The Digital Method

The philosophy behind the business

By Tom Peer, founder and MD

Here at Digital Method we believe we have one of the best tools available for publishing an online magazine, but it's always been our experience that now matter how good the technology behind a web site, to make a success of online publishing, you need a different approach - one that embraces what the web can do and accepts what it can't, makes best use of the available technology and doesn't set out to recreate offline processes, and above all enjoys publishing online.

The Digital Method WPS hasn't been designed to publish a magazine online. It's been designed for publishing an online magazine. There's a huge difference, and it's only when you start to use some of the best features of the WPS that you can appreciate how different the two are.

As long as websites are just recreations of paper based journals, they're always going to be second best to the print edition, costly to run, and ultimately disappointing. But when you start using the web to do what it can do best, online publishing quickly becomes more fun and more profitable than print publishing ever could be.

If you approach web publishing with an open mind, a blank canvas, and a good understanding of how the technology works, you'll soon wonder why anyone in business publishing still sticks with print. List the problems of business publishing and the web doesn't just solve them, the problems simply vanish. All the issues of circulation, distribution, page layouts, copy deadlines, and lead times just disappear.

Using the internet provides the means to automate all the dull parts of publishing. All it takes is an approach to publishing that accepts the limits of the technology in order to make use of it. So when you next come to plan a website of any sort, think about it in a different way. Approach the project using what we call the digital method. Instead of thinking of ideas for a printed magazine and then wondering how to put them online, start thinking from the start about building a great website. Once you do that, online publishing becomes easy.

Tom Peer has over 14 years' experience of electronic publishing. He has worked for Dennis Publishing, Reed Elsevier, Haymarket and as a consultant for a number of smaller publishers.