What is online publishing? What are its most common applications?

by Zorayda Ruth B. Andam

Online publishing is the process of using computer and specific types of software to combine text and graphics to produce Web-based documents such as newsletters, online magazines and databases, brochures and other promotional materials, books, and the like, with the Internet as a medium for publication.

What are the benefits and advantages of online publishing to business?

Among the benefits of using online media are low-cost universal access, the independence of time and place, and ease of distribution. These are the reasons why the Internet is regarded as an effective marketing outreach medium and is often used to enhance information service.

What are the problems and issues in online publishing?

The problems in online publishing can be grouped into two categories: management challenges and public policy issues.

There are two major management issues:

The profit question, which seeks to address how an online presence can be turned into a profitable one and what kind of business model would result in the most revenue; and

The measurement issue, which pertains to the effectiveness of a Web site and the fairness of charges to advertisers.

The most common public policy issues have to do with copyright protection and censorship. Many publishers are prevented from publishing online because of inadequate copyright protection. An important question to be addressed is: How can existing copyright protections in the print environment be mapped onto the online environment? Most of the solutions are technological rather than legal. The more common technological solutions include encryption for paid subscribers, and information usage meters on add-in circuit boards and sophisticated document headers that monitor the frequency and manner by which text is viewed and used.

In online marketing, there is the problem of unsolicited commercial e-mail or “spam mail.” Junk e-mail is not just annoying; it is also costly. Aside from displacing normal and useful e-mail, the major reason why spam mail is a big issue in online marketing is that significant costs are shifted from the sender of such mail to the recipient. Sending bulk junk e-mail is a lot cheaper compared to receiving the same. Junk e-mail consumes bandwidth (which an ISP purchases), making Internet access clients slower and thereby increasing the cost of Internet use.