HighWire new ePublishing platform, H2O, with public beta of PNAS

[Bonnie Zavon <bzavon@stanford.edu>]

HighWire Press launches its new ePublishing platform, H2O

Press Release: http://highwire.stanford.edu/inthepress/stories/H2OPlatform.pdf

March 25, 2008 - Stanford, California

HighWire Press, the preeminent online technology provider for 
over 140 publishers, is proud to announce the release of its new 
electronic publishing platform, H2O. HighWire has rebuilt its 
platform from the bottom up, creating a standards-based hosting 
solution that embraces the new vision of Publishing 2.0. H2O will 
put HighWire's publisher partners at the forefront of online 
publishing. To view a video of HighWire's Director, John Sack, 
talk about this vision, please visit: 
http://highwire.stanford.edu/publishers/H2O.dtl

"H2O supports the evolution of content as portable, allowing 
publishers to move information to where the user is," said John 
Sack. "Our new platform ensures that the HighWire-hosted sites 
are a valuable service to users: a place for people to do 
research, interact with information, ideas, and each other."

The first site to launch on the new platform is the Proceedings 
of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), with their beta site 
now publicly available at http://beta.pnas.org.

** For the Press Release about the PNAS beta site refer to 
http://highwire.stanford.edu/inthepress/stories/PNASbeta.pdf **

While the new user interface seen on the PNAS beta site is the 
visible piece of H2O, the full rebuild will ensure that new 
industry standards will be infused throughout all the layers of 
any new H2O-based site, giving publishers maximum flexibility on 
how their content looks and operates.

HighWire is confident that the new H2O architecture is the most 
effective way to offer both publishers and their end users the 
ability to be innovative with the tools and information that the 
participatory web offers. As a fully XML-based environment, in 
addition to just handling XML input and output, HighWire's H2O 
incorporates standards like Atom Publishing Protocol (backed by 
Google & Microsoft), and powerful tools such as the MarkLogic 
Server.

"HighWire is taking full advantage of our XML content platform to 
deliver a truly agile publishing environment for their 
customers," said Andy Feit, Senior Vice President of Marketing at 
Mark Logic. "Through its unique modeling of the Atom Publishing 
Protocol interface, and the sophisticated features for user 
interaction with content - and for collaboration around it - the 
new H2O platform allows publishers to get the most from their 
content. What HighWire has done based on MarkLogic Server for 
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is quite 
impressive."

The H2O platform infrastructure is flexible and modular, designed 
to interact with many other systems, and to be extended with 
emerging web services and technologies. The data store is 
architected to seamlessly accommodate content structured in many 
different ways. Along with leading services for journal 
article-based content, H2O will also enhance the many non-journal 
sites, books and reference works that HighWire produces, such as 
the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press' Protocols database. H2O 
will provide the ideal platform for publishers to showcase 
e-books and other non-journal materials online, since it supports 
the broadest range of content types.

As HighWire develops H2O, it will also offer a suite of tools and 
services that will enable publishers to create collections of 
information, re-use these collections in feeds, widgets, blogs 
and networking sites. Publishers will be able to attach 
advertising and branding to content or collections, personalize 
offers and ads, and contextualize web pages based on the content 
being displayed and the user demographics. Such standards-based 
content can easily appear on a variety of devices: the iPhone, 
the iPod, Amazon's Kindle and other yet-to-be-seen new 
technologies.

For more background information, and to listen to a conversation 
with John Sack about the new platform, please visit: 
http://highwire.stanford.edu/publishers/H2O.dtl

# # #

About HighWire Press

HighWire Press, a division of the Stanford University Libraries, 
provides online site development and hosting solutions to the 
scholarly publishing community. HighWire produces the definitive 
online versions of high-impact, peer-reviewed journals and other 
scholarly content in many disciplines. Since 1995, HighWire has 
partnered with influential societies, university presses and 
other publishers to create a vast database of the finest, fully 
searchable research, medical and social science literature 
available on the Internet. The HighWire community shares ideas 
and innovations in publishing through regular meetings, 
discussion forum and through the service of its unique blend of 
highly qualified staff. http://highwire.stanford.edu

Contact:
Bonnie Zavon
bzavon@stanford.edu
HighWire Press-Stanford University