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Companies that were founded within the last five years have something of an advantage when it comes to managing digital assets. Most launch their businesses already knowing whether or not they are going to be using rich media assets, and can build a digital asset management system into their IT infrastructure from the beginning. Such was the case for diversified media company The Deal, which provides news on the "deal economy." The Deal presents the latest information on mergers and acquisitions, bankruptcies, and the legal and financial aspects of dealmaking through its Web site and publications such as The Daily Deal.

The Deal selected FatWire's Content Server, a content management system originally developed to support the sophisticated needs of publishers and now used across many industries. The Deal's products incorporate graphics of many kinds; for example, company logos, photographs and other images are used in printed and online materials. Rather than having to generate or obtain logos multiple times for stories covering the same company, The Deal stores them in Content Server and reuses them. The company also relies on a large contingent of outside artists to do creative work for its articles, and stores those assets in Content Server.

Content Server allows The Deal to be consistent in its presentation of images across its numerous channels by providing a standard version of the image. Images can also be modified in terms of their resolution, layering and color for print vs. online publishing. Content Server also allows users to drag and drop images from the desktop to The Deal's Web site, so that if someone gets an e-mail with an image attached and stores it on their hard drive, it can easily be published online.

The ability to publish to the Web quickly is a major advantage to an organization like The Deal, which often covers breaking news in its industry. "We want to empower our users, who are editors and producers, to respond to a rapidly changing environment," says Evelyn Tavarez, director of Internet applications at The Deal. "It is important to take the IT department out of daily production." Because The Deal's research shows that more than 80% of its readers say the company has news and information they can't find anywhere else, timely reporting is critical.

FatWire focuses mainly on content-centric applications in which companies are delivering informative and persuasive experiences for customers or prospects, according to Jeff Ernst, VP of marketing at FatWire. "For example, when companies are trying to reach consumers and encourage them to buy a certain product, a rich media experience can be more effective at engaging visitors on the site and converting them to buyers," he says.

Allowing the business users such as marketers to create and control the customer experience provides much greater agility than a more technically focused approach. Marketers can use wizard-based interfaces in FatWire to set the business rules, a process that might take weeks or months if coding were required. "A promotion can be launched in minutes, which is what every marketer wants," Ernst says. A seasonal campaign could be launched following a widespread snowstorm, with an article about winter sports accompanied by relevant product images, descriptions and special sale prices.

Digital asset management systems generally have access controls that can restrict usage; both Extensis and FatWire have multiple access levels. Limits can also be placed on what can be done to an image; for example, for a logo, the size, shape and color could be kept constant. However, for digital rights management that operate after the asset leaves the repository, digital asset management vendors partner with specialists in that area.

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