Electronic publishing: A product architecture perspective

Information products, like physical ones, require well-designed platforms from which multiple versions of a product can be easily and efficiently derived. This study investigated the design implications of converting a large subscription-based industry-research firm to an electronic publishing and distribution process. The analysis applied concepts used in designing architectures for physical goods. Electronic publishing technology, in addition to providing a new automated production platform, enabled the firm to move from a traditional document-based publishing paradigm to one more akin to an information refinery based on the storage and integration of modular information-units. That move had a significant impact on how documents were written, edited, and marketed. It was found that digitizing documents alone is not sufficient to create a flexible enough electronic publishing platform from which multiple versions of a document-based information product may be derived. Rather, the entire structure of the document must be reconceived in terms of more primitive information-units that can be digitized, indexed, and linked for retrieval in a variety of ways.