I would like to react to the article on The News-Journal RapidAd site I helped develop ["Pre-Press Award: An Untangled Web They Weave," January/February 1999, p. 6]. First, thanks so much for offering this opportunity each year to newspapers to share success stories. We thought the article was fair, well written and accurate. We were also very impressed with the nice luncheon, award and money provided by TechNews. I hope we can submit another idea that will meet your standards next year.
We’ve had some response since your article came out—people asking, "How can we do it at our site?" and "Is it for sale?" We did have a third-party vendor that was going to pick RapidAd up and market it, but I believe that has fallen through. We would love to offer this to the many people who have responded but unfortunately do not have the time to develop this more fully and support it.
Debbie McNerney
Digital Pre-Press Manager
The News-Journal
Daytona Beach, Fla.
A Vendor Alternative
I just read about the ad-delivery Web site at the Daytona newspaper [January/February 1999, p. 6]. I am miffed.
B-Linked has provided the same capabilities to newspapers for years. Our system is already installed at 14 of the top-20 newspapers, and more than 100 overall.
We offer the same features, and way more.
Advertisers can access a B-Linked server at a newspaper via the Internet, dialup modem or ISDN. This makes it available to anyone. It also offers backup in the event of a problem with the Internet.
Our system uses the NAA electronic-data interchange ticket. Our system offers a backend database scripting ability called Ad-abase to capture job data. Our system offers advertisers detailed online confirmations, and newspapers online notification.
We have been at NEXPO for over six years. We have over 2,500 ad-agency and advertiser users. We are not a middleman like AP AdSend. We offer a system that has worked for over six years!
It appears that as a best practice, my newspaper clients using our system got overlooked!
Todd Melet
President
B-Linked Inc.
Chapel Hill, N.C.
Our Best Practices Awards are chosen each year by a panel of 12 industry experts from among the many nominations submitted by NAA members. While B-Linked’s system may be a better solution than the one developed by Daytona, it was not nominated and therefore was not eligible to win an award.—Ed.
Pressing Kudos
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I enjoyed your article on the pressroom Best Practices Award ["Press Award: Printing’s Bronze Age," January/February 1999, p. 7]. Even with the technical aspects of the article, it was still lighthearted and enjoyable to read.
I found the other Best Practices Awards articles informative and educational, as I often do with the other articles in your magazines (both TechNews and Presstime). Your publications are both worth receiving and reading. Thank you.
Randy Perry
Production Maintenance Manager
The Orange County (Calif.) Register
Santa Ana, Calif.