One year after its launch, and after three years of development, Lotus Notes Newstand, a service allowing Notes users to review and subscribe to business publications, has now been made available on the Web. Around 100 publications are listed on the service, although only 10 can be subscribed to through the Web. This may suggest that many publishers have their own web strategy. Publishers must pay a 25% commission to Lotus for all subscriptions ordered on the service. For the record, Computergram is also listed although it is not on the Notes Web Page-so far. Lotus announced the service, called Newsstand on the Web, at an Orlando, Florida bash, last week. The service will manage all kinds of documents with a complete set of tools for publishing and subscription management. Paul Haverstock, director of Internet services at Lotus said it is a natural progression from the Notes Web publisher that launched a year ago. Newsstand on the Web is an example of a Lotus eApp, or electronic application framework, also launched at Lotusphere ’96 last week. The eApps allow users to rapidly deploy Web-enabled applications. Each eApp provides building blocks and tools specifically designed to extend to the Internet corporation’s publishing, marketing, customer service or electronic commerce applications. After accessing the Newsstand Guide on the Lotus home page, users select the publications to which they wish to subscribe and submit a subscription request to their corporate Newsstand coordinator. The subscription is sent electronically to the publisher and a security program is executed on the server, sending the user the address needed to access the publication. The process is far quicker and simpler than before, with many of the mundane, labour-intensive tasks being automated. Information is managed and secure. The publisher does not have to maintain a Web site, worry about levels of security or have know?ledge of HyperText Mark-up Language to design a Web-based publication. The Notes server joins HTTP, HTML and Java technology to get?her with existing Notes 4 server technology. Lotus say almost 100 publications have already signed agreements to publish over Newsstand to the Web. Publication fees will be set by each information provider. Newsstand on the Web will be available to the public next quarter.
