NOTE: Previous Weblogs will be archived at the end of each week, and start fresh here. You can also catch up on last week's Weblog.

MONDAY

Analysts looking to Acrobat 6: The name of the game is speculation, and market analysts are paid to play. Among the latest recommendations on Adobe Systems comes from an analyst with WR Hambrecht who upgrades Adobe to "buy" ... based on the expectation of "a series of positive news from Adobe Systems, including the reiteration of the company's 1Q03 guidance and the introduction of an Acrobat update in April."

Adobe is scheduled to hold its mid-quarter update for analysts later this week. A confirmation of a future version of Acrobat at that time seems unlikely, based on past Adobe practice. But the prognostication by people who ought to be in tune with such developments jives with previous release cycles. It pushes back the date previously floated by a US Bancorp Piper Jaffray analyst who, as we reported last September, advised investors that "we expect the next version of Acrobat to ship in February or March of 2003."

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TUESDAY

Digital Memory Losses: You've no doubt heard of the Dark Ages, a period in history that some believe is on the verge of being repeated ... in a sense. The steady advancement of computer-based technologies and file formats, according to a recent Associated Press news item titled "Digital memory comes up short," foretells a future 'digital dark age' where parts of our collective memories -- those preserved in electronic format -- are forever lost:

"At risk are your email and music. And that's just for starters. Institutions, meanwhile, are grappling with ensuring the longevity of digital art, electronic court filings, online journals and much more."

It's important to continually migrate old documents to newer, improved formats so that there will be applications that can read them. But that's still not a fix, because as the article notes, "as you migrate, you lose something: colouration here, formatting there."

It might seem that PDF would be viewed as a reasonable solution, except for some inherent shortcomings for use as a long-time archival format. Researchers at IBM, for example, are working on the "universal virtual computer" concept that will involve the creation of a simple set of instructions that all computers and applications could read. According to the AP article says, that's "something easier said than done when dealing with a format like .pdf,' which takes 978 pages to describe."

As the article points out, as we've reported previously, there is an effort underway to address PDF's viability for long-term archiving:

"Recognising the growing reliance on the proprietary '.pdf' format from Adobe Systems, an international group is working with the company to develop an archival version as a standard."

Add that to Adobe's recently announced Photoshop Album software for image archiving, which uses PDF as its core exchange format, and one can imagine a scenario where things may not be quite so dark in the future as some skeptics suggest. A future generation programmer should still be able to develop a PDF viewer based on Adobe's public specification, something often overlooked by those who lament that PDF is proprietary.

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WEDNESDAY

eReading -- to PDF or Not to PDF?: ContentBiz.com features an exclusive interview with Amazon.com's eDocs and eBooks Director in which he suggests that content producers should consider selling through the mammoth online site no matter the size or type of the electronic document. They're interested in both, says Curtis Kopf, noting that sales of traditional books in electronic format are roughly equivalent to sales of other, typically shorter electronic documents. Amazon has different requirements for each, according to the interview.

ContentBiz reports Kopf's explanation:

"Buyers can only view eBooks using Microsoft's reader or Adobe's eBook reader. No PDF. Occasionally you can print an eBook but most publishers don't allow it."

In contrast, he says, edocuments

"... are electronic versions of content that's not a 'book.' ... The biggest difference is, you can almost always print out an eDoc and it's nearly always in PDF format."

Perhaps the most interesting insight is contained in the following parenthetical comment:

"(A few eDocs from nervous publishers are in Adobe eBook format, which lowers sales potential but is more secure.)"

Getting the average eBook peruser to understand the differences between Adobe's free Acrobat Reader and its likewise-free eBook Reader, and to know which is needed for a given purchase or download is surely an added obstacle. Unfortunately, Amazon.com does always make clear distinctions within its eBooks and eDocs section, we discovered. Rather, in many cases they refer to the "Acrobat Reader" and the "Adobe Reader," the latter of which appears to mean the Acrobat eBook Reader. Both are "Adobe" Readers; and further, both include "Acrobat" as part of their respective product names. In addition, Amazon's "Adobe Reader Store" -- displaying only the 'Red A' Adobe Systems, Inc. logo -- turns out to be a place to find only eBooks, not eDocs. And, as cited above, Amazon's Kopf says its eBooks require an eBook Reader from either Microsoft of Adobe, but states flatly: 'No PDF,' meaning that none of the eBooks are available in a format that the Adobe Acrobat Reader can display. However, it's not correct to say Amazon offers no eBooks in PDF, as the format for the files that only Adobe's Acrobat eBook Reader can display are in fact PDF files -- but they have a special type of security available that can only be applied using Adobe's Content Server solution. Adobe refers to "Adobe PDF eBooks" to distinguish Content Server-protected eBooks from an eBook-type document in PDF that is secured with only its commercial Acrobat software.

A brief comment on PDF security: It should be used when it makes sense -- when it serves a real purpose -- not simply because the functionality is available. It can be deterrent to use, for example, when PDF-based press releases and other promotional documents are secured against copying or extracting text. The flip side of that is -- when you believe it's warranted to apply Acrobat's security features, be sure you know how to properly apply them. We frequently see supposedly locked PDFs that, as we learn upon closer inspection, disable a number of permissions but set no passwords to prohibit those permissions from being removed. Likewise, if your content is really valuable or private, you should realize that there are software tools that can easily reveal/recover a PDF file's password set with Acrobat's standard security handler and unlock it. Look at some of the third-party, add-on security tools in such cases, some of which are available in the PDF Store.

