The United States Postal Service's flats sequencing system (FSS)—a $1.3 billion mail-sorting system for magazines and catalogues—was billed as a revolutionary advancement when it was first unveiled a decade ago, to the point that its rollout even included a slickly produced, Hollywood-style movie trailer. "Consistent, reliable, and on-time delivery," "affordable mail service," "intelligence through technology"—what's not to love? Ten years and 100 installations later, FSS is "still falling short of expectations," according to a new report from the USPS Office of the Inspector General (OIG), which raised eyebrows upon its public release earlier this month for its uncharacteristically frank assessment of the postal service's operations. "More troubling," the OIG writes, "is that it's unclear whether processing flats on FSS machines is more cost-efficient than using AFSM [the automated flats sorting machine, FSS's precursor]." While the OIG regularly makes recommendations to the postal service based on its assessments, this felt different, says Rita Cohen, senior VP of legislative and regulatory policy at the MPA (the Association of Magazine Media). “They said they don’t even understand the operational and financial impact of the system," Cohen tells Folio:. "They don’t know that this entire system is less expensive than what they were doing before, which included manual processing." The USPS, in its own strongly worded statement, disputed the OIG's audit, which it called... Continue reading at 'Folio Magazine'
[ Folio Magazine | 2018-08-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Benedicte Page Publication Date: Fri, 16/09/2011 - 08:31 Waterstones proposed higher discount, flat rate terms for publishers, put forward in exchange for scrapping promotion fees, could hit author royalties, according to agents and the Society of Authors. read more Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-09-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A recent story this weekend by The New York Times about the United States Postal Service's dire financial predicament fueled speculation about how long, exactly, the organization has until it closes Continue reading at Folio Magazine
[ Folio Magazine | 2011-09-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The good news: Publishers aren't cutting manufacturing and production budgets as much as they did last year. Continue reading at Folio Magazine
[ Folio Magazine | 2011-08-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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In the first half of 2011, the magazine industry was abuzz with news of the latest digital editions, Apples subscription mandates for publishers selling their wares through the App Store and those stepping away from Apples model to go the HTML route for app offerings. Continue reading at Folio Magazine
[ Folio Magazine | 2011-08-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Hearst Corporation has launched the beta version of Manilla, a free personal account management system. George Kliavkoff has been named CEO of the service that allows consumers to securely link bank accounts, view statements, pay bills and manage subscriptions through one account. Continue reading at Folio Magazine
[ Folio Magazine | 2011-03-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A day after Apple stirred up online publishers with its digital subscription plan, Google announced a service that aims to be more publisher-friendly. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2011-02-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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