Bringing Journals Online

(without going through print)

Demographics and Statistics: Who's Out There and What are They Doing?

Average age of Web users: 34.9 years
Gender breakdown: 68.6% male, 31.4% female
Education: 56.1% have completed college or an advanced degree program
Access: 63.6% access the Web from home, and 50% use the Web more than 10 hours a week
[Source: GVU's sixth survey of Web users, October-November 1996, with more than 15,000 respondents]

60% of Web users frequently read newspapers and magazines online
99% of that 60% also frequently read newspapers and magazines in print
25% of that 60% would be willing to pay a use or subscription fee for news and magazines
[Source: a survey of 1,527 Web users by the NPD group, results announced April 8, 1997]

$13 Million in Web-based ad revenue in 4Q95
$24 Million in 1Q96
$44 Million in 2Q96
$66 Million in 3Q96 -- an average of 72% sequential growth
Current advertising spending rate per Web reader: $9
[Source: Jupiter Communications, reported in Morgan Stanley's Internet Advertising Report]

Economic Issues: Is Electronic Publishing Cheaper Than Print?

Publishing consists of a number of operations, including:

Soliciting, selecting, and reviewing manuscripts
Markup, layout, graphic design and other pre-publication production work
Advertising
Fulfillment services (including billing for orders and subscriptions)
Publishing itself, which can consist of either (or both)

Printing, binding, and mailing
Uploading to a Web server

Of these, the first four are still necessary, regardless of the medium. The cost of these, by comparison to the cost of printing, binding, and mailing, varies quite a bit, depending on the nature of the material and the terms to which authors, editors, and staff are accustomed. In some cases, printing and mailing represents half or more of the cost of publishing; in other cases, it may represent a quarter or less.

Functional Issues: Is Electronic Publishing Better Than Print?

The answer to this question depends on the type of material and how it is produced and delivered. In the best case:

Reference works can be more easily searched
Works embedded in large collections can be found more quickly
Multimedia works are possible
No lag between completion of pre-publication processing and publication
Distributed reviewing, editing, proofing (without Federal Express)
Reach the accidental audience

Data Standards: Publishing for Today or Tomorrow?

The best delivery standards are ephemeral, sometimes proprietary, and oriented to presentation
The best encoding standards are persistent, non-proprietary, and descriptive
Encoding the best way and delivering the best way is more expensive than simply delivering the best way
If your data is ephemeral, you don't need to mark up for the ages
If your data is persistent, you can't afford to mark up for today

Tools for Electronic Publishing:

IATH Tools (free, unsupported):

Other Free Tools:

Hypermail

in use

Commercial Software:

Serving SGML to Web Browsers

Manuals:

References for Further Reading

Market Forecast