‘e’ help for publishers
Bengaluru, Feb. 3: Changing media consumption habits in developed countries, particularly the US, have thrown up business opportunities for companies that digitise content, and offer ePaper-based solutions.
Hyderabad based start-up Pressmart Media has been a beneficiary of the trend. It offers publishers both ePaper and ePortal solutions. Expand your footprint without incurring too much capex appears to be the winning formula.
"Last year, the Californian wildfires burned over 140,000 acre, destroyed nearly 100 structures and gutted the San Diego Union Tribune’s distribution vehicles. I received a call from the newspaper's head of business development who requested us to help them put up an ePaper, which we did in 2 hours flat. As a result, there was no break in service and readers got to read the newspaper online," recalls Sanjiv Gupta, founder & CEO, Pressmart.
In another such instance, Gupta and his team of 250 saved the The Sun and Financial Daily newspapers from spending $200 million to launch a Singapore edition.
"I sold them the idea of launching an ePaper first, for which, all they had to invest in was a few reporters and our fee of $20,000. It took 3 months for them to test market it after which they bought a license of our ePaper application software which helped them process, paginate, print and distribute news electronically," he says.
The company’s ePaper expertise evolved after the firm worked on digitising content for 150 hospitals in the US. The publishing industry was in dire need of digitisation as a way to protect against hazards such as fire, termites, rain etc.
To date, Pressmart has now digitised content for 700 publications, in 22 languages.
Pressmart has now taken its offerings on the mobile phone and eReader among other emerging platforms. The firm is commercially launching an on demand ePortal management service this month.
It would aid publishers create a portal, an ePaper, manage a mobile-compatible version of the website, connect it to social networking sites, and manage subscriptions among others.
"In keeping with the way media is being consumed across a variety of digital channels today, the solutions that Pressmart offers provide a starting point for engaging with publishers and providing higher value services such as content development, editorial layout, creating ads and ad layouts in future," says Vivek Shenoy, publishing analyst at ValueNotes Outsourcing Practice.
"And this has the potential to grow into a sizeable business quite like the ePublishing BPO services offered out of India which we expect to grow into a $12 billion business by 2012," he adds.
Sangeetha Chengappa
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