Archive for October, 2008
The Number One Rule for “Good” DRM
A lot of people hate DRM. This can be a hard fact to face up to for those of us who happen to make a living in the Digital Rights Management software industry. If we’re going to provide our clients and their paying customers with DRM technology that really works, we will have to face up to the antipathy many people feel towards DRM.
The way I see it, that attitude is both instructive and unnecessary. That is to say, if more people in the DRM industry listened to their detractors, those detractors would have far fewer reasons to complain. While DRM companies and anti-DRM commentators may seem to have little common ground, there are some points we can all agree on.
For me, the key area of agreement is that a lot of DRM software makes life unnecessarily hard for legitimate users. In trying to protect their intellectual property rights and revenues, digital content providers often make access to content significantly more complex for their loyal, paying customers.
It should be the first rule of DRM that good content protection software doesn’t alienate legitimate users. Vitrium’s experience suggests that content providers already know this. It’s time for the DRM industry to catch on and start creating solutions that provide value to content providers and consumers alike.
The Best of Both Worlds
The hype over Web 2.0 seems to have simmered down but there’s still a great deal of excitement in the B2B marketing community about what can be achieved using new online media. With the effectiveness of cutting-edge tactics remaining unproven, though, many marketers are clinging to their old online methods.
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here does this leave PDF? Well, when streaming video, blogs and so forth started to take hold, some commentators predicted the death of the white paper. In spite of this, PDF documents like white papers, case studies and data sheets remain vital tools for many B2B marketers, especially in the technology sector.
The fact is that, by allowing marketers to distribute traditional print-style materials online, PDF offers something very valuable that no other format can match. Furthermore, with today’s enhanced PDF technology, there’s no reason why electronic documents can’t engage prospects in a Web 2.0-style interactive experience.
There are great things that can be done, using Flash technologies, to turn PDF into an interactive document format. If marketers can get access to simple tools that leverage these technologies, they won’t have to choose between traditional techniques and interactive media – they’ll have the best of both worlds.
Welcome to The PDF Lounge!
Being open to new ideas is very important to everyone at Vitrium Systems. This openness is what has allowed us to prosper as an innovative PDF technology vendor. It’s also the reason we started this blog: it is vital for us to be actively involved an online conversation with our peers, colleagues and customers.
In the spirit of openness, we had a competition at our Vancouver office, to see who could come up with a name for the blog. Marketing assistant Michael Hobkirk had the winning entry. We feel that “The PDF Lounge” captures the spirit of what we want to provide: a welcoming place to discuss issues surrounding PDF technology and PDF content.
So, relax, make yourself at home and please feel free to join in the conversation. Over the coming months, we’ll be posting regularly on issues like content-based marketing, lead generation, Digital Rights Management, compliance, PDF forms and much, much more. Remember to check back regularly and – most of all – get involved!
