It is well understood that technology is complicated and expensive and that publishers increasingly rely on technology to achieve business goals; but few publishers would claim that technology is one of their core competencies. Publishers have traditionally been forced to choose between accepting the complexity and expense of operating an in-house fulfillment system and outsourcing fulfillment operations, and all supporting technology, to a full-service bureau.

Unfortunately, neither in-house nor full-service options allow publishers to fully take advantage of new technologies that could help them diversify channels and revenue generating activities. Operating an in-house fulfillment system requires a significant commitment of capital investment, operating expense, and specialized IT staff to manage ever-increasing complexity. Outsourcing to a typical full-service bureau just transfers the problem to another organization that is focused on fulfillment operations, rather than technology, giving the publisher no benefits but less control.

The advent of cloud computing, and specifically Software as a Service (SaaS), offers publishers an alternative to operating legacy, in-house fulfillment systems or outsourcing fulfillment operations to a legacy service bureau.

A leading-edge audience management solution should be:

• Designed from the beginning to be delivered as a service
• Be available either as a self-service application or through a full-service bureau
• Offer application programming interfaces based on standards like SOAP
• Be purely browser-based – nothin’ but net

Self-service or full-service, publishers can get the best of all worlds by taking advantage of SaaS audience management solutions: simplicity of operations, and control over systems and finances.

During these turbulent economic times, it would seem that the act of forgiveness becomes more important now than ever. Yes, there are those who have been untrustworthy, unfair, unreliable, abusive, mean-spirited, vindictive, rude, and the list goes on. But we should be the better, more enlightened person. Someone has to be the emotionally healthy one, the leader, the hero, or role model.

You can experience great strength, power, and maybe some health benefits too when you forgive yourself and others. In a recent newsletter by Dr. Lark, a leader in the area of clinical nutrition and preventive medicine, she spoke of how the health of a patient improved once the patient was able to let go of damaging emotions. She also mentions Dr. Luskin, who is the Director of the Stanford Forgiveness Projects. He has done a great deal of research on the subject and runs workshops, seminars, and trainings on forgiveness. According to Dr. Luskin, festering resentment, holding grudges or having other negative emotions can affect your heart, brain, and overall health. The book “Your Body Speaks Your Mind” by Deb Shapiro, a well known teacher and author, presents an interesting read on the connection between emotions and physical symptoms.

You can start letting hurt and anger go out of your mind and body by talking or writing about the issue, or exploring other creative ways of releasing the baggage that weighs you down. Depending on the incident(s), we don’t necessarily have to tell the person we forgive them, but we should initiate the healing process. We may not forget unfortunate circumstances, but we can work on being more empathetic and compassionate with ourselves and others.

The Internet has created new ways for B2B marketers to compile and access prospect data, however, marketers continue to be concerned about the accuracy and quality of the data that is available.

Back in January, Bernice Grossman and Ruth Stevens put together a white paper on B2B data. It is a comparative analysis of some the leading B2B data providers and should be prerequisite reading prior to a B2B data purchase.

So far, we’ve identified what Cloud computing is and broken it down into four categories: Services, Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service, and Software as a Service. We've also explored some specific examples of commercial services in each category.

The key benefits of cloud computing include:

• Improved financial control releases capital to invest in revenue-generating initiatives:
• No capital investment
• Lower up-front expenses
• Ability to scale capacity and expenses up or down, based on current demand
• Simplified operations:
• No need to manage technology infrastructure or the staff to take care of it – zero IT footprint
• Frequent, painless upgrades to continuously enhance functionality
• Secure access from any computer with a Web browser and Internet connectivity

While its benefits are extremely compelling, cloud computing also presents some new risks. Perhaps the most obvious risk is the potential loss of control over IT, specifically: security, reliability, and vendor lock-in. To mitigate the security and reliability risks, look for vendors with active compliance programs, who are willing to to enter into contractual service level agreements that offer credits for unscheduled outages.

