Tizra Blog

Google Analytics funnel visualization helps you see where your users are dropping out of the checkout flow. One of the key benefits of digital publishing with Tizra is that you have direct access to exceptionally detailed information about how people are interacting with your content using standard web analytics tools.  Because Tizra treats every page of every document as a separate web page, you know not only which publications are popular, but which PARTS of those publications are getting the most traffic. It’s a great opportunity to learn more about your users, and to understand the basic forces driving the success of your online publishing efforts.   Plus i t’s easy (not to mention addictive), and there are some great free tools available to help. In this post, we’ll provide step-by-step instructions on setting up Google Analytics to work with your Tizra account, and drill down on the Google Analytics Goal s features that are particularly useful in me...

The new Microsoft Surface tablet was on the doorstep at Tizra HQ this morning, and we took a little time to run it through some basic tests.  Overall, our feeling was in line with the reviews: Nice hardware, and potentially attractive for those looking for a more mobile way to use MS Office.  Still a ways to go on software, though. We tried the Windows RT version of Internet Explorer 10 on a few Tizra sites, and overall they worked as expected, though interactions with the new reading interface we've just developed (more on this soon) were sluggish.  Part of it may be incompatibility with some underlying scripts, which will be tuned as IE 10 becomes more of a factor.  Part of it was probably just our unfamiliarity with new Metro interface. So for now, our minds are open on Surface as a device, but more importantly, we're thrilled to see another major player striving mightily to develop better ways for users to interact with the great content our customers deli...

As those who regularly commute between the worlds of print and digital are painfully aware, important things are often lost in translation.  For example, digital people tend to think in terms of "physical" page numbers (the ones you see in your text editor as a document scrolls by on screen), whereas print people tend to think in terms of "logical" page numbers (Roman numerals for introduction and other front matter, Arabic for the rest, like you see in books). For many of our customers, this hasn't been a problem, in part because we make it so easy for users to deep link directly to specific pages using standard URLs. But for others, it can cause real confusion. Think of teachers assigning reading to their classes using multiple pagination schemes. Now Tizra's added the ability for publishers to have it both ways: every page is linkable as always, but logical page numbering is also supported. That means when the teacher says "go to page viii i...

Tizra is in Germany!  On Tuesday, October 9th, we are at the Tools of Change Frankfurt Conference.   For the rest of the week -- Wednesday, October 10th through Sunday, October 14th -- you can find us at the Frankfurt Book Fair , at the American Collective Stand - Hall 8.0 S949 .   If you are also in Frankfurt, we'd love to connect!  Please email or call us at +1 401-400-2989 and we'll happily set up some time. Hope to see you there. Entrance to the Frankfurt Book Fair "Festhalle."

How LAB-AIDS is using the new widgets . Tizra now offers a Widget viewing mode that lets you embed your content in just about any standard web page just by inserting a little blob of HTML code.  It's great for letting users "leaf through" samples of your content without interrupting what they're doing...whether that's perusing your online book catalog, reading a review, or as you'll see below, enjoying a fascinating blog post like this!  It enables you to disseminate promotional samples widely via viral or conventional marketing campaigns, and to make the online shopping and buying experience as seamless and integrated as possible. For example, say you were a well-known Tizra customer like LAB-AIDS . You could give bloggers a simple snippet of code that would let them show their readers a thumbnail-sized sample of one of your beautiful books like this... All that's needed to embed the above sample is a little blob of code like this... <iframe s...

Do you use RSS feeds? Then you know how useful they can be when you want alerts to newly published online information that applies to you: professionally or personally. This kind of targeted, agile publishing is exactly what Tizra is all about and, as you'd expect, we offer simple yet flexible features that let you get the most relevant updates out to your most interested users. In case you're unfamiliar with RSS, it's basically a way of formatting information so that people can subscribe to and view it in feed reading software ( Details from Wikipedia).   RSS  means users   save time  because they're notified of anything new at their favorite sites without needing to visit them. Tizra RSS feeds can be linked to from the homepage of your Tizra site, or any other web page. By default, Tizra sites include an RSS feed that updates subscribers every time any new Document is added.  For example, here's a feed that'll update you any time Columbia Univ...

The Super Tagger feature gives you superhero-like powers to update -- in bulk -- the metadata properties of the content you manage in Tizra, including Documents, Excerpts, Collections, Virtual Collections, Static Pages and Offers. It also gives you the all too human power to change your mind, make mistakes, and learn as you go.  Because it lets you make large-scale changes after you load your content, you no longer have to worry so much about getting your metadata just right beforehand.  If you suddenly realize you'd like to bundle your recipes by main ingredient, or your conference papers by first author's organization, you don't have to start over, you can Super Tag them! It can be especially useful for educational publishers working to make use of the new metadata standards being proposed by the Learning Resource Metadata Initiative  and the Common Core State Standards Initiative . For example, one of the proposed LRMI standards is to include the typical age r...

Tizra's new iOS reading interface lets you reach the fast-growing iPad audience with all the power of Tizra, including its well-established ability to help you publish to iPads in just seconds. Our Why Tizra is the Ultimate iPad Publishing Platform Top Five List! Great reading experience --  A newly enhanced mobile web interface that's optimized for iOS touchscreens, with quick page flips at the swipe of a finger, and specifically tuned search and navigation. Amazing flexibility --  Unbundle & remix content to create new products. Sell chapters, articles & topical collections. Always up-to-date --  New content is instantly available on users' devices. No waiting for apps to sync. No App Store Middlemen --  Keep 100% of your revenue...and skip the slow approval process. No Custom Software Costs --  Tizra's iOS reader is regularly upgraded by Tizra at no additional charge to our subscribers. No need for expensive, unreliable custom code! The...