Get Acquainted

With Your Readers

Learn Customer Opinions & Respond

to Their Needs

Involve your readers into

your business

Make the CONVERSATION, not the SPEECH

Make the CONVERSATION, not the SPEECH

Copyright © 2006, Soft Format . All rights reserved.

Your Magazine

www.soft-format.com

24/7 Communication

IntroductionBasing on our marketing research and business experience, we see the marketing challenge caused by impact of technology onto the magazine publishing industry, where readers lifestyle is being transformed by the Internet and requirements for building and managing a successful and innovative business are being constantly changed.

Our marketing team has elaborated the innovative concept of the Digital Community of Consumers as an effective way of enhancing the magazine business model and enabling 24/7 communication with your target audience.

We are presenting to you our unique and cost-effective business offer, which will enable Your Company build successful and innovative business on the Internet and fully leverage the business opportunities that Internet gives.

Soft Format sees its mission in helping our customers to harness the full potential of new opportunities, which are becoming available on the cutting edge of business and technological innovations.

Marketing PreconditionsGlobal competition,

globalization, rampant change and extremely fast flow of information and communication is the hot trend of new age;

Internet and technologies are integral part of the everyday life of average user;

Requirements for building and managing a successful business are altered by technological innovations;

Information

Networking

Globalization

Convergence

Change Dynamics

Changes That Call For a New e-Business Model

New environment with "more far-reaching technological advances, and a consumer who has adjusted to this quicker pace and whose fickle preferences are revised with the speed of a television commercial."

The WalkmanTM case is already the sample of leadership tactics on the market, which is now achievable for not only the global corporation, but also for SMEs. “It’s not the big – that eats the small; it’s the fast that eats the slow”.

How consumers responded to the survey question: "If the following were available on a social-networking website, which would you likely do this holiday season?"

Find out about store sales/product discounts: 51% Download coupons: 51% Search for gift ideas: 47% Buy products: 29% Post or view videos: 20% Read or write product review on blog: 18% None of the above: 12%

**Does not total 100% due to multiple responses Source: American Marketing Association online Nov. 9-12 survey of 1,098 consumers. Margin of error is ±2.5 percentage points.

11/23/2006

Marketing TrendsAbout 100 C-level execs from portals, agencies, software firms and major brands crowded into a conference room at the law offices of Morrison & Foerster (MoFo) in New York City. They had come to hear a panel on "the year's most talked about technology trend," according to the program: social networking sites.

• According to The American Marketing Association, many top social networking sites could be losing out on billions of dollars in extra cash, by not selling products, such as gadgets and gifts through their sites. According to the association, Facebook, MySpace and other major hitting social networks are missing the possible extra profits that they could be raking in.

• The association has recently released the results of a survey they conducted.

– 47% of American consumers said they’d use their favorite social network to ‘find and discuss holiday gift ideas’.

– 29% said that they would be willing to ‘buy products through those sites’.

– An astonishing 51% of residents in the USA said that they would most certainly look for discounts on social networks;

– Another 51% of people saying that ‘they’d download coupons with monetary value’. But then again, who wouldn’t? Only if it were that easy…

Social Networking Gold Rush:November 2005 - News Corp. drew a lot of attention for paying $580 million to acquire Internet sensation MySpace.

April 2006 There's the $800 million acquisition offer from Yahoo that Facebook reportedly rejected, the $2 billion Facebook wants and the $25 million in venture capital Facebook got from Greylock Partners in April

October 9, 2006 - Google Inc. announced today that it has agreed to acquire YouTube for $1.65 billion in a stock-for-stock transaction.

Buy a Network:MySpace: $15 billion latest Wall Street valuation, courtesy of RBC Capital YouTube: $1.5 billion latest valuation, courtesy of New York Post Facebook: $1 billion latest valuation, courtesy of Wall Street Journal Digg: $200 million valuation, courtesy of Business Week

Marketing OpportunityEstablishment of the online active consumption-driven community of your readers and involvement of this community into your business.

• Tie the readers to your website• Make the audience more loyal to your

brand• Bring new revenue stream and opens new

advertising capabilities• Streamline your communication with

readers• Involve your readers into your business• Establish 24/7 service delivery

Benefits of Branded Community

Stop talking TO your audience!

