3) Issuu: Make a Flash-based flip book from your publication

The Issuu.com dashboard

Issuu

For print publications trying to adapt their content for digital audiences, the debate never ends: How best to optimize our content for Web users without bastardizing our core product (ie, the print edition)? It’s simple: Publish both online.

There are a number of tools out there to make interactive Flash/PDF books, but Issuu is the first hosted one I’ve seen that doesn’t cost anything (they do have a freemium model: Pay extra for a white-label version).

Issuu comes equipped with a customizable embed wizard (with even more customization possible through the developer API), allowing you to pick your color scheme, dimensions and configure a few other options.

In addition to publishing interactive flip-books and documents, Issuu also has a social side: the site is itself a social network, on which you can friend others, exchange comments and, along the way, find new and interesting publications.

Coolest features:

• Ease-of-use: Upload your PDF. Copy and paste the embed code. Done.
• Bonus: Attract new readers. By uploading your publication to Issuu (and hopefully adding some basic metadata when you do), you’re sprucing up your site *and* putting your content and brand in front of a growing user community outside your existing readership.

Limitations: The ability to embed hyperlinks into the document would be an added bonus for print advertisers (and, perhaps, provide an additional revenue stream for ailing newspapers and magazines). Nevermind! This is apparently possible.

To get started: Go to www.issuu.com, sign up, and start uploading.

Example: Philadelphia Weekly