It’s time for publishers to embrace the cloud

As a result of continued digitisation, the publishing world is in the midst of profound change. This digital transformation not only affects the basics – strategy, structure and publishing processes – it is also revolutionising the long-term editorial possibilities and financial potential of magazines. 

Cloud-based computing has become so commonplace in business and the public sector that users often are unaware that they are using cloud-based services.

Yet cloud-based publishing, which has the potential to help publishers overcome major challenges, has not been widely embraced by the industry. 

Publishers must cope with increasing economic pressure even as they are simultaneously compelled to display their media brands over more channels than ever: print, Web, tablets, smartphones and social media. At the same time, editorial working models are in a state of flux. The current trend is clearly toward integrating more external contributors, which enables titles to collaborate with experts on specific topics. 

The Huffington Post and Forbes typify this pattern. Forbes, for instance, works with more than 1,200 carefully selected contributors from around the world and publishes about 8,000 posts per month. According to Forbes, the mix of quality and quantity distributed over a variety of media channels resulted in 63.5m unique users in January 2014 – more than a threefold increase from 19.5m unique visitors in 2010.

The cloud helps to address challenges and trends

Cloud-based solutions can help publishers address current challenges and trends and ensure their competitive future. 

The cloud clearly provides a number of benefits for corporate information technology. Cloud-based applications can easily be deployed throughout the company without the need to install software or additional hardware and with only minimal IT support and maintenance. In addition to significant IT savings, cloud deployment also helps to address the common problem of shadow IT: ad hoc applications installed by users that are beyond the control of the IT department.

Cloud-based publishing applications can also be easily integrated with other cloud-based applications, including ad management, WCM, CRM and more. And cloud environments scale easily so that publishers can instantly respond to growing demands and changing requirements. Ongoing updates and new releases ensure that the state-of-the-art environment meets industry requirements at all times.

The cloud also facilitates collaboration with external contributors worldwide, allowing global publishers and content creators to confidently and easily produce and share their content. Users can access the system regardless time and place, offering also the internal team a much a higher degree of mobility.

Important economic aspects

Choosing a cloud-based solution over an on-premises installation has significant economic consequences. “A large on-premises installation is a major investment that is depreciated over the life of the solution and appears in the balance,” explained WoodWing CEO Roel-Jan Mouw. “By contrast, a subscription to a cloud-based solution is an operating expense that shows up on the profit-and-loss account as ongoing expenses.”

Cloud helps to improve content ROI

A cloud-based digital asset repository simplifies sharing, reusing and repurposing previously published content, providing a basis for further monetisation. And cloud-based digital publishing tools streamline the creation and publication of content for channels such as the Adobe Digital Publishing Solution, Apple News, Facebook Instant Articles and more.

WoodWing introduced Cloud environment

In mid-September, WoodWing introduced WoodWing Cloud, a one-stop solution for cloud-based content creation, production, archiving, sharing and analytics. 

WoodWing Cloud’s hosted applications include Elvis Cloud for efficient digital asset management and the HTML5 authoring tool Inception for creating responsive digital content. With Enterprise Analytics, publishers can monitor the effectiveness of their publishing processes. More applications are planned.

Webinar introduces cloud-based publishing 

WoodWing will explain the benefits of cloud-based publishing environments and will introduce WoodWing Cloud as a holistic publishing environment in a free webinar on November 12. More information, including registration, is available here. 

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