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The WoodWing CDS allows publishers to send a push notification to their iPad users, typically used to announce new issues. Having this ability to directly notify readers is a very powerful concept that deserves some more attention.

The Web doesn't have a concept like this, other then opt-in email. Obviously in the print world publications also push new print issues to the subscriber's mailbox. With the iPad though it's so much more powerful. After downloading the App it's a single click for a user to accept push notification. it covers not only subscribers but also single-copy buyers who can instantly purchase the new issue. And readers can be notified instantly without dependency from physical distribution.

When used with care, push notifications can open the door to interesting extra revenue streams. Think about a relevant advertorial, published as a special issue to the same iPad App. Sending a push notification will trigger high value downloads.

To indicate the effectiveness of push notifications, take a look the graph below. This shows the download traffic of a weekly iPad publication. A window of 8 hours is shown, with an immediate peak in download traffic after a push notification was sent. At these moments publishers happily rely on the scalability of WoodWing's CDS that easily serves these kind of traffic spikes.