Darmstadt, Germany, 30 July 2003 -- The AdsML Consortium, an international group of organizations serving the print, electronic and digital publishing industries, today made public its Advertising Standards Matrix project, an effort designed to identify and survey all existing and emerging standards, across all media, that address processes essential to the lifecycle of advertisements. The project was announced to coincide with Publish Asia, a comprehensive annual publishing event, organized by Ifra Asia, taking place 30 July to 1 August in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The standards matrix program demonstrates the Consortium’s commitment to make the soon-to-be-released AdsML 1.0 Standard as inclusive as possible, able to embrace and enhance existing standards, not replace them. The AdsML Standard is an XML-based (eXtensible Markup Language) open standard that will manage the digital exchange of information between all parties involved in the advertising workflow, from concept to publication to billing. The framework for the global standard was approved in June in Las Vegas, USA. “We invite all parties associated with or developing standards for any part of the advertising process to become part of the Matrix project,” says Alan Marshall, managing director of Associated Mediabase in London, U.K. “We are automating and streamlining what has until now been a cumbersome, inefficient, error-prone process that cost everyone time and money.” Marshall noted that “AdsML is a framework that will encompass other standards, many of which do not now talk to each other, close the gaps between them and introduce capabilities that do not now exist. Everyone in the advertising supply chain is invited to sit at the table and make sure what is developed works well for everyone.” Marshall, along with Harald Löffler, chair of the Consortium and research manager for Ifra, an international association for media publishing, will speak about the AdsML Standard at Publish Asia. The presence of Löffler and Marshall signals the launch in Asia of the Consortium’s compaign to have the AdsML specification, which will be released in October, adopted internationally. The AdsML Consortium, developer of the forthcoming AdsML Standard, is supported by Ifra and the Newspaper Association of America. The Consortium has a growing membership of organizations and associations — including Agfa, Associated Mediabase, CCI Europe, Mactive, Rosetta and Vio Worldwide — that are involved in the print, electronic and digital publishing industries or are part of the advertising value chain.