Vendor lock-in is actually no different between cloud-based services and in-house systems, since the majority of attributes that make a solution hard to replace are at the application level, which are equivalent between cloud-based and in-house systems, rather than at the infrastructure level. For example, in both cloud and in-house cases, historical data would need to be migrated, application integration would need to be examined, and end-users would need to be re-trained.

Another risk is the potential limitation to the ability to customize the application and integrate it with other applications. To mitigate these risks, look for solutions that were designed from the beginning to be delivered as a service, offering standards-based application programming interfaces (APIs), like Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), for integration with other applications.

APIs, however, do not always provide a way to truly customize a cloud-based solution, as is typical for an in-house solution, where clients can have direct access to develop custom functionality on the underlying database. The reality is that this form of in-house system customization might provide a little added control over API-level integration, but that control comes at the expense of exponentially increased costs and complexity and slower upgrade cycles, which delays the introduction of new functionality. On the other hand, integration using standards-based APIs provides significant control over functionality without sacrificing control over cost and complexity.

Here’s the bottom line: Cloud services allow clients to both simplify operations and improve control over finances. Risks related to vendor lock-in and limited ability to customize are more a matter of perception than practice. Any remaining risks can be easily mitigated with sound solution selection and vendor management.

Stay tuned for the next and final installment of this series, which will cover what cloud computing means to publishers.

On behalf of everyone at ARGI, I would like to sincerely congratulate Jessica Barnett for receiving the Apollo in Art award, recognizing her Excellence in Graphic Design, presented on March 19, 2009 by Southwest Florida College.

I was honored to be an attendee at the Southwest Florida College's portfolio show last evening. I must say that I was not surprised Jessica's work was judged far superior to her classmates. I continue to note Jessica's hard work and dedication to both ARGI and her studies. With her relentless work ethic and commitment to quality and service, it is obvious she has a bright future here.

Again, my heartiest congratulations for the award and a job well done.

Let’s review.

Amazon.com, Google, and Salesforce.com are known for offering software solutions to consumers and businesses under a service-based deployment model. This means that the vendor both develops the software and manages the infrastructure to run it, offering customers lower up-front expenses, no capital investment, and the opportunity to scale expenses up or down, based on demand. These are all examples of Software as a Service (SaaS) offerings.

SaaS, it turns out, is a category of cloud computing service. According to a recent article in IEEE Computer, there are four categories of cloud computing services:

• Services
  
• Amazon.com is probably the best known example of cloud-based services – these are basic technology building blocks like storage, database, and queue services.
• Usage is billed based on service-specific metrics; for instance, Amazon's S3 storage service costs $0.15/GB of storage per month, plus $0.10/GB transfer in, $0.17/GB transfer out, $0.01/1,000 write operations, $0.01/10,000 read operations, and no minimum charges.
  
• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
• Amazon.com's EC2, or Elastic Compute Cloud, is probably the best known example of IaaS - these are virtual server instances, with full administrative access and the ability to configure some basic network services like firewalls.
  
• You can sign up, configure a farm of virtual servers that run on Amazon’s infrastructure, use them as-needed, and pay by the hour. You can run any software on these servers that could also run on physical servers, including database management systems, web servers, email servers, etc. You can also take advantage of the building block services, mentioned above.
  
• Pricing ranges from $0.10 - $1.20 per server per hour, depending on class of server and type of operating system.
• Platform as a Service (PaaS)
• Both Salesforce.com and Google offer PaaS solutions, which are cloud-based frameworks that allow developers to build and deliver their own applications.
• The Google App Engine platform supports application development in the open-source Python programming language; Salesforce.com developed a proprietary programming language for building applications on their Force.com platform.
• Google App Engine is free, as long as your application doesn't exceed published usage quotas and doesn't use Google's Checkout payment service. According to Google, these quotas allow you to "serve a reasonably efficient application around 5 million page views per month, completely free."
• If you exceed your quotas or use Google Checkout, you are charged usage rates of $0.10/CPU hour, $0.15/GB/month storage, $0.10/GB incoming bandwidth, $0.10/GB outgoing bandwidth, and $0.0001/email message recipient. Google also allows you to configure the platform to not exceed a specified budget amount.
  
