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By Steve Horton
iProduction

ST. PAUL, MN – September 27, 2002 – St. Paul software firm iProduction has deployed a first-of-its-kind legal notice application service for Gazette.net, a Maryland-based newspaper web site.

Located at www.gazette.net/legals, the new application service provides Gazette.net readers with a comprehensive, searchable index of trustee sales, public hearings, estate filings, name changes, copyright notices, public sales, and adoptions which occur within The Gazette’s coverage area. The application works by converting information from the newspaper’s print editions into a searchable web interface automatically and without editor or programmer intervention. Searchable archives of the legal announcements are also created automatically as each new issue of The Gazette is published.

“This is a huge time-saver for The Gazette’s editors,” said iProduction President Stephen M. Laliberte. “And in the publishing business, time is money.” Laliberte estimates that The Gazette will publish more than 10,000 legal notices each week on the new system.

Legal notices are a form of classified advertising, historically a very profitable component of the newspaper publishing business. Without the iProduction system, editors would have to re-enter the entire database of legal notices manually in order to publish it on the Internet. Laliberte estimates that The Gazette would require 50 to 75 employee hours each week to manually create and publish the same information the new system produces automatically.

More About The Gazette
The Gazette has published community newspapers in Maryland since 1959. The company delivers 35 weekly editions to more than one million readers in Montgomery, Frederick and Prince George’s counties, which surround Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, Maryland. Headquartered in Gaithersburg, Maryland, The Gazette has been awarded first place in the Suburban Newspapers of America’s General Excellence Award four straight years. The Gazette also publishes a weekend edition, The Business Gazette, a newspaper of business and politics reaching key decision-makers in the Washington-Baltimore region.

More About iProduction
Publishers choose the iProduction Internet Publishing System™ to enable their editors to operate sophisticated news sites without programming. iProduction is an application service provider (ASP), meaning that system users can pay usage fees rather than buying iProduction systems outright. iProduction also licenses its software to larger publishers who reduce costs by hosting many web publications on a single publishing system. In addition to newspapers, the company’s clients include newsletters, industry journals, and magazines. Company president Stephen M. Laliberte founded iProduction in 1994. iProduction is privately held and is located at 3570 Lexington Avenue North in St. Paul, Minnesota.