International

Nxtbook Media™ Announces Primary Agreement with Advanstar Communications, Inc.

Lancaster, PA — January 31, 2005

Advanstar Leads Business Media Market by Providing Innovative Digital Products

Nxtbook Media™ (NBM), a technology-based company that provides multimedia digital publishing solutions, announces that it has signed a primary agreement with Advanstar Communications, Inc. (Advanstar), a worldwide business information company serving specialized markets with high-quality information resources and integrated marketing solutions. NBM has been selected by Advanstar’s senior management to become their primary external digital publishing platform vendor.

Advanstar has 100 top business publications, in addition to tradeshows and conferences, and a wide range of direct marketing, database and reference products and services. Recognizing the importance of digital publishing and its potentially significant impact on profit margins, Advanstar chose Nxtbook Media™ based on its product functionality, customer service track record, and planned upgrade path. Nxtbook Media™ will have the opportunity to consult with Advanstar managers on how to embrace a long-term digital magazine growth strategy.

“Advanstar was an early adopter of the digital publishing platform. We have been using similar technologies and working with Spencer Ewald since the spring of 2002 to help promote our tradeshows,” said Francis Heid, Vice President of Publishing Operations. “Because of their excellent track record, it only made sense to include Nxtbook Media™ in our vendor selection process, and in the end, to choose them as our digital publishing partner.”

Significantly different from static PDF technology, Nxtbook™ technology is used to publish magazines, tradeshow brochures, catalogs – or any other print products in an easy-to-read digital format. Nxtbook™ allows information to be presented as a double page-oriented document optimized for a computer screen. NBM’s digital publishing platform is based on open web standards and does not require the downloading of proprietary software readers. The technology also enables real-time results reporting, including the number of readers who have accessed the online magazine, time spent on each page, and other invaluable tracking information.

Advanstar is currently using Nxtbook FX product for their e-zine content distribution. The digital versions of the publications are image-based representations of their print counterparts that retain the look and feel of the printed version. However, the Nxtbook also provides such web-based functionality as multimedia, external hyper- linking, multiple zoom levels, thumbnail previews, book marking of pages, printing options, e-mail forwarding and save to computer feature. In addition to providing seamless integration into the production cycle, the FX product is also fully compliant with BPA and ABC regulations for circulation of magazines and newsletters.

“Nxtbook Media has been, by far, the most valued partner to Cadalyst magazine while we explored the unknown territory of digital delivery of the publication,” noted Dana Fisher, Group Publisher Advanstar/Cadalyst Group. “The staff at Nxtbook Media have publishing backgrounds and understand the issues and challenges I have as a publisher which helped me make educated business decisions during the entire process. I’ve built a successful model for Cadalyst as well as setting a standard in the CAD industry for being innovative and creative when it comes to digital delivery,” she added.

Spencer Ewald, NBM Vice President and Founder, said “I’m looking forward to working with the various publishing groups within Advanstar to create durable value for all of their print properties. As one of the leading business-to-business publishers, we view Advanstar as one of our marquee customers as we expand our offerings in the magazine marketplace.” In addition to the Cadalyst Group, NBM is also currently working with Travel Agent, American Salon, Sensors and is in negotiations with several other Advanstar publications looking to roll out the technology in 2005.

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