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Friday, November 8, 2002 Media Cynic | Forum | Advertising | Classifieds | Jobs Publishing Industry Soundbytes Launches and Redesigns | Miscellaneous People · Amazon.com announced that Udi Manber, former chief scientist of Yahoo!, will become vice president and chief algorithms officer for the company. Dr. Manber joins Amazon.com after four years with Yahoo!, and has taught computer science at both the University of Wisconsin a nd the University of Arizona. Dr. Manber is the author of Introduction to Algorithms - A Creative Approach, as well as more than 50 technical articles. · Thomas O. Ryder, 58, chairman and CEO of the Reader's Digest Association, Inc., has been elected to serve on Amazon.com's board of directors. The company also announced the resignation of director Scott Cook, chairman of the executive committee of Intuit, Inc. Ryder becomes the sixth member of the Amazon.com board and the fifth independent director of Amazon.com. Prior to joining Reader's Digest in 1998, Ryder was president of American Express Travel Related Services International. · Harcourt School Publishers, the elementary school publishing unit of K-12 publisher Harcourt Education, announced that Jan Spalding, currently Senior Vice President of Marketing for Harcourt Education, has been named President and CEO of Harcourt School Publishers, effective January 1, 2003. Spalding will succeed current President and CEO, Steve Gandy, who has decided to retire at year-end. Spalding is a twenty-two year veteran at Harcourt, where she began as a Sales Consultant and advanced to Senior Vice President of Marketing for Harcourt School Publishers before assuming her current role. Gandy's decision to retire comes after twenty-three years with Harcourt. It was also announced that Nancy Chumbley, currently Senior Vice President, Open Territory Sales for Harcourt School Publishers, is being promoted to Executive Vice President, Sales. She will succeed Suzanne Davis, the current head of sales, who will retire at year-end. · Publishing Group of America (PGA), a Franklin, Tenn.-based media company that publishes American Profile magazine has named industry veteran Richard (Dick) G. Porter president of American Profile and senior vice president of publishing for PGA. Porter has served as publisher for TV Guide Magazine, Reader's Digest and Prevention Magazine. Most recently, he was executive vice president of interactive marketing sales for AOL Time Warner. · VNU, an international media and information company, announced that Mr. Jan Vandenwyngaerden has been appointed Managing Director of Promedia, effective February 1, 2003. He will succeed Mr. Georges Seghers, who, as from the same date, will become Vice President Sales & Marketing of VNU World Directories. Jan Vandenwyngaerden is currently CEO of Sanoma Magazines Belgium, a publisher of magazines in Belgium. Jan Vandenwyngaerden was appointed in that position in 1996, after many years in various sales and marketing functions within Unilever. · Playboy Enterprises, Inc. said that it has reorganized and expanded its Licensing Group to include management of the international publishing and international online businesses. Alex Vaickus, as the newly named president of global licensing, executive vice president of PEI, will add these functions to his portfolio. Vaickus, 42, joined Playboy in 1998 as vice president of strategic planning and business development. He was named to his current position as president of the licensing businesses in 2000. The company also said that Michael Carr, executive vice president of PEI and president of the Publishing Group is leaving the company to pursue personal entrepreneurial projects in his hometown of Las Vegas. There are no plans to replace him. James Dimonekas will remain in his position as publisher, James Radtke as business manager, and Lisa Natale as head of marketing for Playboy magazine. Gemstar-TV Guide International, Inc. announced that Steven Reddicliffe has resigned as Editor-In-Chief of TV Guide magazine to pursue other media and entertainment projects. Mr. Reddicliffe, a former newspaper television critic and part of the original team of editors that launched Entertainment Weekly magazine, was named editor-in-chief of TV Guide in 1995. · International Data Group (IDG), a technology media company, announced the appointment of Eric Ochs to Managing Director of IDG Communications S.A. (France), in addition to his current position as Managing Director of IDC. Ochs will succeed Managing Director Gerard Adamis who is leaving to spend more time with his family and to explore other personal opportunities. Ochs' new position is in some ways a homecoming for Ochs, who served in various management roles in IDG France, including Editor of Info PC before, leaving to become Deputy Managing Director, and then Managing Director of IDC France, the leading French IT market research company. · Corus Entertainment Inc. announced that it will combine the operations of Nelvana and its television division into one integrated business unit under the leadership of Paul Robertson. Prior to the creation of Corus Entertainment and his appointment as President of the television division, Robertson was President of YTV. The company also announced other appointments to the Nelvana executive team. Peter Moss has been named Executive Vice President, Development for Nelvana, adding to his responsibilities as head of programming for Corus Television and building on a 25-year career in children's programming and production. Emmanuele Petry has been promoted to Senior Vice President, International, with responsibility for program sales, licensing and co-productions in western and eastern Europe, Latin and South America, the UK and Africa. OScott Dyer will continue as Executive Vice President responsible for all Nelvana production. · R.R. Donnelley announced that Ronald E. Daly resigned as president of R.R. Donnelley Print Solutions, the company's business responsible for magazine, book, telephone directory and catalog/retail insert printing as well as premedia services, to become the chief executive officer of Oce-USA Holding, Inc., the North American business of Oce N.V., based in the Netherlands. Michael B. Allen, executive vice president for R.R. Donnelley Print Solutions, and Robert S. Pyzdrowski, president of operations for R.R. Donnelley Print Solutions, will assume the responsibilities as co-leaders of the business unit for the near future. Digital Publishing · Palm Digital Media, Inc., a publisher and retailer of ebooks for handhelds, announced the launch of Palm Reader Pro for Mac and Windows. The enhanced eBook reader application lets users create unique reading environments, or "themes," and share them with others. Customers can create textured "papers" such as parchment, marble and notebook, and imprint them with their own graphic designs or photographs. They also can choose from a palette of background and font colors, and an array of digital pens for highlighting text. Palm Reader Pro for Mac and Windows also gives customers improved note-editing capabilities, including attaching notes to highlighted