Beyond the Printed Word – The World Digital Publishing Conference names 2006 moderators
Top American and European digital strategists headline Ifra programme
Darmstadt, 13 September 2006 – The man called “the practical futurist” of U.S. online media and the woman who first defined and is now redefining Internet strategy in the supremely competitive UK market will jointly lead the 14th annual Beyond the Printed Word – The World Digital Publishing Conference in Vienna this November.
Vin Crosbie, president and managing partner of the Digital Deliverance consultancy in the United States, and Annelies van den Belt, new media director for the Telegraph newspaper group in Britain, will serve as co-moderators of the 2006 edition of the longest running and most prestigious digital publishing conference for newspapers.
The announcement was made by the Ifra global newspaper association, which is the conference’s organiser and the world’s leading organisation for newspaper and media publishing.
“Beyond the Printed Word is a ‘pure play’ Internet business conference for newspapers, and has always attracted an extremely high level, extremely smart audience,” said Ifra CEO Reiner Mittelbach. “The Beyond audience is not interested in tangential fads and hypothetical philosophy. They come to discuss the real business of publishing online and mobile. That makes it critical that we find conference leaders who are just as smart, just as focused, and in the absolute forefront of digital media strategy. Annelies and Vin match those specifications superbly.”
Beyond the Printed Word 2006 will run 9 and 10 November at the Hilton Vienna in Austria. The 2005 conference sold out in advance so early registration is strongly recommended. Conference details and registration are accessible at www.ifra.com/beyond.
“I was honoured to be asked to moderate Beyond the Printed Word this year,” said van den Belt. “Beyond is all about business. It brings together trusted brands and digital opportunities. It shows you how to make the most of the digital opportunities in your market and within your business.
“Beyond the Printed Word is a trusted brand within the wild west of the worldwide web,” she added. “It aims to demystify the challenges we all face, by showing us what works, from our competitors in the traditional and non-traditional sense. This conference more than any other aims to showcase the success behind digital pure players and the new opportunities for those of us who have been around for a bit longer.”
Van den Belt took the new media helm at The Telegraph Group last year and has been in the process ever since of helping to define a more effective model of print-digital convergence for the newspaper industry. She previously was deputy advertisement sales director and digital director of Times Newspapers in London, responsible for advertising revenues for the Sunday Times and Times newspapers and for the overall digital strategy of Times Newspapers, part of the News International group. Before joining News International, van den Belt was publisher of The Moscow Times, Russia Business Review and The St. Petersburg Times. In 1997 she launched the Russian edition of Men’s Health and was also responsible for Playboy in Moscow.
Vin Crosbie is widely regarded as one of the most outspoken and expert critics of how the newspaper industry worldwide and particularly in the United States has responded to the digital media revolution. But no one disputes that his is a critique borne of dedication to the newspaper tradition. He is a fifth-generation newspaperman and has 30 years of experience in the news industry, including executive positions with United Press International and Reuters, director of online publishing at News Corp., and senior associate of the Borrell Associates consultancy for local online media. His Digital Deliverance consulting firm provides international publishers with strategic direction on interactive publishing, with specific expertise in solicited push media such as HTML e-mail, short messaging systems, WAP/PCS, e-books, and PDF remote digital delivery and printing applications.
“To me, Beyond the Printed Word is the original, unadulterated annual conference for executives who electronically publish newspapers,” Crosbie said. “It is organised by the world’s most technologically savvy association for newspaper publishing companies (Ifra), which gives it a foundation that no one else can really match.
As of this year, Ifra has reassumed complete control over the Beyond the Printed Word – The World Digital Publishing Conference. For more information or to register for the 2006 conference, visit www.ifra.com/beyond, or contact the Ifra Events team at events@ifra.com or +49.6151.733-6.
About Ifra:
Ifra (www.ifra.com) is the world's leading organisation for newspaper and media publishing with 10 locations worldwide. It has been registered since 1961 as an association with headquarters in Darmstadt, Germany, and acts as the platform for decision-makers from the newspaper industry. A Board, comprising publishers as well as central, regional and specialised committees drawn from Ifra member companies, steers the work of the association. Ifra publishes the trade magazine newspaper techniques monthly in four languages (English, French, German and Spanish – www.ifra-nt.com) and quarterly in Chinese. The IfraExpo – “the annual event of the newspaper industry” – held at major European venues is the world's most important trade exhibition for newspaper companies and their partners. IfraExpo 2006 will be held from 9 to 12 October in Amsterdam (www.ifraexpo.com). Research and standardisation, international conferences, seminars, training events and consulting are further components of the service Ifra offers primarily to its more than 3000 members in about 80 countries.
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