VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--Consolidated Magna Ventures Ltd. ("Magna'', symbol CMV:CDNX) and PODbook.com Ltd., Magna's wholly owned subsidiary, are delighted to announce the successful launch of their proprietary technology, SkinnyScript(TM), for use in publication printing. SkinnyScript(TM) is an encoding process that significantly reduces the size of graphic image files used in publishing, without compromising image quality. This means that publishers and printers can expect smaller file sizes, which in turn create increased throughput, lower storage requirements and faster communication. Moreover, this is all based upon Adobe's emerging industry standard PDF file format. In order to introduce this technology to the market, PODbook formed a strategic alliance with Copydot Prepress Inc., a local colour service bureau that specializes in preparing publications for print for North American publishers. Testing was extensive and took many months to complete. Once satisfied with the results, both companies sought out a large consumer magazine to adopt the technology in full-scale print production and found a willing participant in Silicon Valley. Due to hit the stands this week, the October issue of San Jose Magazine, "the Magazine for Silicon Valley'', a beautiful four-colour, 180 page city and regional magazine, is hot off the press. Contacted for his comments, Gilbert Sangari, Publisher had this to say. "Imagine someone coming to you with what sounds like a publisher's dream and wants you to be the guinea pig. Well, this wasn't a dream but a dream come true. It took us literally half the normal time to do our October issue. Not to mention handling the files back and forth between the magazine and pre-press via e-mail, not jazz disks. You can now have your cake and eat it too.'' Of particular significance is the fact that the 180 pages of the magazine originally comprised18 gigabytes of data, all of which were processed using SkinnyScript(TM) to yield a final product totaling only 400 megabytes, roughly 45 times smaller. These files were delivered on a single CD to the printers for Computer-to-Plate (CTP) printing. The bulk of the magazine was printed at Quebecor World Vancouver, a division of Quebecor World Inc., the largest printing company in the world. The covers were printed at Teldon International Inc. of Richmond, B.C. This marks the first time that SkinnyScript(TM) has been employed in a prepress environment as all previous work had been focused on digital printing. Prepress is used, as the name implies, to process print files for offset printing, still a much larger market than digital printing. The US Dept. of Commerce estimated the traditional printing industry in the US to be worth US$232 billion in 1999. The North American prepress market for magazines and trade journals alone is estimated atUS$1 billion annually. With the successful completion of this test, PODbook is now positioned to access the entire printing market.