Books to play key role in Digital Wizards multi-platform strategy

Multi-platform has taken on a more traditional meaning with the new Juno Beach project created by Cambridge ON-based Digital Wizards Inc. A successful Pioneering Content fund applicant, Digital Wizards has extended its web and CD-ROM work backwards into traditional book publishing - something company president Diane Williamson says could serve as a template for future projects across a range of media. The Juno Beach project tells the history of Canada during World War II through a book being published by Pearson Education Canada, a division of Penguin Books Canada, that serves as a portal to a greater depth of information being offered in a companion CD-ROM, which in turn can take students and users online where further interactive features are offered. "The Juno Beach is a new and exciting model for the convergence of mixed media," says Digital Wizards Creative director Dan Clark. "We have developed a model of contextual learning that is dependent on the use of multiple mediums. This model allows us to leverage the strengths of each medium in order to overlay context. How it works is simple, a tactile experience is created through a photo driven book. The book component gives its reader a broad understanding of Canada’s role in World War II. This is where the synergy starts, the book leads the reader into the CD-ROM to gain context about a topic touched on in the book. The CD-ROM in turn leads the user deeper into the details of the topic with linkage out to our extremely detailed web site. Through the use of an XML publishing system, the content is inherently linked between the mediums. A simple searching metaphor of page number and appropriate story marker takes the user seamlessly deeper into the content. The interesting part is that the story is seamlessly expanding to the detail desired." The project was first started by the Juno Beach Centre, a volunteer initiative to build a museum on the famous site of Canada’s D-Day landing in 1944. From the start, the foundation envisioned an online component to the museum. Digital Wizards was contracted to create the interactive materials and book, a project it was able to complete in four months using material from an existing web site adapted for use in the disc and book. The company developed a proprietary process to create the book using desktop publishing software and XML programming that it hopes will serve it in good stead to create other projects mixing print and digital media. Besides funding for the book provided by the Ontario Media Development Corp.’s Pioneering Content fund, Telefilm Canada put significant financing into the companion web site. The project was created quickly, Williamson says, working with editor Tony Luengo to capitalize on the 60th anniversary of the Juno landing and the book has been published in time for Remembrance Day. Two versions of the book have been created - one an educational version that doesn’t include the CD-ROM packaged with the volume to help teachers control access to the electronic material. Digital Wizards will see future revenue from book sale royalties, which Pearson expects to sell well. No sales figures are available yet since the volume is only shipping to stores now, Williamson says. Intellectual property related to the back-end process to create the print version is retained by Digital Wizards. Each of the web site, CD-ROM and book contains hundreds of images culled from mostly public sources. Company officials say rights clearance went smoothly, though a full-time researcher had to be employed by the company to clear them all.

Books to play key role in Digital Wizards multi-platform strategy

Broadcast | November 7, 2003

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