Prize winning books on line: Print on demand in Germany

Comments:

• -Thomas- says:

  January 28, 2009 at 6:08 pm

  Hey,

  the article is about the Print on demand technology by NewspaperDirect. Here’s a short summary:

  * The authors took two shops at the Hamburg central station and the airport as examples
  * The shops offer about 700 newspapers from ~70 countries via computer terminals
  * Format is DIN A3 for all newspapers, white paper, colored titles where available
  * 200 of the 700 newspapers are cached at the store’s computer system, the rest will be downloaded on demand from the “editorial department’s servers” (I think they meant the NewspaperDirect server)
  * Printing of “cached” newspapers, e.g. New York Times, is done in <5 minutes, other newspapers can take up to 20 minutes (as they have to be downloaded)
  * All newspapers cost 4-6 Euros
  * They discuss some advantages: No inky fingers, time advantage, guaranteed delivery etc.
  * Bestsellers are the New York Times (Airport) and the Svenska Dagbladet (Central station)
  * Many travellers use the foreign newspapers to get information about their destination, e.g. weather, advertisements etc.
  * A nice anecdote: One customer at the airport ordered a Chicago Tribune to have a look at a Chicago movie theater’s schedule
  * The owner of the two stores, Valora Retail, owns ~160 book shops, mainly in train stations. They are happy about the sales numbers and plan to expand their technology to other book stores in the near future.
• Paul Biba says:

  January 28, 2009 at 7:19 pm

  Thanks!