Nxtbook Media Named to Inc. 500

We’ve just received word Nxtbook Media has been named to the Inc. 500. In a difficult economic period, we’re immensely proud to have weathered the storm so well and we are truly grateful to the customers who’ve trusted us to help them cross the digital divide.

Details:

We’ve been named the 303rd fastest growing privately held company in the US.
We’ve been named the 38th fastest growing company providing business services in the US.

In a very competitive market, we are the only provider of digital magazine services named to the list.

To make the Inc. 500 requires many things: great leadership, great employees, great timing and a great corporate blog. (Ok, I made that last one up.) But to make it as a technology company requires something else, too: a relentless commitment to reinvent your product as often as the market dictates (if not, before).

To showcase how far we’ve come technologically, I asked our Director of Development to hit me with some first and second generation Nxtbooks. We think you’ll agree they’re equally nostalgic and perhaps a bit frightening!

1) The first generation Nxtbook (er, NXTbook). (2003-2004) Holy HTML, Batman. Back then, full-page ads were brought in, but all of the text was re-flowed, one page at a time. Because it looked like a web page, it had the engagement times of a Web site. Then again, in 2004 who cared about engagement times? Or saving offline copies… or bookmarks… or permalinks, for that matter. If you’re on a PC using Windows Explorer, I think there’s a way to get the page to flip, but I’m not sure. In fact, most of the NXTbook ran better in Explorer than Firefox back then, but given Firefox’s small market share at the time, it wasn’t a big concern.

2) The first Flash NXTbook. (2004-2006) In terms of features and reader engagement, this version was a huge leap forward. In addition, this version brought with it offline saving and a version that played nicely on the Mac. That being said, things weren’t perfect. Notice how the standard back then was to link the entire ad, which was good for advertisers but awful for readers just hoping to zoom in. In addition, these books were invisible to Google and other search engines. Back then, little thought was given to sponsorship opportunities as publishers were only using the product to save money, not to make money.

3) The current Nxtbook. (2006-Present) Truth is, our current interface didn’t look this good when we first launched it. The LINK button was added within a year of it going live, RSS feeds were added several months later and other features were eased into the platform over time. But the key was that the interface had an inherent flexibility built into it that allowed it to grow as reader habits changed. And when publishers were ready to monetize the digital edition, the platform was easily adapted to allow for these opportunities, as well.

So that’s where we are today, as we sit at number 303 on the Inc. 500. Moving forward, we aim to do the same things that have got us here: provide our customers with superior service and improve our products at every turn.