Fry Communications recently entered into an Affiliate Agreement with Blanchard Systems to offer the SendMyAd ad portal as part of Fry’s growing selection of production workflow tools.

SendMyAd is a “cloud based” ad portal, which is accessed using a standard web browser to simplify the process of print, web and tablet ad submission. With SendMyAd, ad materials can be uploaded, preflighted, approved, and delivered to the publisher or their printer all within a simple-to-use portal. It provides both the publisher and advertiser an interactive preflight report highlighting the results of preflight tests performed against the publisher’s ad specifications. With an easy to use trim-editing tool, ads can be repositioned and trimmed to match ad specifications without resubmitting or leaving the ad portal. SendMyAd creates a PDF/X-1a and retains all job ticket and history as metadata. The ad is then delivered to the publisher or printer ready for placement in the magazine.

“Offering SendMyAd to meet the growing needs of our diverse customer base,” said Dave Fry, Chief Technology Officer, “will allow Fry Communications to offer a solution to improve the productivity and profitability of our publishing customers by streamlining the process of receiving ad materials. SendMyAd has built an excellent reputation in the market, serving the needs of a wide variety of publishers.”

Charles Blanchard, CEO of Blanchard Systems said, “Blanchard Systems is very pleased that Fry Communications has joined the growing SendMyAd Affiliate Program. We developed the Affiliate Program so that publication printers like Fry Communications could offer their publishing customers an end to end advertising solution as part of their valued-added offering. We have worked with Fry Communications for many years and look forward to growing our relationship with them in the years to come.”

About Blanchard Systems, Inc. (www.blanchardsystems.com)
Blanchard Systems is a software development and systems integration company providing the best productivity solutions for the printing and publishing industry. As the developer of SendMyAd and Virtual Publisher, Blanchard Systems provides publishers with cloud-based solutions to streamline the process of planning, receiving, producing, and delivering all types of advertising and editorial materials for publishing. As the North American distributor for and shareholder of Dalim Software, Blanchard specializes in automating workflow solutions that solve its customers' most pressing issues.

About Fry Communications, Inc. (www.frycomm.com)
With a heritage in print and a focus on new technology, Fry Communications, Inc. has continually expanded and diversified to meet the needs of its customers. As one of the nation’s largest privately held integrated communications companies, Fry provides category-leading solutions in publishing and marketing services to its growing customer base. Through the Fry Family NetworkTM, an integrated association of family-owned companies, Fry consultants integrate solutions from traditional print and distribution to progressive digital device delivery and custom web publishing, effectively bridging the gap between today and tomorrow.

DUO 2012 Starts in Less Than 2 Months.

Dear DALIM User:

We wish you a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year!

DUO 2012 will be held March 7th - 9th in Las Vegas at the 5 star Aria Hotel, the site of last year’s successful DUO.

We are finalizing the agenda for this year’s meeting, and we can assure you it will be packed with new product information, a line-up of outstanding influential industry guest speakers and a series of panel discussions that will be exceptional and very informative.

At the meeting you will get a preview of DALIM’S key DRUPA announcements including the new ES3. You will have an opportunity to be part of hands-on-product demonstrations and see first-hand new enhancements to DALIM’S range of products.

Here are just some of the key topics to be covered:
Integrated Color Communications with Dialogue Engine
Integrating and Balancing IT, Pre-Press and Production
Business Process Management and Production with ES3
The Road to Tablets - Automation and iPad
PLUS a major Keynote Address and Compelling Panel Discussions with Industry Leaders.

The 2012 meeting will be a “must-attend”!

The Registration Fee will be the same as last year, $695 for the first company representative and $495 for each additional member of the same company.

Registration Information
Please click here to register online for the event. Payment can be made by check or credit card.

To make your reservation at the Aria Resort & Hotel please call at (866) 359-7757 or (702) 590-7757 and mention you are attending the “DALIM 2012 User Group Meeting”. You should plan on arrive Wednesday, March 7 in time for the evening Welcome Reception. The meeting will start Thursday morning March 8th. The meeting will adjourn Friday afternoon.

We have secured a very competitive hotel rate of $159 per night plus a $20 per day resort fee. In addition, we have a limited block of rooms set aside for Friday evening March 9th at these special rates for those of you who are interested in staying through Saturday afternoon.

The registration fee includes annual membership dues in DUO and registration for one person at the annual meeting, all event meals, welcome reception and special evening dinner plans.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us or Len Bacharach DUO Event Coordinator.

DJ Gressmen, DUO President
Creel Printing
Las Vegas, NV
(702) 464-7316
djgreesmen@creelprint.com

Paul Giaime, DUO Vice President
JWT New York
New York, NY
(212) 210-8836
paul.giaime@jwt.com

Len Bacharach
DUO Event Coordinator
(516) 443-3194
lenbach@optonline.net

In the world of publishing, Time Inc. needs little introduction. One of the largest consumer publishers in the world, its portfolio reaches more than 100 million people with well-known titles such as TIME, FORTUNE, Sports Illustrated, and People.

As one of the pioneers of digital ad submission process and practice, Time Inc. probably has more experience with the online submission of advertising than any other publishing company. "Time Inc. was one of the key initiators in the creation of the ad portal concept", says Kin Wah Lam, Director of Digital Development . We implemented best practices for ourselves, and then began working with vendors so that they could develop technologies that would eventually reach the publication eco-system. We also worked with industry associations to help push the adoption of ad portals throughout the industry."

