Vitrium Systems

Organizations that produce content for sale have a number of challenges set before them that they need to overcome. Besides the fact that PDF security is crucial to maintain, businesses need to be able to market their products to consumers effectively. This requires having the right documents on hand to begin with, so document analytics are important for accomplishing this goal.

Document analytics are used to track what customers have read in the past and how they go about reading the products that a business sells them. It would be excellent if companies could poll all consumers and discover how they read news stories and articles, but this is usually expensive. Additionally, many consumers might not know what they actually like and need to be observed rather than asked to discover their preferences. Here are some measurements that document analytics can collect and the changes that organizations can make to improve their products.

Topics
Many companies that produce online content use categories or tags that are attached to their stories so they can better ascertain which subjects and genres are read the most. This should also be applied to any content that people download to their mobile devices or are read on-the-go. Such a practice can shed light onto the sorts of news stories and opinion pieces that can be produced in the future.

Media types
Text documents are often offered with few adornments, but more and more companies are realizing that hyperlinks, video, audio and other kinds of media are useful for providing news and enrichment. Unfortunately, many businesses aren't able to understand which additions to their products are most appealing to customers. Document analytics can help planners to understand if videos are even being watched or if hyperlinked references are being followed.

Article lengths
When companies provide many sorts of articles of varying lengths, they might not have any idea which are most popular. More importantly, some sizes of text might be more attractive to certain kinds of customers. For example, repeat clients may find themselves drawn to lengthy descriptions of news stories or recent events, while infrequent shoppers may instead prefer to simply read short summaries. Carefully choose which ones are available to which sorts of people (or what kind is most popular overall) by using document analytics. 

One of the most important phenomena that has affected companies thanks to the rise of the internet is analytics. From search engines to customer feedback to social media marketing, organizations are finding success by understanding their customers, clients and competitors better than ever before thanks to the glut of data that is available to those who have the proper tools to collect and parse it.

There was a time when only certain types of enterprises had the means (or the motivation) to gather information in such large quantities and analyze it for profit. For example, web analytics have long been used by online organizations trying to take advantage of search engines and the algorithms that they use to figure out what people look for on the internet.

Today, even nonprofit organizations get in on the analytic game. For instance, the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania reports that the American Red Cross has recently begun a push for greater analytic capabilities so that it can better reach out to donors and concentrate on the people who are going to contribute the most toward its fundraising operations. This signals an increasing availability of analysis for many different sorts of companies.

This includes businesses that produce content and documents. While many of these enterprise might have previously put most of their efforts into pdf protection or other similar strategies, it is becoming more important to track the movement of content from user to user and group to group for the purpose of improving content production than for security purposes.

Consequently, document analytics are revolutionizing how businesses cater to customer needs. One of the most important pieces of information that such tools collect is simply who is reading the words and documents created by organizations. Demographic information might be the single most useful data set that is available to content producers today.

Additionally, companies can now understand which pages appeal most to readers as well as how much time they spend on particular passages and portions. This goes even deeper than the question of who is reading text and absorbing media because it allows companies to see which types of people like which portions of documents better. This allows for the creation of multiple types of documents or diverse offerings within single publications. When coupled with effective pdf digital rights management, document analytics can help content producing companies find a great deal of success. 

When discussing digital rights management, most people immediately think of musicians and movie studios leveraging it to protect their published content and avoid piracy. However, as a recent Baseline report noted, the technology is no longer just for Hollywood.

These days, many private-sector organizations have deployed document rights management – a similar security measure that practices the same principles of control and access restrictions.

"The appeal of DRM is that it allows an organization to manage and control intellectual property. It’s possible to control who views a file, authenticate a user and establish limits on time for offline capabilities," the news provider stated.

With such capabilities, a company can safeguard its mission-critical information against everything from insider leaks to malicious network intrusions.

The organizations that are embracing these document protection solutions range from law firms and healthcare providers looking to secure protected data to academic institutions striving to protect intellectual property, according to Baseline.

Protecting intellectual property must be a top priority for U.S. organizations. If the issue of IP theft is ignored, a recent Forbes report warned, the country stands to lose about $300 billion by 2018 – or about 1.7 of the economy's gross domestic product.

More companies will prioritize the control over their intellectual property this year in an effort to avoid costly data breaches and other forms of information loss, according to London-based independent researcher Kevin Wharram.

The main problem is people are using more connected devices and enjoying greater access to information than ever before. This is nothing new, Wharram said, but will be an issue that companies will tackle during the coming year.

"It's not like suddenly, because there's a new year, there's going to be new problems – we're going to have the same problems we've had in previous years," he said.

In 2012, however, companies – from executives and senior managers to the IT department – will focus more of their efforts on preventing incidents. That could mean that document protection will become a more popular tool, as the software allows an organization to restrict access to certain information.

On a similar note, a report published by solutions provider Varonis in December predicted that 2012 would be the year when organizations "take back control over their data."

Many healthcare organizations believe that governing the access to and use of confidential information is more difficult when employees use mobile devices, according to a new survey from Panasonic. That suggests that more of these organizations could benefit from document protection solutions.

Specifically, 66 percent of respondents feel consumer tablets especially make it more difficult to practice proper and effective governance. Other concerns include the security of information on the devices, as well as their durability and ability to comply with electronic health record mandates.

"Consumer-grade technology, like the iPad and many of the other tablets we see entering the market today, were not designed to operate or survive in commercial environments like healthcare," Panasonic's Greg Davidson, executive business development manager, said.

