Yes, Brad, the Internet Can Open Unbounded Markets to Print

To the Editor: “I was very interested in your December article [Get Careers in Print Linked to Internet, p.4]. The whole idea of print and Internet working together is very interesting. I graduated from Pennsylvania College of Technology with a B.S. in Graphic Communications Management and am currently enrolled part-time in the masters program at New York University in Graphic Communications Management and Technology, while working full time at L.P. Thebault in Parsippany, NJ. NYU offers a few courses in Web design and other areas of the Internet as it relates to printing. Just wondering what you think about a person like me enrolling in a course like that? Is there really a future for printing and the Internet to be interconnected?”

—Brad Van Valkenburg

To Brad Van Valkenburg:

It is my fervent belief that the Internet and printing are inextricably linked. In printing, as with all industries, the Internet helps connect buyers with sellers. The Internet facilitates transaction processes, simplifying specification and purchase, speeding payment—often arriving with the order. And as with any area of manufacturing, the Internet speeds and optimizes the production process, allowing customers to transfer files, review job status, approve proofs, and get shipment confirmation.

But unique to printing, Brad, is its role as a medium in parallel with the Internet, mostly originating content (as seen in Google search results), but other times producing content spawned by the Internet (gaming magazines, for example, or, lately, lifestyle magazines for denizens of virtual worlds). In another permutation, print drives demand for consumer goods (catalogs, newspaper inserts, etc.), while orders get placed online.

Long ago, when television seemed poised to eliminate the print medium, it soon became apparent that one medium requires another to propagate itself, and we saw the longest-run magazine, TV Guide, borne of that media transition. The vastness of the World Wide Web—with page counts roughly equal to the global population—necessitates that other media be employed to explain and exploit it. Print, it turns out, is just perfect for that job.

Another thing you might notice, Brad, is that the Internet is intensifying the exchange of print buying among printers—a long-standing practice simplified by online connections. Throughout the pages of GAM you see growing numbers of shops advertising to each other, mostly with Websites; likewise for the pages of the venerable Graphic Arts BlueBook print industry directory. A study of users of this thick guide, who mirror GAM readership (we publish it as well), finds 88% thumbing its pages for vendors of equipment and supplies; but 71% turn to it to find other printers. After all that, 52% connect online. Perhaps your firm, Brad, is doing the same.

Sentiments conveyed by panelists at the NPES regional road show in Chicago last month expressed the rise in printers competing with peers everywhere and serving customers anywhere. “We compete much more with businesses across the country than with local firms,” said Steve Richards, VP, Richards Graphics Communications, Bellwood, IL. “It's one of the most significant things that has happened to us as a company.” Richards offered his comments to explain why he does not worry so much about duplicating any local firm's pressroom: He is competing for business outside his geographic region, even shipping abroad for multinational clients.

Panelist Bill Gibson, director of sales at Chicago's Rider Dickerson, noted another Internet effect—increased transparency for customers. Gibson suggests that at PIA/GATF's new Digital Print Council forum, printers may be able to share experiences—perhaps offering unvarnished comments about equipment and vendors. The Internet may taketh away, but it giveth back, including open commentary. And that may take some getting used to.

bill.esler@reedbusiness.com