publisher’s corner
DOI: 10.1145/1467247.1467249 Scott E. Delman
the site will
extend beyond
Communications’
current reach
and help bring us
closer to fulfilling
the flagship’s
original promise
as the primary
“communication”
tool in the field
of computing.
Communications’ Web
site to Launch in march
2008 was a year of significant change for
Communications. The same will be the case in
2009. After a successful relaunch of the print
magazine last year, ACM is getting ready to
launch a new Communications’ Web site,
which will go live this month. The new
site will complement the magazine by
providing an easy access point to all the
content found in the magazine’s print
pages, but perhaps more importantly the
site will extend beyond Communications’
current reach and help bring us closer to
fulfilling the flagship’s original promise
as the primary “communication” tool in
the field of computing.
Let me say a few words about the
new site. Many in the community are
now used to downloading Communica-
tions’ articles from the ACM Digital Li-
brary, reading the print publication on
the train or plane, or scanning through
the pages of the Digital Edition on your
desktop or mobile device (as an aside,
the iPhone version is worth trying). For
those of you who have your preferred
way of digesting and archiving the ar-
ticles published each month, nothing
should change and we will do our best
to continue to improve the experience
for you. The new site, however, offers
you for the first time a robust gateway or
digital storefront from which to not only
read and download articles, but to com-
ment, share, and interact with the com-
puting community in a meaningful way
and in real time without the limitations
of page budgets and print schedules.
The new site will be content- and
feature-rich with an emphasis on high-
quality editorial. Everything found in
the print publication will be available
via the Web site, but the site will also
contain additional news content up-
dated more frequently than is possible
in print. A variety of user-generated content, such as the new Expert Blog aptly
named the Blog@CACM, will be contributed to by a growing list of distinguished practitioners and researchers.
Periodically, the best of those entries
and comments will make their way into
the print magazine and the result will be
a cross-fertilization of content between
the print and online Communications.
So, for those of you who still prefer to
see your name appear in print there is
another incentive to go online. The new
site will also serve as a gateway to some
of the most interesting and relevant existing blogs (see Blog Roll) in the computing community and provide links to
related content, books, courses, conferences, SIGs, and other resources. The
site will also be heavily integrated with
the ACM Digital Library, so as to provide
a single entry point for searching both
Communications articles and other articles published by ACM.
It is important to say that the site
will not be all things to all people. That
is not the intention. But, if you are a
regular reader of Communications and
you are looking for a way to find more
high-quality information on advanced
computing topics (for practitioners and
researchers), we believe this new site
will be a great place to start and over
time will find its way into your favorites
folder and become a highly respected
and valuable resource. At least, that is
our ultimate goal.
Scott E. Delman, gROUP PUblISHER