Comments on: Is the ‘printernet’ a useful idea?

By: mjosefowicz

mjosefowicz — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 09:31:31 +0000

Our President Obama said words to the effect that, “There is no time for pride of authorship. The task at hand is to get it right.”

Let me know if El Capo et al are really interested. There lots of very talented designers who are looking for something good to do. Of course many of them are in Australia, New Zealand and India.

But I still stay in touch with my ex students at Parsons who are now in places like Paris, Uruguay, Santo Domingo and Mumbai.

I had a friend who said she invented Potato Chip. She lived in Pennsylvania. She never did get the credit…

By: Andy McCourt

Andy McCourt — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 00:04:23 +0000

Excellent thinking on the recontextualisation thing. I’ll discuss this with El Capo di Print21online who as it happens has just begun a symbiotic co-operation with European, Indian and Korean magazines and named it the ‘Independent Media Alliance’. WTT added in would be great. The Printernet may as well start with print industry-centric publishers.
Michael, don’t sweat that ‘Printernet’ was already coined here…great ideas are floating around in the atmosphere, ready for someone with the right butterfly-net to snaggle them. It’s still a great term and your post and the comments will one day be recognised as the genesis of a new idea.

I once thought of the word ‘wheelbarrow’ but guess what…someone had patented it already.
(My email address on WTT profile is incorrect, first and second names need reversing andrew dot mccourt at oce dot com). Thanks for the link

By: mjosefowicz

mjosefowicz — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 19:42:07 +0000

For our readers here. Christian raised the complicated production issue as being a significant barrier. I only have a conversational knowledge of XML to PDF. The best I could come up with was to collect and edit the content in a wiki, then go to PDF, then go to print.

If anyone with a more granular knowledge might like to weigh in, we could all probably learn someting.

By: christian

christian — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:41:14 +0000

There is much thougtht and coordination that needs to go into this to make it work (profitably). But I think that can and will happen. We need to get smart about making print relevant for the reader. If it is relevant, it does not matter what the means in which it is displayed (paper, platic, or screen), people will buy.

Posted a bit on this yesterday after reading the same article on Mediashift http://printedproof.com/blog/custom-printed-publications/

By: mjosefowicz

mjosefowicz — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 11:49:13 +0000

So maybe this is a notion worth doing:

What if WTT.com, or Printweek or Print21online, decided to get into Printernet Publishing.

Someone recontextualizes their content, PSP get to choose the articles they want in front of their customer and it’s released it in PDFs to use sales collateral for PSP’s everywhere. The PSP’s do the print and distribution as samples of their work. Don’t say it, show it.

While the PSP’s use it to stay “top of mind” of their prospects and customers. And the content producers sell ads to Adobe, Mindfire, and anyone else who wants to get in front of creatives and people who have bought printing.

To keep it simple and useable by everyone, no adds directly from vendors.

By: mjosefowicz

mjosefowicz — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 10:51:14 +0000

Andy,
I tried your email address according to the info a digital nirvana. It bounced back. I wanted to get this post on your radar.
http://toughloveforxerox.blogspot.com/2009/03/australians-coin-printernet.html

By: mjosefowicz

mjosefowicz — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 09:36:46 +0000

Andy-
And I thought I coined the term. lol. Just goes to show that there are no new ideas, just different implementations in different places! If someone in Australia thought it was a good word, and I thought it was a good word here in New York. It might actually be a good word.

At any rate, my sense is that if the term is used not merely for marketing, but as a guide for strategy it works. It means that local printers become eager to
make connections, instead of trying to go it alone. It means that the vendors see that they are part of much greater media ecosystem that implies they can’t go it alone.

With the coming to market of mass customization technology, it means the beginning of the end of one size fits all Print. The under appreciated opportunity is the ability of Print to communicate with groups of people, with micro versioning, instead of focusing on 1 to 1 in the service of direct mail on steroids.

I’m seeing:

Relevant content printed and distributed by local PSP’s as bi monthly “stay in front of the customer” newsletter? newspaper? poster? And every once in a while a book?

It could be:
Corporate communication to stockholders directly that by passes the “busyness press.”. Or the latest print stories from Australia, India or Europe. Or industry specific content – marketing? advertising? education? etc etc

Or the good news about people on the ground with innovative solutions, as one finds in the Christian Science Monitor.
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/

By: Andy McCourt

Andy McCourt — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 01:34:22 +0000

Michael,
See: http://www.pacprint.com.au/
Printernet is one of the themes of this upcoming show, although more in a marketing sense than the apps you describe.
I am one who believes that the contextualisation – on both personal and interest group levels – of information in a bound printed product is set to be one of the next big things. If that’s Printernet then yes, it’s useful.