Clickshare Service Corp., the Internet's first content-exchange service, and
Advanced Publishing Technology, Inc. (APT), a leading supplier of accounting
software to the newspaper industry, are teaming up to give more than 150 U.S.
dailies the ability to share and sell digital content.
Under an agreement between the two companies, APT will market Clickshare's
one-account, one-bill, one-click content purchasing service, which features
privacy-protected demographics management and personalization, to small and
medium-sized newspapers in the U.S. market. The first users of the enhanced
APT-Clickshare offering will be newspaper groups in suburban Atlanta,
including the Marietta Daily Journal and the Rome News Tribune.
"Until now, newspapers haven't had a simple way to offer archives and other
value-added information on a per-click or subscription basis among a network
of content affiliates and audiences," said David R. Kraai, president of
Burbank-based APT. "Now that we have integrated Clickshare's technology into
our core accounting and web-site building software, they do."
James B. Shaffer, Clickshare CEO, said, "The combination of APT's vision,
marketplace experience, and proven software particularly qualifies them to
bring the digital content exchange to newspapers. As a well-respected name
among newspaper software vendors, APT is the ideal partner for the Clickshare
service, and we are delighted to be working with them."
Clickshare is forging partner relationships in a host of premium- and
specialized-content markets as well as with banks, ISPs, telcos, portals,
retailers and associations whose members and customers want simple access to
premium information without having to pass around credit-card information or
worry about their personal privacy. The APT announcement is part of a growing
community of partnerships in the publishing, entertainment and software
industries focused on Clickshare's planned 2001 launch.
About Clickshare
With roots in the publishing industry, Clickshare was established in
anticipation of the explosion of the market for digital content, ranging from
music to books, newspaper articles to streaming video. The Clickshare service
includes payment aggregation, audience measurement, site-access control,
personalization and privacy-protected demographic management. It provides
portals and other proprietors that have built-in customer bases, such as
ISPs, wireless carriers, banks, and affinity groups with a way to strengthen
and monetize their bond with customers. Clickshare offers consumers a way to
have an account at one web site, yet buy content from many other websites --
without having to pass around a credit card number, fill out forms or give up
personal information.
The company recently named Helen B. Fields, former vice president global
marketing at Futurestep Inc., as president. Clickshare's pre-seed, $500,000
"angel" financing round included David Duffield, chairman of PeopleSoft, Inc,
Margaret L. Taylor, CEO of Venture Builders and former PeopleSoft COO;
25-year software veteran Michael Kaiser, who has served with Andersen
Consulting and more recently was a PeopleSoft development executive; and Sam
S. McKeel, retired publisher of The Philadelphia Inquirer and Chicago
Sun-Times. Early Clickshare investors included Thomas J. Rehwaldt, a
co-founder of The Chicago Reader and Washington, D.C., City Paper.
Clickshare has alliances with Red Hat Software Inc., Comtex News Network
Inc., and Tristar Technologies (Proprietary) Ltd. of South Africa. In the
last year, Clickshare has tested the sale of information provided by The
Associated Press, PR Newswire, Business Wire, Xinhua, Itar-Tass, M2
Communications, U.S. Newswire, and The Sports Network. Clickshare is also
researching the sale of digital coursepacks with text excerpts provided by
publishers including Congressional Quarterly Press, West Publishing Co. and
Johns Hopkins University
About Advanced Publishing Technology, Inc.
Advanced Publishing Technology, Inc. (APT) boasts a complete publication
software package for the newspaper industry, which provides affordable,
editorial, classified/display, accounting and pagination programs. The ACT
software package provides customers with such features as ad tracking, full
editorial text searches and archiving, versatile reporting functionality,
"single step" formatting for the AP ZWire format, customer contact management
and a powerful pagination program. APT's newest offering is ACTWeb, which
implements cutting-edge technology that enables newspapers to automatically
publish content to their web sites.
APT has a strong background in software development and in newspaper
publishing, and maintains a close association with the newspaper industry.
APT was founded in 1991, and the ACT package is installed in over 150
newspaper companies nation-wide.
Contacts:
Edward Bride, 413-442-7718 [edbride@clickshare.com]
Bill Densmore, 413-458-8001 [densmore@clickshare.com]
