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Kompas is the First Daily Newspaper in Asia on the iPad

Press release from the issuing company

Kompas, the largest daily newspaper in Indonesia, uses WoodWing's Digital Magazine Tools to publish daily issues on the iPad. WoodWing continues to expand the feature set of its Digital Magazine Tools and expects to have approximately one new release each month this summer.

WoodWing announced today that Kompas, the largest daily newspaper in Indonesia, is using WoodWing's Digital Magazine Tools to create and publish its digital issues for the iPad. The App has been available in the App store since July 2, 2010.

"At Kompas, we always aim to offer our audience the most compelling reader experience and to provide them with the latest news wherever they are and whatever device they use. It was a logical step for us to support the iPad", said Rikard Bagun, Editor in Chief at Kompas.

The Kompas iPad App is produced by six employees working parallel with print production. The team aims to output the App at 2 a.m. local time every day, enabling users around the world to read the latest Kompas iPad issue in a timely manner.

Kompas was founded in 1965. Published every day, the respected newspaper reaches more than 2 million readers per day. Its Web site www.kompas.com has a total readership of 15 million unique visitors per month and it's one of the largest news portals in Indonesia. Kompas is the most innovative publishing group in Indonesia, being the first to consistently introduce technologies, such as QR-Code in daily editorial content, Augmented Reality for editorial and advertising, Web digital replica in Kompas ePaper, and now the iPad App.

Daily newspapers can capitalize on the iPad
Remco Koster, Managing Director of WoodWing Asia Pacific, said, "We are very happy to enable Kompas to be the first Asian daily newspaper available for the iPad. The iPad initially focused on the magazine segment, but now we see that daily newspapers can also capitalize on the iPad to broaden their daily audience, and to develop new revenue sources. Kompas wanted their daily digest on the iPad to have a magazine look and feel. With our tools, newspaper publishers can do both – create a digest in a magazine style or keep the appearance of their printed newspaper."

John Fong, CEO of Serious Group, a leading WoodWing solution partner in Asia said: "Although producing a daily iPad newspaper with a magazine look and feel may seem quite labor-intensive, we proved this is very easily achieved using WoodWing's solution, InDesign templates and smart automation tools. Kompas clearly leads the way again for publishers in Asia."

Protecting the investment, open for the future
WoodWing's Digital Magazine Tools currently support the iPad, but will be open for other tablet devices when they become available. Protecting publishers' investments and being able to deal with future developments are important aspects of WoodWing's development strategy.

One new release each month
WoodWing continues to expand the feature set of its Digital Magazine Tools. The just-released version 1.3 offers new options like:
- Web Links allows to present full Web pages to the user.
- Widgets – HTML5 components that allow bundling interactive functionality such as the possibility of displaying 360-degree product views.
- Widgets can also be used to update parts of the Reader App without the need for a new App.
- A Table of Contents (TOC) button is available in the Navigation bar
- More ways to present the newsfeed; for example, also in full-screen mode and on start-up of the App.
- Free issues – if enabled, the App bypasses the iTunes store for a particular issue and downloads it for free.

New features are being developed quickly. WoodWing expects to have approximately one new release each month this summer.

Additional information and demo videos showing WoodWing's iPad solutions can be found at www.woodwing.com/ipad.