital Magazine Publishing Prerelease Program here.

A preview release of the add-on digital publishing technologies for InDesign CS5 is available on Adobe Labs here.

Additional information about the Digital Publishing Suite is available at here and on the Digital Publishing blog. And interested parties can follow the team on Twitter here.