But a document protection solution can allow the devices to remain a viable option. That's because access to certain information can be restricted, ensuring that documents and other files are not viewed and used inappropriately.

Currently, the health IT sector is going through rapid and drastic change, which, according to ID Experts, is causing many providers to prioritize compliance and the security of information this year.

Among the reasons the cloud has become such a highly touted enterprise technology is because much of the responsibility for maintaining data is shifted from the company to the vendor. However, as a recent Digital Trends report stated, the former still has a role to play in the protection of information.

Even though data may reside on a vendor's server, the task of safeguarding it is largely left up to the company. That suggests the need for a document protection solution, which will ensure that the ability to open certain files and documents – even those in the cloud – is restricted.

Digital Trends audited the Terms of Service of many well-known cloud services providers, and found that many do not guarantee the protection of hosted data. So it's up to the company to ensure the necessary steps are taken.

Concerns over cloud security continue to hold back the adoption of hosted technologies. What's more, organizations often worry over the loss of control they feel when information is stored on vendors' servers.

A contract programmer who recently worked for the Federal Reserve Bank has been charged by the FBI for stealing source code for the U.S. Department of Treasury's Government-Wide Accounting and Reporting Program. The FBI recently unsealed its complaint against Bo Zhang.

"As today’s case demonstrates, our cyber infrastructure is vulnerable not only to cybercriminals and hackers, but also alleged thieves like Bo Zhang who used his position as a contract employee to steal government intellectual property," Manhattan-based U.S. attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement.

Zhang admitted to stealing the information and using it as a training tool for a business he runs on the side. If convicted, the 32-year-old resident of Queens, New York, could face up to 10 years in prison.

Intellectual property is a crucial asset for any organization, which is why experts say steps must be taken to protect it. For example, the deployment of a document protection solution will limit access to certain information to only trusted and authorized personnel. That will prevent IP from being stolen by those inside or outside the organization.

With the rise of e-books and e-readers, it is clear that consumers are embracing digital formats for their media consumption. The trend also has ZDNet contributor Christopher Dawson questioning if all textbooks will one day be published digitally.

It doesn't seem likely for the foreseeable future, Dawson said. He argued that publishers still need to work out a few kinks, not the least of which is the need for a compromise on digital rights management, before such formats overtake the textbook market.

"We still have yet to come up with a good way to handle licensing of this new breed of textbooks," Dawson wrote. "As someone who has signed on the dotted line for more than my share of school resources, I can tell you that buying a set of books for every student makes no sense economically or logistically."

Though there are challenges, Dawson agreed that more of a focus on digital content is needed in the classroom in order to teach children in the information age.

But the protection of intellectual property can't be overlooked, experts agree. Publishers must use DRM responsibly to both promote a new era of learning while preventing illegal and inappropriate distribution of materials.

Many educational organizations have recently started realizing that there are tremendous advantages available when selecting electronic documents and e-books as teaching tools. These files and the platforms they run on are portable, can be accessed at any time and allow for a media-rich experience that is immersive. Consequently, more and more schools are adopting tablets and other devices for use in classrooms at many different levels.

Unfortunately, it will be a long time before the majority of education is conducted using these devices. For the most part, that's because traditional paper textbooks still have some practical advantages over their electronic counterparts. One of the most glaring is the cost. While it may be true that iPads or portable devices will be cheaper given a long enough period of time, short-term purchases of regular books will likely be less expensive.

Additionally, textbooks can be somewhat easier to handle. They can be written upon, highlighted and suffer more wear and tear than today's electronic devices generally can. This is not to say that one day such benefits will be negated by the many advantages that modern technological e-books offer, but there are certainly some hurdles that must be overcome before adoption of such software can be universal.

Another challenge that electronic devices suffer from is the threat of piracy and data insecurity. Textbooks are singular copies of the content they contain and are very cumbersome to copy without authorization. In fact, part of the profits that textbook companies receive is from the act of providing physical delivery platforms for books. This means that copyright infringement is virtually impossible (in practical terms), which is not the case when it comes to digital books and files.

If e-book manufacturers and producers want to soon be on equal footing with traditional materials, they need to be able to overcome their shortcomings and not overcompensate for the threats they receive from would-be digital pirates. Above all, content and documents need to be portable, mutable and able to be shared easily. Digital rights management and content security that are too harsh counteract these benefits and make regular books all the more appealing.

Therefore, make sure to use a DRM solution that is both strong and measured. Don't put conditions that are too draconian or binding on files since bothersome software, passwords and agreements will render the use of these tools less common for organizations. There's no question that digital methods are better than analog counterparts, but it will be more difficult to convince consumers and clients of this when lingering problems persist. 

In comparing the level of security of mobile devices to common objects, Network World contributor Kathy Kriese recently asked enterprise users if their smartphone is a safe or a suitcase.

Kriese gave the example of going on a trip.

"If you were packing for a trip and needed to take reams of documents with personal data, such as bank statements and medical bills, would you rather put them in a suitcase or a safe?" she asked. The latter is more secure, but the former is a more reasonable option.

To solve the problem, Kriese said, companies should instead look to protect the information itself with a document security solution. That way it will remain safe no matter where it travels or on which devices it is accessed, the report stated. Losing a smartphone or laptop may cost the company hundreds of dollars, she said, but misplacing data could push the figure into the tens of thousands.

Consumerization is another factor leading to a greater need for document security, according to ZDNet contributor Adam Powers. Protection is needed at the document level because employees are constantly circumventing corporate policies to send and receive information.