Jigsaw wins award

The Guardian and Observer Digital Editions won "Most Innovative Use of Technology" at the 2004 Newspaper Awards. The judges gave it "straight sixes" and described the project as "brilliant!" Aww, shucks...

Chizen on relationship with Apple

PC Magazine asked Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen about open source, Microsoft, Macintosh, Adobe's business strategy, etc. Adobe's relationship with Apple -- a significant matter for us -- has been subject of some debate recently, mostly perhaps because Apple has released software that competes directly with some of Adobe's. In emollient mood, Chizen says that between 22 and 25% of Adobe's business comes from Macintosh customers, and points out that those already on the platform are very loyal. Further, he does not envisage Apple attacking markets (such as pro digital imaging) where Adobe is unrivalled. However he sees little sign of "switching".
(From Macworld UK)

Electronic ink may prompt newspaper identify crisis

Another e-ink and impact on newspapers summary. "Widespread adoption of an e-paper platform would force papers everywhere to re-examine the very nature of their product ... 'Is the ability to update desirable in every case ... or do people want content that's kind of fixed?'"
(From Newspaper Association of America)

Axel Springer to launch 'Welt Kompakt'

Axel Springer has announced plans for an upmarket weekday tabloid comprising content from Die Welt and Berliner Morgenpost, whose editorial staff were merged in 2002. The paper will be trialled in the Dusseldorf area from May 24.
(From BBC News)

Indy may axe broadsheet this year

Raymond Snoddy in the Times reckons that the Independent may end production of its broadsheet edition earlier than expected, following the announcement that the tabloid version now accounts for 74 per cent of sales. Ivan Fallon said: "If you get to 90 per cent, it doesn’t make sense to produce both."
(from The Times)

Modulo team up with IxiaSoft (reg req)

QPS vendor Modulo Systems have announced a partnership with Ixiasoft, who will provide Modulo with their TextML Server XML database and indexing technology as a search/content management system. XML databases are getting quite popular in the publishing technology market...
(From Editor & Publisher)

De Volkskrant announces weekend print, weekday digital tie-in

"Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant recently introduced a clever Saturday-Plus subscription. 'Plus' subscribers receive a paper version on their doormats on Saturdays, while on weekdays they have access to the (full) digital version. Which mirrors the lifestyle of more and more readers: no time to read the paper version from Monday to Friday, combined with little desire to leave the home early on Saturday mornings to get the still-popular paper weekend edition."
(From Springwise.com - By email)

Printable transistors help electronic ink

In what seems to me to be an amusing paradox, Xerox have announced that "semiconductive ink" may make it easier to actually print components of transistor circuits. This new printing technology may facilitate (and hugely cheapen) production of "death of print" products such as roll-up displays.
(From Technology Review)

Senator tries to stop Gmail

Californian senator Liz Figueroa has written to Google arguing that their service will be a breach of privacy for customers. Google plans to provide a huge a vastly larger server space for users, and in return to lace their messages with ads supposedly tailored to the user's interests.
(From MediaGuardian.co.uk)

"Some day, all broadsheets will be compacts"

Following the launch of tabloid sections on Sundays and Thursdays in the (otherwise broadsheet) London Free Press in Canada, editor in chief Paul Berton predicts "most of the newspapers of the world will soon come in a smaller, compact format. Let's say 10 years tops".
(From INMA)

S-J Mercury News is now registration only

The San Jose Mercury Chronicle, a web pioneer, today introduces a mandatory registration model for everything except "section front" pages. Their explanation is here (registration not required!).
(From JD Lasica)

Why mobile conversations are annoying

From Jakob Nielsen's latest Alertbox. A study by the University of York found that public mobile phone conversations were much more annoying to bystanders than were equivalently loud face-to-face conversations -- even though the latter "produced double the audio output". Conclusion: when we can't hear half of what is being said it is somehow more intrusive. Perhaps we're biologically inquisitive. It's a bit like the phenomenon whereby, when people are trying to sleep, muffled voices tend to keep them awake more than clearly intelligible ones.
(From UseIt.com)

Happy birthday spam

(Well, actually, happy birthday to the message that led to the name "spam".)
(From CNet tech news)

Submit Response on Quicksilver

Jack Mottram writes at some length about Quicksilver, my favourite new app. Should this be on the build..?
(From Submit Response)

Indy sales boom slows

ABC figures for last month show that the Independent only gained 2,000 extra readers, a marked reduction on previous months. The year-on-year increase stands at 15.25%. The Guardian's sales increased 1.77% compared with the previous month, but year-on-year figures are down 8.74%. The Times is showing an increase of 0.48% year on year.
(From MediaGuardian.co.uk)

Newsmap

Interesting little design experiment: newsmap shows the current content on the Google News aggregator, represented as a "treemap". Each row is a different theme (international, sport, etc) and each cell in the row has an area based on its "importance" (i.e. how many "related" links Google News is displaying). It's an interesting way to sample what is considered important.
(From Digital Deliverance)