Zumbox to Distribute Digital Editions for 22nd Century Media

By: E&P Staff Zumbox, Westlake Village, Calif., provider of online digital replica editions, has announced its first newspaper-distribution partnership.

Digital editions of 22nd Century Media's six Chicago-area weeklies will be sent to the subscriber at every street address that now takes delivery of copies through the U.S. mail. The copies, however, will arrive in digital mailboxes created by Zumbox, which says it created such mailboxes "for every street address in the U.S."

The digital versions replicate the local papers' content and reading experience, including a page-turning feature. The New Lenox Patriot is available now, with digital editions of the remaining papers rolling out soon.

"Zumbox offers a cost-effective and geo-targeted way for us to mail complete print editions in digital format to our readership using street addresses," 22nd Century Media owner Jack Ryan said in a statement. "As people choose to migrate to Zumbox, we anticipate substantially reducing our printing and postage costs for mailing our six newspapers to the nearly 100,000 households we serve on a weekly basis."

Zumbox supports interactive formats such as HTML, Flash, audio and video that can be incorporated into content to enhance readers' experience. Publishers may rotate ads in real time on each page and track click-through rates, which can be shared with advertisers. Additional advertising revenue can be generated through news updates sent between weekly editions to readers' Zumboxes.

To emphasize the importance of newspapers to Zumbox users, a new "Newspapers" content section has been added to the Zumbox.com user interface so anyone can easily find and control the information they want to see, when they want to see it. This joins the original content sections -- Mail (i.e., bills, correspondence) and Special Offers (sales flyers, product discounts).