SD Times is the first trade publication in any industry to offer subscribers the opportunity to receive their copies of SD Times in a format identical to the print edition, e-mailed to them, or downloaded as an Adobe Acrobat PDF file. 1 Is the digital edition of SD Times just like the print edition? YES, the issue is IDENTICAL. All of the editorial content and design, all of the advertising, and all of the adjacencies that are in the print edition of SD Times are present in the digital edition.
2 PDF documents can have hotlinks in them. Can SD Times do that for my ad? You bet! The issue is fully HOTLINKED. All of the news stories and every advertisement have hotlinks that allow the reader to click and be instantly transported to your Web site. Then, when readers are through researching their buying decisions, they simply click on the "Back" button on their browser and zip back to the PDF issue of SD Times.
Bravo!!!!! Finally a publisher that is generating an electronic publication! I would like to receive only the electronic version of your SD Times. You are the only industry publication that I receive online. How wonderful, no printing cost, no postage, and no paper to dispose of after reading. Maybe others are doing this, but I am not aware of them. By saving issues in an archive folder I can 'Find' articles with ease. I think this is great - please don't stop!
-Randy Pryer, IS Manager, deBoer Inc.
3 Tell me more about the hotlinks in my ad in the SD Times PDF edition. First of all, direct response to your ad is instant and frictionless. Second, as an advertiser, you can precisely track response with a lengthy, descriptive URL in your ad that a print reader would never bother to type in. Third, you can customize a welcome to the inquiring SD Times reader with a special page or offer just for them.
4 Can subscribers forward the PDF edition of SD Times to colleagues, or does that violate your copyright? We allow readers to freely forward the PDF edition of SD Times to anyone, and to as many people in the world as they want, or even to store the PDF files on their internal company servers. Pass-along readership could technically be almost infinite.
I recently subscribed to SD Times and I have been receiving the electronic version of your magazine. It truly is a most excellent publication!
-John P. Meier, Technical Analyst, Data Warehouse (DWH), BASS Hotels & Resorts
5 How do I know that the subscribers who request the digital edition of SD Times are actually reading it? Well, no one ever knows this exactly. The circulation auditing firms, BPA and ABC, audit only "receivership," not readership, of publications. We do know that receiving and reading a 3.5MB PDF file is not as convenient as reading a printed publication delivered via regular mail. There are some subscribers who prefer to read the print edition. We make it easy for those people to "switch to print," and a small number do.
6 Are any other publishers doing this? Many publishers are trying to figure out how to do what SD Times has been doing for five years. Companies such as Zinio.com, qmags.com, Texterity and Olive have been testing different ways to deploy proprietary technology to deliver digital versions of magazines. SD Times does not require subscribers to download proprietary software or keep their issues in someone else's digital library. We use Adobe PDF, universally accepted and used throughout the world. Sometimes simple is best.
SD Times has been cited by Folio: and Circulation Management Magazine repeatedly for these innovations.
I just received my first edition of the PDF version of SD Times. What an incredibly terrific method of delivery. While some people may not like this format, I absolutely loved it. I realize how much work goes into the layout of a printed newspaper...sometimes, it seems, much more work and thought than go into some Web sites. I found the PDF file easy to navigate and appreciated the embedded hyperlinks. I wish all of the journals I subscribed to followed this model. -Peter Graham, Director of Web Services, Glen Raven Inc.
7 Does your PDF edition count as audited circulation? Absolutely! Requested, qualified, and delivered just like print according to the exacting standards of the BPA Worldwide, the independent auditing agency. In fact, BPA holds our PDF edition to an even tougher standard than they apply to our print edition by examining the raw log files from our PDF distributions. Note: Some subscribers have asked to receive both the print and digital editions. Those subscribers are counted only once in our BPA audit.
8 What other benefits to SD Times readers are there? Readers can archive issues of SD Times simply and permanently, without having to take up office space. And if those archives are on a laptop, then readers will be literally carrying around a library of SD Times issues everywhere they go! Notification of digital PDF editions of SD Times arrive INSTANTLY via e-mail, rather than fighting through the postal mail system for several days. Overseas subscribers would normally have to pay hundreds of dollars for airmail or wait 3-6 WEEKS to receive their American-based publication via surface mail. They can receive SD Times the same minute their colleagues in the U.S. do.
Finally, the trees we save are a benefit to all of us.
For more information, call Ted Bahr, Publisher, at +1-631-421-4158 x101.
