"Already we've gotten tremendous feedback from it even though we've just released it," said Webster, speaking to Publish.com.

NewsStand enables distribution of exact digital replicas of newspapers and magazines worldwide, and this latest innovation is right on track with empowering the publishers to supply readers' demands for media they're most comfortable with.

The determining factor for those demands, Webster says, lies in the separation of "age and print" stopping at 35.

"It's interesting, because we've seen in our experience a clear demographic divide at 35 or older and 34 and younger. If you're over 35, you like print, you're used to seeing everything laid out in that type of style, and so having a digital version that makes the reading experience identical to print is ideal for them.

"If you're younger than 35, we see them demand and expect that almost all their information is going to come over the Internet, and they want it that way. So we aim very hard to bring the best to both those groups."

NewsStand has worked hard to stay ahead of the developing demand for electronic editions of print, and it has paid attention to the needs of its customers' readers and created applications to fit those needs.

"We started out with a reader application where the user had to download it in order to read the edition, then this year we released iBrowse, which is our browser-based application, and now we've provided iSite, as a way to integrate the iBrowse and iSite into a publisher's Web site," Webster says.

"That means all the viewer has to do is click on a button on the publisher's site and they have a digital print edition."

Users don't ever leave the publisher's site to read the electronic edition, and Webster says with iSite they've built in additions such as search and page continuation once the publication is digitized.

All of these innovations are a balancing act between old and new, Webster says.

"People want to increasingly get their information from the computer, but they also expect to see the symbiosis when it comes to print in regard to newspapers or magazines."

"The digital print edition is here to stay," Webster says, and in his estimation, the changes will be even more dramatic in the years to come.

"This is all brand new still, in the broad scheme, and I think it's going to continue to evolve more dramatically in the next few years. If you look at us for example, we migrated from the reader product (NewsStand Reader), to iBrowse, the browser-based product, and now we use iBrowse as part of the iSite set of tools to allow us to integrate the full platform in the publisher's system."

Webster says NewsStand will continue to turn the page toward new enhancements to benefit both publishers and readers.

"We're here to give publishers the most optimal way to provide what their readers demand. The whole idea is to provide a series of innovations for the publishers so that they can keep the readers and build their revenue."

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