So why did Time Inc. want to move to an online-only model of advertising submission? "It's obvious!" replied Kin. "We are living in a world of internet technology that gives us the ability to perform fast, reliable and secure business-to-business transactions. We bank online and buy things online, so we can certainly send files to each other online."

Moving to an online model would clearly provide a number of benefits – not least a level of automation and QC far beyond simply sending a file (i.e. including preflighting, size checking, and so on). In addition, an online system would help eliminate the time that staff spends informing advertisers each time there is a problem with the submitted file.

"One can draw parallels with the concept of "Total Quality Management", or TQM." says Peter Meirs, VP Production Technologies at Time Inc. "TQM assumes that every segment of a process hands off perfectly to the next segment. Before we started using an ad portal to filter out problems, supplied ads were prone to fail. We no longer deal with the fact that a certain percentage of ad submissions are going to be bad."

"An ad portal would give the assurance of knowing that everything the publisher received had been subjected to a rigorous vetting and checking process. If a file failed to meet any specification, the advertiser would know immediately. The entire process becomes streamlined, saving time and money for both publisher and advertiser it's a "win-win" scenario for all concerned."

Prior to adopting SendMyAd, Time Inc. had been using another vendor's system. Ultimately, various technical and application-based restrictions from the other system hindered the speed of adoption of the ad portal by the advertisers. Time Inc. realized that a new ad portal needed to be implemented.

The new system had to be a 100% web-based model, offering stringent file testing to ensure that the ad met mechanical and technical specifications, as well as being easy for users to implement. "The changeover to SendMyAd was clean and quick," continues Peter. "Around 3,500 advertisers moved from the old system to the SendMyAd portal in around thirty days. There were no handover problems or cross-training issues. The users simply moved from one system to another."

"Advertiser feedback from our current ad portal has been very positive," says Kin. "One issue that we completely eliminated is the subjectivity of placement of the ad, relative to the trim size on the page. SendMyAd provides advertisers with full control of ad positioning on the page. We didn't have that before."

Today, every single ad comes in via the portal. "It's been like that almost since we started," continued Kin. "We don't do anything in half measures that would be too confusing for everyone. Our process requirements are strict and thorough, but we do that to protect the advertisers and this, ultimately, helps the industry. Both Time Inc. staff and management have fully embraced the ad portal because of the efficiencies that it has brought to the process."

Peter noted that "SendMyAd has significantly reduced user-error issues. Also reduced is the number of calls that our production people have to make to resolve submission problems. A key part of the successful move to SendMyAd has been in the area of technical support. "SendMyAd has continued to implement new features, as needed, and has modified the user interface to make it as intuitive as possible."

Peter continues "SendMyAd has helped to streamline the ad delivery process. One capability that they have recently provided is a way of packaging ads destined for the tablet versions of some of our titles. The content components need to be presented in a particular way for ingestion into our content publishing system. The portal has helped us simplify that process."

The popularity of mobile devices such as Apple's iPad has raised the profile of digital content delivery for many publishers from both editorial and advertising perspectives. While continued development of the portal to support Time Inc.'s digital editions is planned, Peter doesn't see an urgent need for new features. "We have to remember that, regardless of all the attention that's been given to tablets and mobile, there's still a ways to go before digital ad volumes approach the rate of print ad volumes.

Kin offers some advice for any company looking to implement an online ad submission portal of their own. "It's important to be aware that, technically, not all ad submission portal solutions are created equally. We are very strict in terms of the quality of files that our ad portal will accept. This, unfortunately, is not the case with some ad portals in the marketplace. As a result, an ad that passes verification from one portal may not get through our portal. Lowering standards will lead to problems with bad files proliferating within the industry."

So what of the future? Not surprisingly, both Kin and Peter take a keen "hands-on" interest. "We are active in the SendMyAd User Group, and we have hosted the meeting in our building the last couple of years," says Peter, "It's a forum where the industry people provide feedback and share new requirements with the principals at SendMyAd."

"Our business is changing rapidly. We've gone from receiving only print ads submitted in digital form to a process that includes new digital platforms such as tablets and mobile devices. The publishing industry is starting to work with a number of new and different formats and specifications. It's important that we all work together to address issues that affect us as an industry.

"Partnering with open and flexible companies such as SendMyAd is a key part of the process. We value their contribution in helping us develop best-of-breed practices for digital ad submission within Time Inc. We are happy to share our learning to help optimize the process of digital ad delivery across the industry."

Customers who choose to update thier DALiM systems to the just released August patch set need to be aware that DALiM has removed a number of tools classified as "Obsolete" from the TWiST software.

Obsolete tools can be identified by the upper left corner having a red triangle shaped mark on them, and most have a generic "top" icon.

If you have any workflows which contains one or more of these tools you should remove the obsoleted tool(s) and replace them with the designated replacement tool before patching your system, once you update your system to the August patches you will no longer be able to publish any workflow containing one of these tools.

You will still be able to open and modify workflows containing these tools, but if you attempt to publsh them you will recieve an "unknown basic tool" error and the workflow will be unpublished from all your TWiST servers.

If you are unsure as to which tool to use as a replacement for one of these obsoleted tools please open a ticket with our support site and we will assist you in locating the correct one.