Digital edition

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A digital edition is an online magazine or online newspaper delivered in electronic form which is formatted identically to the print version. Digital editions have the benefit of reduced cost to the publisher and reader by avoiding the time and expense to print and deliver like a paper edition.^[1] This format is considered more environmentally friendly do the reduction of paper and energy use. These editions also often feature interactive elements such as hyperlinks both within the publication itself and to other internet resources, searching and bookmarking, and also can incorporate multimedia such as video or animation to enhance articles themselves or for advertisements. Some delivery methods also include animation and sound effects replicating page turning to further simulate the experience of its print counterpart.^[2][3][4]. However, the popularity of these facsimile digital editions is limited because they provide neither the best reading experience to the customer, nor a viable revenue stream to the publisher.^[5][6] Additionally some publishers are using other electronic publication methods such as RSS to reach out to readers and inform them when new digital editions are available.^[7]

Current technologies are generally either reader-based, requiring download of an application and subsequent download of each edition, or browser-based, requiring no application download (such as Adobe Acrobat^[8]) and is often Flash-based. Some application-based readers allow readers to access editions while not connected to the internet. Dedicated hardware such as the Amazon Kindle is also available for reading digital editions of select books, popular national magazines such as TIME, Atlantic Monthly, and Forbes and popular national newspapers such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post.

Archives of print newspapers, in some cases going back hundreds of years, are being digitized and made available online. Google is indexing existing digital archives produced by the newspapers themselves or by 3rd parties.^[9][10]

Newspaper and magazine archival is not new with microform film formats solving the problem of efficiently storing and preserving though the format lacked accessibility. Many libraries, especially state libraries in the United States are archiving their collections digitally and converting existing microfilm to digital format. The Library of Congress provides project planning assistance^[11] and the National Endowment for the Humanities provides funding through grants from its National Digital Newspaper Program.^[12]

Digital magazines, ezines, e-editions and emags are sometimes referred to as digital editions but some of these formats are published only in digital format unlike digital editions which replicate a printed edition as well.

[edit] See also

• E-book
• Ezine
• Pressmart Media - Digital Edition Publisher.

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Kanter, James. "Reading Green On Demand". New York Times. http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/02/reading-green-on-demand/. 
2. ^ "Product". CerosMedia. http://www.cerosmedia.com/page/product-information-users. Retrieved on 2008-07-01. 
3. ^ "Olive ActiveMagazine". Olive Software. http://www.olivesoftware.com/products/activemagazine.asp. Retrieved on 2008-07-01. 
4. ^ "Digital magazine features & benefits". nxtbook media. http://www.nxtbookmedia.com/products/magazines/features-benefits.php. Retrieved on 2008-07-01. 
5. ^ "Presenting Content Online: Where Digital Editions Fail". idio. 2009-02-22. http://platform.idiomag.com/2009/02/presenting-content-online-where-digital-editions-fail/. Retrieved on 2009-14-05. 
6. ^ "Digital editions: trying to solve the wrong business media problem". Rory Brown. 2008-01-12. http://rorybrown.wordpress.com/2008/12/01/digital-editions-trying-to-solve-the-wrong-business-media-problem/. Retrieved on 2009-14-05. 
7. ^ Murdoch, Rupert (11/19/2008). "The Future of Newspapers: Moving Beyond Dead Trees". Hawaii Reporter. http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?ed92812b-bf9f-4872-af4d-e16e267d431e. Retrieved on 2008-12-07. 
8. ^ "Digital magazines: a history". Magforum. http://www.magforum.com/digital_history.htm. Retrieved on 2008-07-01. 
9. ^ "Bringing History Online, One Newspaper at a Time". Google. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/bringing-history-online-one-newspaper.html. Retrieved on 2008-12-07. 
10. ^ "Canadian Digitized Newspaper Content to be Featured in Google News Archiv". Press Release (Paperofrecord.com). Dec 02, 2008. http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/PaperofRecordcom-Completes-Sale-Digital-Newspaper/story.aspx?guid={5A34DF5A-BADC-487F-ADC9-20D66E45DA92}. Retrieved on 2008-12-07. 
11. ^ "National Digital Library Program Project Checklist". http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/prjplan.html. Retrieved on 2008-12-07. 
12. ^ "National Digital Newspaper Program". National Endowment for the Humanities. http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/ndnp.html. Retrieved on 2008-12-07.