IFRA

Responding from CCI Europe is Kim Svendsen, Marketing Manager.

WAN-IFRA: What are some of the main trends you are seeing in the area of cross media publishing? What do publishers want from systems today?

Kim Svendsen: One of the main requirements CCI is focusing on is simplicity – the tools must be easy to use and provide quick and seamless publication workflows to all media channels imaginable. Another need is gaining efficiencies through automation - can we make the system work for us? Publishers want to automate the repetitive operations to make room for creativity and quality journalism – to let editorial staff focus on content and collaboration in and beyond their newsroom. NewsGate is designed to support both high-volume automated production as well as the more time consuming creative processes resulting in unique design and content. Where to deploy template-driven workflows and where to use the whole range of highly specialised manual tools are entirely up to the customer.

Publishers want more than just software solutions - they also want consultancy and inspiration in managing change in their organisations. Newspapers all over the world have endured repeated cycles of cutting and staff reductions. These programs typically boost profitability for a limited period of time, and have a way of returning in vicious cycles - because they fail to address the root causes of the problem: Customers and advertisers are not happy with the product, no longer willing to pay top dollar for what has in effect become “yesterday's news printed on dead trees.” Ironically enough, managing the numbers by cutting costs/staffing to bolster profits, just keeps on further compromising the products, leading to less customer value, which in turn leads to further dropping profits and the need for repeated cost cuts. Vicious cycle indeed. CCI has established our Business Consultancy group to deliver more than just software solutions by offering workshops and best practice recommendations tailored to the specific goals of the publisher.

WAN-IFRA: There seems to be a trend toward more group-wide orders for cross media systems, what are some of the reasons for this?

Svendsen: We are experiencing a wave of consolidations across media groups. From 2-3 papers just consolidating IT to the world’s largest media groups wanting to reap the benefits of corporate synergies by sharing resources, content and information across multiple media and geographical locations. No one in the world does this better - CCI has a proven data-center solution with extreme stability and flexibility in organising planning, content creation, sharing, production and publication across boundaries.

WAN-IFRA: What are the main recent advancements for CCI's NewsGate?

Svendsen: As mentioned, the need for more simple and more efficient use of the systems is high on publishers wish list, because of this CCI has optimised and redesigned the NewsGate user interface from beginning to end. We have worked with one of the most recognised interactive design agencies in the world, and we are very pleased with the result! Workflows are more intuitive, publication of stories simplified to a few clicks and templated page production and planning are now faster and provide better production overview.

On the publication side, we have added a generic iPhone reader, integrated WoodWing’s iPad news reader and added a number of APIs for various other publication channels. We want it to be easy and cheap to try out new business ideas so media organisations can be in the forefront with the rapid changes happening all the time.

Very importantly NewsGate has been client-server “web-enabled” – meaning that when a new user is added to the system, all you need is to e-mail a small file/application to the user’s PC or Mac and they will be up and running on the full NewsGate system in minutes – easy installation, high security and super easy client maintenance.

WAN-IFRA: What developments do you see coming in the near future for cross media systems? What will CCI be showing at next year's IFRA Expo?

Svendsen: One of the focus areas in the coming months for CCI is to further develop sharing possibilities across organisations – meaning that syndication of content can be expanded in any thinkable way – perhaps even to sharing/selling coverage of big events (e.g. Olympics, elections, etc) in joint newsrooms where several organisations collaborate inside a virtual NewsGate newsroom set up for specific occasions. Video for portable devices and online is also going to be much bigger very soon – therefore we are currently expanding the video capabilities and integration to streaming services from NewsGate.

WAN-IFRA: Are you getting a lot of requests from newspaper publishers about tablet applications? I know you are working with WoodWing in this area.

Svendsen: YES! We are currently working with a handful of iPad projects expected to go live within a few months, but the number of customers who has asked us to provide specifications to how they can quickly set up the integration between the CCI editorial system and the WoodWing reader app is staggering! ... they get two tested and proven systems working perfectly together – CCI for the content creation and “page” production and the WoodWing app and content delivery server for the distribution.

Interview by Brian Veseling, Senior Editor for Publishing, Editorial and General Management and WAN-IFRA Magazine.