• Software as a Service (SaaS)
  
• Salesforce.com is probably the best known example of SaaS - it is a Customer Relationship Management application, delivered as a service. Google's GMail and Docs are also examples of SaaS. These are full applications, delivered as a service.
  
• Most SaaS offerings share the following characteristics:
• Vendor manages infrastructure and software that can efficiently scale to meet peak usage across clients
• Vendor allows client IT shops to maintain control using Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that are based on standards such as SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol)
• Vendor implements client by setting up an account. This starts billing at a minimum rate.
• Billing increases or decreases based on service-specific metrics like the number of user accounts activated, the number of transactions processed, a share of revenue earned, or the number of API calls made.
  
• Committing to fixed fee agreements can provide price stability for both client and vendor.
• Data migration from legacy platforms and integration support are professional services, billed at an hourly or project rate.

We’ll post part three and four over the next couple of weeks to give an in depth look at the benefits and challenges of Cloud Computing.

Lá Fhéile Pádraig Shona dhuit!

To those who speak Gaelic there is no translation needed. Today, all of us who were either born in the Emerald Isle or to those whose family came from that noble land celebrate St. Patrick and our Celtic roots. St. Patrick first set foot in Eire as a slave, kidnapped from his home in Wales when he was 16, he lived there about six years. After joining the church he returned to start his missionary work. Legend has it that he chased the snakes out of Ireland; however it is more a metaphor for converting pagans to Christianity, since Ireland has had no evidence of snakes since the ice age.

Traditions of the shamrock, as well as the fairy stories and leprechauns, have all become a part of the celebrations of March 17th. As has the American tradition of Corn Beef and Cabbage, please note that this is a strictly an American tradition. There is no corned beef in Ireland, when the Irish first started coming to this country, especially the famine Irish, potatoes and cabbages were cheap; and corned beef (or brisket) was one of the cheapest pieces of meat you could buy. The Irish dinner would have consisted of a piece of boiled bacon, with potatoes boiled in there jackets, with possibly a cabbage thrown in. The men may have enjoyed Pota Pádraig; after dinner the music would start and a Cieli would have begun in either some one's home, or in the village you lived in. The first St. Patrick's Day parade was March 17th, 1762 in New York City. This year will be the 248th consecutive year for the New York Parade.

Ireland has gone through many tough times in its history, the Great Potato Famine, the 'Troubles', which effects Ireland even today as evidenced by the shootings of 2 police officers in Antrim a week ago. The Celtic Tiger that was doing so well is also feeling the effects of the global recession.

But for today, lets all enjoy the beauty, the heritage and the gifts Ireland has to offer; the music, dance, the great writers. We are all Irish today, and say Slainte when you lift a pint.

May your walls be filled with laughter,

may it be filled from floor to rafter.

May the roof keep out the rain,

may sunshine warm each windowpane.

May the door be open wide

to let the good Lords love inside.

I remember when I was a kid seeing the original Star Wars with a couple friends on the big screen. Now I think of that movie with phrases like "Not since Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey has a science fiction movie been so ahead of its time." Of course at the age of 9, after noting the cool-ness of the robots and laser guns, it was more like "Wow! Travelling through space for them is like going to the grocery store for us! You just get in your ship and go." Later on in school, we learned about just how big an undertaking it was (and still is) to get someone into space. The incredibly complicated vehicles, the monumental amount of fuel, the checklists upon checklists that have to be signed off on just to fire up the engines, etc. Arthur C. Clarke once said something to the effect of "Today's science fiction is tomorrow's science fact." But with this, as with many other technologies at the time, there were very big gaps in time or in sophistication between the fiction of the future that was put up on celluloid and the scientific and technological realities of the present.

