CCI NewsGate 2.2 advances digital publishing, content sharing and freelancer workflow for newsrooms

Latest NewsGate release includes dedicated sharing and collaboration platform with Web Services, tools for user-generated content and extended Adobe InDesign pagination workflow

May 27, 2008

CCI Europe has announced its latest release of CCI NewsGate – NewsGate 2.2 – which delivers functionality for the newsroom to successfully respond to the latest demands in news content. With NewsGate 2.2, a newsroom can easily incorporate user-generated content such as customer comments, event information, etc. A CCI customer with a consolidated data center can plan, manage and proactively share content across all its newsrooms. Open Web Services allow a customer to set up and manage, for example, complete freelancer workflow. CCI NewsGate 2.2 also has extended the Adobe InDesign/InCopy based pagination workflow functionality.

"CCI NewsGate delivers market oriented functionality that gives our customers competitive advantages," said Torben Johannesen, Executive Vice President - Development. "We are expanding our embedded CCI DigitalPublishing module and we can make any content – published or not – available in a 'content goldmine' storage ready for integration with our customer's web portal. InDesign continues to be a strong strategic area for CCI, and our commitment to open systems and standards is emphasized by our new Web Services offerings."

Immediate digital publishing including user-generated content

Significantly enhanced functionality in NewsGate 2.2 allows the news staff to create rich stories for immediate online/digital publishing directly from within the system. Publishing can happen using the embedded CCI DigitalPublishing module or a third party publishing solution via NewsGate 2.2's strong two-way integration package. From NewsGate 2.2 is it possible to enter and edit customer metadata, and in one interface combine metadata and content into rich articles of various types. A customer can publish to the web directly from within the CCI NewsAccess application.

A new range of interactive interfaces in NewsGate 2.2 makes it possible to grasp extensive user-generated content, tips or event information, and drag-drop it into NewsGate to kick-start the editorial process. There is automatic mapping of relevant metadata, and photos or other attached files are included.

Archived content for web portals

At any time, content residing in NewsGate 2.2 can be made available in a well-structured XML format ready for integration into a customer's web site. For example, the content can be indexed using the full text search engine already being used by the customer's portal, and made available to consumers as required.

System consolidation means savings, more shared content

A growing trend among CCI customers is a shared NewsGate system via a data center structure. This structure allows a customer to share content and collaborate between any of its newsrooms. NewsGate 2.2 provides enhanced support for planning content across newsrooms prior to the content being ready to share. It is now possible for a user working in one newsroom to create a story folder with material from a story folder in another newsroom. The 'shared' content (story, photo, graphics and multimedia) will inherit all changes made to the source content until the content relation is broken by a user in the target newsroom. NewsGate 2.2 provides a complete overview of where any piece of content has been used across all newsrooms.

Open web services allow e.g. complete freelancer workflow

NewsGate 2.2 features open Web Services that allows a customer to set up a complete freelancer workflow. The Web Services can be used to implement a web portal, where freelancers can view and accept their assignments and upload content items.

Another new feature makes it possible to export relevant editorial information to an external system for fee calculation. Usually freelancers are paid according to the amount and type of material they deliver and/or according to the amount and type of material that is used in the production; thus the export can be used for the actual fee calculation in the external system.

NewsGate 2.2's Web Services are implemented with the JAX-WS toolkit and run on Java EE 5 web application servers. They add to the already comprehensive existing integrations possibilities based on W3C XML Schema based import/exports accessible though W3C XSLT and W3C DOM implementations.

Extended Adobe InDesign/InCopy based pagination workflow functionality

NewsGate 2.2 ships with a significantly matured and enhanced CCI PageDesign for Adobe InDesign/CCI Edit for Adobe InCopy solution. Also the new version supports use of CCI Edit for Adobe InCopy for write-to-fit on jump stories, and easy-to-use functionality for replacing dummy layout items with live content in a design-driven workflow.

About CCI Europe

Founded in the 1700's as a newsprint company, CCI Europe is today the leading provider of editorial and advertising solutions for multi-media news environments. The CCI AdDesk, CCI NewsGate and CCI NewsDesk systems are the most robust and powerful in the industry, and are implemented in over 100 news organizations across five continents. CCI provides the platform to support evolving needs of the world's largest news organizations, and scalable solutions to help growing media brands optimize business strategies. Constant innovation and strong customer commitment remain the cornerstones of CCI's business model. CCI is an Oracle Certified Partner.