Listen to this articleMagicBox™ is an end-to-end digital publishing and distribution platform that helps authors, content providers and publishers create and manage digital content via custom-branded web and mobile apps. The platform is already being used by over 3 million people worldwide. Ang’john Ferreri, AVP Partnerships & Business Development at MagicBox™, has over a decade of experience in publishing overseeing digital content licensing and partnerships talks about how MagicBox supports and enables publishers to be innovative in solving current and expected market challenges.
Q: You talk about challenges facing the publishing industry. Can you tell us a little bit about these challenges and how they impact publishers?
A: Statistics show that people today spend less than 8 minutes a day reading, although they do spend 5.0 hours a day on digital device engaging with content that offers both visual and audio rich experiences. The publishing industry has been hard pressed to evolve at the same pace as the consumer and move to designing content specifically for digital consumption.
Today people have less time than ever are too busy to consume lengthy content and they want it in, publishers have to start embracing micro-content, or at least how their content can be transformed into bite-sized chunks. Consumer behavior and content formats are just a couple of factors in a complex web of changes that publishers have had to acknowledge and respond to often and quickly.
This brings in other challenges, such as managing copyright through digital rights management and mastering the distribution of content on devices most used by the target audience. There is a lot of work that goes into making a book, textbook, trade, any kind of book and the same goes for videos, podcasts and digital content as well. The last thing that the content creators deserve after all that work is having it stolen. The shift to digital initially made this harder to control but today a platform, like MagicBox, brings that control back into the hands of publishers and authors.
Recommended: SchollyME Assists High School Athletes Along With Their Parents In The NCAA Recruiting Process
Consumers and publishers also want to have different pricing options, subscriptions to content and collections, at affordable prices, if the content is to their liking. So, the opportunity of creating new revenue streams, productizing bundles, and delivering the right digital content while maintaining control has also emerged.
What publishers today need is technology-based solutions that can support their digital vision from end-to-end from content creation through monetization through enhanced content ecosystem.
Q: What does going digital offer publishers?
A: The primary reason for publishers to go digital is that it will help them reach new markets via a medium that is most preferred today. But, that’s not all. Going from print to digital is environmentally friendly and offers significant cost savings to consumers and publishers. It means savings in terms of time to market as well. You can distribute ebooks, student resources, instructor resources, supplemental material, courseware assessments, and assignments within minutes. There are many people that may still prefer print, or perhaps they want both and MagicBox is helping publishers deliver in response to all preferences.
Once the content is on the platform the analytics and insights for publishers, instructors, teachers and students are out-of-reach with printed material. Assessment performance and evaluation reports are included and the analytics provide insight on the level of engagement with an asset down to the page of a book or a second in an audio or video file. Editorial and sales can see what content students and customers spend the most time on and publishers can see what is selling the most, what is being licensed the most, what devices the content is being accessed on and if the access codes they are generating are being used.
Simply put, digital publishing platforms like MagicBox™ offer cutting edge tools to convert content into digital format, while maintaining 100% content fidelity. We help make fresh content that is rich, interactive, personalized, and engaging while ensuring that authoring rights are protected and managing access to content efficiently.
Recommended: Meet CryptoMove – The Most Advanced Secrets Management Platform On The Market
Q: You’ve talked about the benefits for education. So, how are digital publishing platforms redefining eLearning?
A: You might be surprised to learn that eLearning isn’t a 21st century concept. The very first computer-based training program was created as far back as 1960. However, it has only been after the proliferation of the internet and the emergence of mobile devices that eLearning, as we know it today, emerged.
Gen Z today are the “digital natives” and have never experienced a world without 24/7 connectivity or anytime,anywhere access to content. When they need information, they seek it out on a digital device and they want it fast.
When it comes to the university and education institution market there is student success that is the primary focus. Students need access on the first-day of class.If they can’t afford it, they can’t access it and their performance and experience suffer at a critical time in their lives, where they are just trying to get an education and or a degree.
Students not only need to be able to afford and access the content, but the content needs to meet accessibility standards, and we have a whole team of accessibility experts to ensure this and help publishers offer customized solutions for all learners. Ensuring accessibility will always remain a key objective of education.
Also, learning analytics becomes efficient, streamlined and easy. Creating and deploying tests, tracking learning progress and creating regular reports is all simplified. Analytics tools on digital publishing platforms can offer great insights to educational institutions, helping them to provide identify at-risk students and intervene with support where needed. This ultimately increases the student experience, performance and retention.
Q: What does MagicBox™ offer that makes it stand out from other digital publishing platforms?
A: We started with the aim of developing a platform that would offer the complete range of solutions for publishers, while making content discovery convenient for the end user. We are happy to say that we have been able to achieve what we set out to, with in-built semantic capabilities that increases discoverability for an enhanced user experience.
What I want to emphasize is that being a white-label platform, it is highly customizable, scalable and flexible. With MagicBox™, publishers can ensure data privacy compliance and digital rights management as well. Being a cloud-based platform, publishers don’t need to do much to start using the platform, while being sure of high-level security protocols.
When a publisher uses MagicBox they become a client and a partner and we work closely with them to ensure a successful implementation and rollout while providing continuous customer support. I could go on and on because I truly believe that we have developed a turnkey solution that can take publishers where they want to be today and in the future.
Activate Social Media:
