Service Serves Business Publishers

Staff -- Graphic Arts Online, 11/1/2000

Santa Clara, Calif.-based PublishOne has launched a service designed to give print publishers an on-line vehicle for Web encryption and hosting as well as subscription management, customer support, and the supplying of sales reports to clients.

Also, by enabling print publishers to sell their content over the Internet or via e-mail, the service enables the marketing of materials through electronic distribution channels without developing an expensive infrastructure, explains company founder and chief executive Kirk Loevner, former head of the Internet Shopping Network.

Notable initial investors in Loevner's one-year-old company include the founder of eBay, the co-founder of Yahoo, and the co-founder of Netscape.

Publishers, who develop their own content as well as pricing models, can use the service to sell directly from their Web sites, or PublishOne can distribute the materials to a publisher's e-mail list(s). The service, set to go live by the end of the year at an average cost of $249 a month, is initially targeting business information publishers such as those involved with newsletters and journals, as well as market research and market data firms.

Book publishers also can take advantage of the service to market pieces of information over the Web.

Adobe Systems technologies will be utilized to support the distribution and sales of PDF files over the Internet; an agreement also has been made to use the digital rights management technology of Santa Clara-based InterTrust Technologies Corporation.