Start communicating WITH your audience!

Values DefinitionEnjoyable place for your readers to hang out online.

Like-minded people and old trusted contacts, interesting discussions, personal space of your readers.

Convenient purchase (when you want, what you want and how you want). Social commerce – community-based advising, recommendations. Reflection of your readers’ preferences and needs.

Multi-directional communication which brings new content for online and offline issues of the magazine. More valuable, more relevant, more trusted

New source of personalized/contextual targeted advertising/promotion. Profile/behavior based. More efficient - more advertisers - more profits

Aggregation instead of development. Value-Added Service for attracting new customers, increasing loyalty of the old ones and keeping both used to your website. Profile-based VAS to fit your readers’ needs.

Vision Concept

CORPORATE FRONTEND OF THE MAGAZINE

r

ONLINE COMMUNITY

PERSONAL SPACES OF READERS

E-BUSINESS MANAGEMENT BACKEND OF THE MAGAZINE

PROFILE-BASED

PROMOTION

PROFILE-BASED

MARKETING

PROFILE-BASED VAS

MANAGEMENT

PROFILE-BASED

ADVERTISING

PERSONALIZED COMMUNICATION MANAGEMENT

SOCIAL JOURNALISM

MANAGEMENT

PROFILE-BASED E-COMMERCE

PROFILE-BASED VALUE-ADDED

SERVICES

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE & DYNAMIC PROFILING

MAGAZINE CORPORATE

SPACE

Reader

2 ↕Reader

Reader 2 ↕

Community

Reader

2 ↕Magazine

COMMUNITY INFORMATION RESOURCES (JOURNALISM AND ADVICES)

ANONYMOUS USER COMMUNITY MEMBERSONLINE SUBSCRIBERS

Product Partner vendors

Service Partners

Service Partners

Product Partner vendors

Product Partner vendors

Product Partner vendors

Service Partners

Service Partners

PORTAL MANAGEMENT

Portal Management

Personal Space ManagementCustomizable Reader Back Office; Modifiable personal site structure; Ability to select and customize the design from the set of predefined templates or develop your own; Ability to add personal content (information, photos, video, other media); Delimited access to personal content; Ability to manage personal network structure and personal contacts; Ability to initiate/join groups by interest and participate in groups activities

Community Management Flexible structure of business rules of building branded

community;

Management of groups and topics for discussion;

Strong analytical capabilities for analyzing the community behavior;

Reader-2-Community Moderation:-Ability to block users or certain messages;-“Blacklist”-based automated moderation;-Multiple security levels of moderation.

Means of CommunicationAbility for the reader to communicate with the community members (one-to-many and many-to-one):

− Participate in group discussions (group-specific public blog, group forum, message board, group advertising, group Help Wanted, group ratings and recommendations)

− Use & Contribute to Social Knowledge Base (Wiki-style)

− Personalization Tools (personal blog, personal website, personal photo/video gallery, personal favorites, personal podcast, etc)

− Indirect means of communication & social services (rating of products/topics/users/vendors/etc, community scheduler, contest/polls participation, social search mechanism, social quality control, etc)

Ability to directly communicate between the users in terms of recommending/advising on products/services, etc Tools for personal communication between readers (one-to-one) Internal message system, embedded instant messenger for chat/voice/video conversation, Skype integration, wish lists & trouble tickets, etc.)

Tools for personalized/profile-based communication of the magazine and the reader:

− Ability to manage profile-based newsletter with interactive response ability;

− Tools for profile-based podcasting and webcasts;

− Capability of producing the interactive digital version of magazine with profile-specific content & advertising;

− Targeted contests/marketing/promo campaigns tools.