MarketingSherpa.com, which publishes the ContentBiz newsletter, also offers a number of case studies including a relevant one from 2001 titled "PDF Document Versus Hard Copy Content Sales Online."

The articles reports the results of a test designed to resolve the following publishing dilemma:

"When you're both a print and PDF publisher, sometimes one of your toughest calls is estimating how many hard copy versions to print before sales begin. You want to print as high a quantity as possible to take advantage of gross quantity discounts. But then, what if everybody goes for the PDF version instead and you're left with excess hard copies on your hands?"

MarketingSherpa's concludes that the "results make it clear a small savings can dissuade customers from requesting hard copies."

The publisher also faces a decision "whether to actively encourage PDF vs. hard copy sales with discounts or not," according to the article, which goes on to detail the advantages of the two options as follows:

Basic PDF Pros

• Little upfront production investment
• No customs or tax hassles for international buyers
• Instant gratification is a powerful marketing tool
• Can be (nominally) locked against copying, snipping, printing, etc.
• Content can be updated/changed without wasting investment in pre-printed stock
• Online buyers now demand PDF even when you state it's not available

For its own online sales efforts, MarketingSherpa "decided to offer both PDF and hard copy for most of our own products," adding that they do carry some hard copy-only products from other publishers. Based on their experience, they share the following observation:

"Although PDF customer service can be a pain, especially since PDF buyers want instant service to match their instant download, we've found customers outside the U.S. are so grateful for PDFs that it outweighs the liabilities."

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THURSDAY

An Education in Print Cost-Shifting: Stanford University is known to attract some of the brightest collegiate minds, many who attend to take advantage of the school's proximity to the Silicon Valley's technologies and high-tech companies. The education in the implications of new tools sometimes comes in unexpected ways, as evidenced by a recent opinion column in The Stanford Daily Online Edition.

In "Our Two Cents," Staff writers Alex Greninger and Tim Meyer reflect on a recent change that has impacted students where it hurts -- Stanford abandoned free printing during the current academic year, and students now bear the cost. They concur that it was a wise move for the university, given the routine abuses by "enterprising students who printed out lengthy reports and life-size pictures of Anna Kournikova." But coupled with another trend -- greater use of online resources -- means Stanford students suddenly face a financial double-whammy, as they explain:

"The adoption of services like Coursework was designed to increase the use of course Web sites and to eliminate wasted paper. Readings and problem sets for classes in the form of HTML and PDF files are increasingly available only online. Although these services do make course material more accessible for students and can actually provide for more contact between students and professors in the form of online newsgroups, in practice they increase the demand for printing."

Further, despite the high-tech locale in which one might expect more enthusiasm for computer-oriented homework, the article says that "despite many businesses‚ and institutions‚ desires to create a 'paperless office' by increasingly using e-mail or the Internet, many workers and students still overwhelmingly prefer text presented on paper for a variety of reasons, such as ease of reading, the ability to annotate on a text, and mobility."

Apparently Stanford has shown some willingness to support legitimate student printing demands, now offering a per-student quota of 100 pages each quarter.

In the meantime, it might be a good time to also invest in some faculty and staff training on authoring certain kinds of classroom and campus communication documents for optimal display on computers. There might even be a software company or two in the vicinity with an interest in aiding such an educational -- and environmental -- cause.

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FRIDAY

Statement on State of the Union: If you were among those who tuned in earlier this week to watch U.S. Pres. George W. Bush give the customary State of the Union speech, you realize that the end of the president's hour-long speech was not the final word. First the TV news anchors feel obliged to re-tell us what we've just heard, and then folks from the opposite political party get a crack at the microphone to tell us what's wrong with what we've just heard from the Commander-in-Chief.

One of the equally customary, but seemingly unnecessary, scenes you also would have (repeatedly) witnessed was the flanks of 'Yes-men' and 'Yes-women' who continuously rose to their feet throughout the speech and applauded gustily every time -- or so it seemed -- the president finished a paragraph. It gives one pause to wonder: Is his confidence in his public speaking skills really so low that he requires these ongoing outbursts of approval from his fellow party members? (To be fair, it's the same for every State of the Union, no matter the political party holding the White House.)

Something you didn't see on TV, or in subsequent photographic coverage of the Bush speech, was a visible indication of the heavy-handed influence that permeates current political decision-making. The hall was filled primarily with government officials, but anyone with the most basic level of understanding realizes that much of the power-brokering that takes place in Washington, D.C. involves influence-bearing folks not holding any office or representing any particular geographic constituency.

To bring that notion into sharper view, a non-profit, non-partisan organization called Public Campaign, in its own words "dedicated to sweeping reform that aims to dramatically reduce the role of special interest money in America's elections and the influence of big contributors in American politics," has published its own poster-sized image titled "State of the Union: Congress Meets Wall Street" that purports to show Pres. Bush speaking before a merged floor of the U.S. Congress and Wall Street.

The group explains the intended symbolism:

"Some people think it's more important to give a big campaign contribution than to vote…that it's "the American way" to buy access and influence with big money…that it's OK if public policy is sold to the highest bidder. Some even think that the only real democracy is in the marketplace, where we all supposedly vote with our dollars.

Well, we at Public Campaign disagree, and we believe so do a lot of other Americans. Which is why we created the 'State of the Union' poster. Because we wanted to use one picture to say what a thousand words couldn't say about the union of big money and Washington."

If the two PDF-based versions -- one portrait, the other landscape mode -- are not large enough to read the accompanying text and charts that support the group's thesis, you can also order printed copies from the Public Campaign Web site.

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