Cover Story:
For RBD, It Was
a Very Good Year

Feature Stories:
Lessons Learned
Starting a small business can be a daunting proposition
Web Masters
RBD's online presence is a natural progression

RBD Round-Up:
How's Business?
The results are in from our
first survey
RBD Business Survey
What's your take on the rising cost of healthcare?

DEPARTMENTS:

Economic Round-Up
• The Smart Investor
How to minimize the affect of the Alternative Minimum Tax
• Economic Viewpoint
Interpreting the Inverted
Yield Curve
• Visitor's Guide
Tour busses in Rockland?

Retail Round-Up
• Where the Jobs Are
Tips for students looking
for work

Business Round-Up
• PSI Health Plans
Offer flexibility and
cost savings
• Marketing By Design
The top 15 campaigns of the last 100 years - Part 2

Ask The Expert
• The Human Factor in
Human Resources

Invest in Your Community
• Looking For a Better Way
Tomorrow's Workplace
offers help
• Leadership Rockland
Graduates class of 2007
• Youth Forum & Awards
Rockland Youth Volunteers Honored

Odds & Ends
• Letters to the Editor
• Rockland Newsmakers

Dedicated Section:
Rockland Business Association:

The President’s Desk
Heart-felt Congratulations
to Rockland's only B2B resource

RBA/United Way Golf Outing
A beautiful day for all

RBA Happenings
• Committee and Council Info
• Calendar of Events
• New Members

When it comes to publishing, it’s no secret that print is slowly dying. The nation’s largest newspapers are seeing declines in circulation, as are many general interest magazines. What the smart ones have done is to segue into emerging markets and new platforms to keep their information timely and to deliver it in new formats.

The web is a huge part of the new wave in media and Rockland Business Digest has recognized this. Developing a print product hand-in-hand with a web component, says co-publisher Steve Powell, was an essential ingredient of the initial start-up.

In 1995, Powell, a director of design for a mid-town national newsstand publisher, began designing for the internet, ultimately bringing more than a dozen magazine vehicles to the web before moving into the advertising world.

“What only appealed to a limited audience back then, is common place today. Some people prefer reading the printed word and others prefer to get their information on-line,” Powell says. ”Today’s publications have to be considerate of both demographics to make it.”

Features, Features, Features
The site, www.rbdigest.com, is beautifully designed and easy to navigate, two features that visitors rate as most important. Both Powell and co-publisher Ken Mahoney feel that delivering information that has not appeared in the magazine is a way to maximize exposure to different audiences—those that receive the magazine in the mail, and that other audience more inclined to get their information from the web.

As a result, visitors to the site—with more and more visitors each month—find offerings such as up to the minute NASDAQ quotes and the Rockland Real Time Stock Index. The index offers visitors real-time info on a roster of locally traded companies. Go to the business page and you’ll also find links to recent business news, business blogs, even podcasts.

The current issue of the magazine is available to read online and archived issues are also available, as are a timely survey of interest to county business owners. The web version often includes information not published in the print version, such as longer, more comprehensive versions of the popular How’d They Do That? feature.

Want to know what’s happening with the RBA? The site has a complete calendar of RBA events, as well as the most recent news for their members. Want to read an article from a past issue of the magazine? The site’s keyword searchable archives will pull up just what you’re looking for.

The website also offers a unique opportunity to advertisers, who now have the opportunity to showcase their products and services on the site, in the magazine and on the burgeoning communications network’s WRCR AM radio show.

What can the Rockland business audience expect in the future? From up-to-the-minute weather and sports to truly local news of note, the site’s home page will be a resource for everything Rockland by the time this issue hits the mail.

“We’re continuing to build-out the site along with every other venue for local business news we can find,” explains co-publisher, Mahoney. “Our goal is give our readers everything they need to stay up to date and well informed about Rockland County.”

With these latest offerings through the web site, the Digest is well on the way to accomplishing that goal. RBD