The Future of Publishing

– Those who are engaged in publishing enterprises, who include traditional and emerging publishers, but also brand and consumer marketers, are increasingly concerned with making their work more efficient and effective. And they’d like to improve their bottom-line outcomes as a result. Most are either moving to cloud-based solutions or considering it, but many don’t quite “get” The Cloud and are reticent to move to services in The Cloud for fear of losing control or security. Like the lyric from the old Joni Mitchell song “Both Sides, Now”, folks often have a tough time conceptualizing The Cloud (“I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now / From up and down, and still somehow / It’s clouds illusions I recall / I really don’t know clouds at all.”)

In fact, The Cloud not too difficult to understand when you think about it, and, as more and more companies move their publishing efforts to cloud services, failing to embrace The Cloud can put you at a competitive disadvantage.

At its most basic, The Cloud refers to the shared hosting and serving of Web-based services from centrally-managed locations.

Companies that develop and sell SaaS applications and services have come to be known more euphemistically as cloud apps and services, or cloud-based systems.

Cloud-based services have a variety of properties that make them attractive to publishers:

  • Lower total cost of ownership
  • Pay-as-you-go. No need to invest thousands or millions of dollar and years to get started.
  • Democractic. Being multi-tenant, pubOS services are available to publishers of all sizes. Any capabilities available to the New York Times will also be available to the smallest blogger.
  • Elastic. The service grows with you and scales to meet your needs.
  • Speed of innovation. pubOS services are continuously upgraded. And as you have your choice of vendors, you can choose a more appropriate vendor for any part of your system at any time.

Some services are already in the cloud. For example, Web analytics for the most part are off-the-shelf services that ride on top of your CMS, and you have choice of several vendors to pick from. Many others are still working on their cloud strategies and have yet to make a move.

For publishers and marketers, moving to cloud-based hosting for Web sites, microsites, and other delivery vehicles can result in enormous reductions in IT costs.  Moreover, cloud-based services can make teams more efficient, more effective and more flexible.

The leading providers of cloud hosting services include (contact the editor to add yours to this list!):

Service providers operating in The Cloud include (contact the editor to add yours to this list!):