This morning, I was catching up on some email from the weekend from friends of mine. A friend from college who is a programmer and sci-fi junkie like myself sent me a video of a remarkable short film called "World Builder."

World Builder from Bruce Branit on Vimeo.

Not only was this film incredibly imaginative in its own right, but at the same time, it built on themes seen in previous attempts at imagining this kind of interface such as Swordfish with the giant amped-up PC with the curved swath of monitors to more virtual reality types of interfaces like BumpTop which attempts to redefine the role of the digital PC desktop to resemble more of an analog desktop and the "Digicom Corridor" in Disclosure, and Minority Report. World Builder jumps into Star Trek holodeck territory.

Even with today's technology, the idea of virtual interfaces this sophisticated being anything other than a special effect or anywhere other than some large facility with a multitude of computers running it all was pretty remote.

Not anymore. And in the presentation below, you won't just see this technology as being practical, portable and viable, but also you'll also see the marketing implications of it as well. A step closer to a point where information sells the product rather than visual images, slogans, or Super Bowl ads.

And it's not just virtual interfaces. Remember the scene in Minority Report where John Anderton walks through the mall?


Scanning your irises as you walk through the mall is not here yet, but detecting the proximity of your cell phone to an ad display has been around since 2005.

In a sign of the times, Seattle is losing one of its print newspapers to the internet.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,509404,00.html

As Chief Technology Officer, Geoff Scott is responsible for product management, engineering, infrastructure, and marketing services. Geoff has over 18 years of experience in bringing winning technology products and services to market. Read his bio here. Also make sure to check out his blog here.

For the next few weeks, Geoff will be sharing with us his perspective on one of the newer trends in technology: cloud computing. Here’s part one of Understanding Cloud Computing.

As you probably know, in the world of technology marketing, terminology doesn’t just evolve, it seems to get turned on its head overnight, every night. One of the more recent changes in terminology was the introduction of the term, “Cloud Computing.”

IDC expects IT spending on cloud computing services to grow from $16 billion in 2008 to $42 billion by 2012, or 27% CAGR. Given the state of the economy, this prediction, alone, is worth some investigation. So what is cloud computing and why should you care about it (even if you aren't an IT professional)? What solutions are available for audience management, marketing, circulation, and fulfillment professionals?

If you have heard about cloud computing, it was probably in the context of companies like Amazon.com, Google, and Salesforce.com. Each of these companies is known for offering software solutions to consumers and businesses under a service-based deployment model. This means that the vendor both develops the software and manages the infrastructure to run it, offering customers lower up-front expenses, no capital investment, and the opportunity to scale expenses up or down, based on demand.

Amazon.com offers consumers broad online shopping experiences and other online retailers a service-based e-commerce platform. Google offers consumers and businesses a wide range of services including search, Web analytics, email, and productivity applications. Salesforce.com is best known for it's sales force automation and CRM services. These are all examples of a category of cloud computing solutions known as Software as a Service (SaaS, typically pronounced 'saas').

In fact, there are now a multitude of companies of all sizes that offer high-quality, Web 2.0 products as cloud-based services. We'll cover those companies and products in part two of our series, Understanding Cloud Computing: Categories of Services.

The weather in the Northeast is cold and winter refuses to release its grip, the economic crisis continues to worsen and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan drag on with growing casualties. In the midst of this kind of news it is always refreshing to focus on the positive. High on my list of pleasant tasks as CEO is the quarterly presentation of our Client Service Excellence Award.

Presented at our regular, quarterly all-employee meeting yesterday, this quarter's honoree is Tom Lovett. Tom, who works in our Finance and Accounting department was selected for tireless energy, outstanding work ethic and consistently positive contributions to his organization.

It was a great pleasure to present this award to Tom. He is a fine employee and a credit to ARGI. Knowing that ARGI is filled with excellent employees like Tom and so many others is one of the reasons for my optimism. Congratulations Tom!

All the best,

Ray