E-CommerceAdvanced set of traditional online retail management tools:

Real-time sales tracking;

Web-based real-time inventory management;

User-friendly catalogue management functionality;

Customizable traditional promo tools (discount coupons, gift certificates, prize/discount bundling, featured products, cross-selling, seasonal sales, and others);

Interactive online help desk with innovative online-specific CRM, live chat and other personal communications tools, wish lists, trouble tickets, FAQs management, etc.);

Advanced Return Merchandise Authority mechanisms;

Functionality for enabling convenient purchase:Easy-to-navigate customizable e-store catalogue;

Auto shipping

Integration of the catalogue purchases with other site/portal functionality

Ability to make a purchase with preferred payment type (credit cards VISA, Maestro, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, Dining Club, checks and e-checks, wires, membership card, gift certificate, points system, PayPal, GoogleCheckout, other e-wallets or cash)

Delivery integration with UPS, USPS, FedEx, DHL,

Social Commerce Functionality:− Trusted recommendations of products/services from the personal network or

reader;

− Profile-based product promotion;

− Automated recommendation on the basis of the dynamic profile

− Tools for sharing your opinion about the product (rating, recommendation, report low quality, etc)

Business Intelligence & Profiling

Advanced primary data collection tools:Information from communications subsystems;Information from e-commerce subsystem;Information from portal management subsystem;Information from VAS integration.

Goal-setting and goal-tracking mechanism;Advanced reporting tools with visual and analytical data;Rule-based notifications on important events in the system;Behavior-based dynamic profiling which serves as a basis for targeting and profile-based approach and updates the reader’s profile in accordance with his/her activities in the systemData synthesis for prediction of user’s preferences and needsProvision of analytic data for other system services and modules

Portal ManagementAdvanced platform for developing scalable e-business solutions;WYSIWYG online editor which enables easy content authoring and management;Content rating, moderation and screening mechanisms;Advanced CISP-compliant security model;Flexible skinning for assuring your unique look and feel;Online role-based file library for documents, images and media;Multilingual and multiple currencies;Seasonal scheduling of the website design, content and functionality;Customizable language-dependant website structure;Web-based menu and pages management without programming required;Search Engine Optimization Tools;Google Analytics Support.

E-Business ManagementCustomizable work spaces for your top management, content managers, marketing and advertising directors, journalists and other staff with role-dependant and user-specific functionality;Ability to track information from the business intelligence subsystem;Tools for creating custom profile-based promotions and advertisings and tracking their efficiency;Advanced tools for the affiliate programs management;Capabilities for management of the value-added services and solutions;Management of the business rules on the basis of the dynamic profile data;Design/aggregation of VAS on the basis of the dynamic profile data

Value-Added ServicesModule delivery system which allows maximum utilization of the existing services of the 3rd parties (aggregation instead of development from scratch)Capabilities for advanced integration with service providers (informational, e-commerce, content, supplementary services):Customizable mechanism for tracking the efficiency of value-added services and VAS business rules management;Advanced tools for bundling integrated services into new service;Direct integration of the newly-developed value-added services into the existing web portal

Sample VAS ideas for Your Magazine(on the basis of the parenting magazine):Personal Assistants & Informational Services:

Nutrition Planner; Find an Expert; Find babysitter/trainer/ teacher/etc; Baby’s feeding chart; Recipe Finder; Informational Services: Integrated tests & quizzes; Informational How-To’s

(info/sound/video/rich media); Baby development tools and

personal baby book; Interactive playground;

Integrated e-commerce: One-stop shop for parents

(traditional and digital products); Integrated baby care checklist; Integrated Registry; Service-based integrated

commerce.

COM2 Solution

What we offer Assistance in development of your magazine-specific

strategy of online community and integration of the community into your online business;

Technical implementation of the online community infrastructure for your magazine on the basis of the COM2 platform;

Web design and system integration to ensure the interoperability between your existing and future web solutions;

Custom development and/or aggregation of the online value-added services, tools and products for your online business;

Maintenance and on-going support of your online community-based solution.

Why Soft Format? Mature business entity, serving on the market from

1997; Competitive ratio of cost and quality of services; Highly qualified team and extensive resource pool

with general capacities of over 4000 man hours per month;

Mature technological e-business platform for delivering advanced value-added solutions with short time to market and reasonable cost;

Clear and deep understanding of marketing opportunity, trends and existing business environment due to strong R&D process;

State-of-the-art solutions on the edge of business, marketing & technological innovation;

High quality of services, confirmed by ISO 9001:2000 certificate and Microsoft Certified Partner status;

International company with the beneficial combination of the Offshore Research & Development Center with US Sales Office

Soft Format LLCpr. Hrushevskoho, 30 Lutsk, 43005, Ukraine Phone: 380.332.770091 Fax: 380.332.776367 Email: o.kutsevych@soft-format.comwww.soft-format.com