selections. It includes Webster's New World TM Vest Pocket Dictionary. Similar enhancements to Palm Reader Pro for handhelds are expected to be announced early next year. Content Deals · Loudeye Corp., a provider of Webcasting and digital media services, announced an agreement with Amazon.com to provide hosted music samples across their entire site with the Loudeye Samples Service. Loudeye offers a catalog of more than three million music samples from more than 250,000 CDs. · Primedia's Films for the Humanities & Sciences (FFH&S) has joined forces with Discovery Channel to co-produce the ultimate Science Video Library. The new Science Video Library (15 DVDs or VHS tapes) includes 300 video clips and nearly 20 hours of instructional viewing, in four major curriculum areas: physical geography, life science, physical science and earth science. Each clip is correlated to specific national standards for the science curriculum. · IDC announced the acquisition of Meridien Research, Inc., which providing advice and counsel to financial institutions and their technology suppliers, as part of its plan to create a new company focused exclusively on the financial services industry. In addition to the acquisition of Meridien Research, IDC announced the hiring of Michon Schenck. Schenck, a 20-year veteran of the financial services industry, will be the chief operating officer and managing director of the new company. · Kelley Blue Book, a resource for used and new car information, has signed agreements with J.D. Power and Associates and Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., publishers of Car and Driver and Road & Track to bring automotive information to the visitors of kbb.com. Content from these two companies is expected to be available on the Kelley Blue Book website by the end of the year. · AccuWeather, Inc. announced that it had acquired the entire media division of competitor WeatherData, Inc. The sale expands the AccuWeather customer base in both the newspaper and radio markets. The sale was effective October 22, 2002. · World Almanac has joined forces with American Map Corporation to produce The World Almanac Atlas & Map Collection. Marathon Projects Ltd., the licensing agency for World Almanac, represented World Almanac in the transaction. This will be the first time an atlas and map program has been developed using the World Almanac brand and content. The new product line will be released in the Spring/Summer 2003. · ProQuest Company's Information and Learning unit and Tribune Publishing, a subsidiary of Tribune Company, announced a long-term content distribution agreement that will bring premium current and historical content to academic institutions and libraries via the ProQuest Web-based online information service. Under the agreement, ProQuest will digitize historic news content from Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times and distribute more recent content from all eleven of Tribune's daily newspapers. ProQuest will digitize the complete historical backfiles of Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times from their first published editions in 1847 and 1881, respectively, and make both article and full page images available to users. Launches and Redesigns · Amazon.com announced over 50,000 subscriptions are now available in its Magazine & Newspaper Subscriptions store, with tens of thousands more to come. Visitors will find newsstand titles such as People and Newsweek, newspapers ranging from USA Today to the Jerusalem Post, and trade publications for subjects spanning everything from advertising to zoology, including such obscure titles as Crazy for Cross Stitch, Eurofruit and American Animal Trainer Magazine. Miscellaneous · One out of six elementary and secondary school teachers who use textbooks in their classes say they do not have enough books for every child in their class, and nearly one in three teachers report they do not have enough textbooks so that all students can take a textbook home, according to a national survey released today by the National Education Association and the Association of American Publishers. · Technology Review, MIT's Magazine of Innovation, announced it has embarked on an effort to increase its global presence through foreign language editions and content agreements with leading international publishers. As part of the expansion, Technology Review announced it will launch German and Italian Editions in early 2003. The German Edition will be brought to market through a strategic alliance with Heise Zeitschriften Verlag. The Italian Edition will be published in partnership with Tech.Rev, a media company newly founded by MIT alumnus and former Tecnitel CEO, Alessandro Ovi. Foreign language editions of will consist primarily of Technology Review editorial content translated in the local language. The foreign language editions will also contain select articles written specifically for the local readership by the partner publishers. Additionally, Technology Review announced content partnerships with Veen Magazine's De Ingenieur Technologietijdschrift, a 50,000-circulation publication serving the professional engineering community throughout the Netherlands and Belgium. Technology Review has also agreed to supply editorial content for SmartWeb, the technology channel of RAI, Italy's public television, radio and internet network. · NewsStand Inc., a provider of digital publishing and delivery solutions, announced it has closed an $8 million round of venture financing from Adams Capital Management Inc., a national venture capital firm that invests in information technology and telecommunications companies. This funding round is in addition to $8 million Series B obtained in March 2002 from SSM Ventures, Noro-Moseley Partners and The New York Times Company. NewsStand has long-term agreements with 37 newspapers, magazines and newsletters including the The New York Times, Barron's, China Daily, International Herald Tribune, Manila Times, Harvard Business Review, The Globe & Mail and The Australian. · National Lampoon, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: JTWO.OB) announced that effective immediately the company will trade under the ticker symbol NLPN.OB. The Company earlier this week announced that it had changed its name from J2 Communications to National Lampoon, Inc. to better reflect the focus of its business. · Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers announced that New York Daily News sports-columnist, TV personality, and bestselling author Mike Lupica has signed a deal to write a young adult novel for Philomel Books, an imprint of Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers. In a deal brokered by agent Esther Newberg of International Creative Management and Senior Editor Michael Green, Philomel Books will publish Travel Team, a novel about a boy whose giant determination and love of basketball more than make up for his smallish stature. Travel Team is slated to come out in September 2004. Mike Lupica's other books published by G. P. Putnam's Sons include the New York Times bestseller Bump and Run and his latest, Wild Pitch. 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