I must say, the trip to Time Inc. was something else. Magazine printing companies use various methods of saving money and still put out high quality work. The use of XML (personally, I hate putting in tags) serves as a liquid mold, meaning their work can be placed into different kinds of media such as magazines, tablets, and other droid/touch screen related apps with minimum amounts of change to the data itself. It is amazing to see how the printing industry marches forward alongside technology at a similar pace and still remain true to its roots by still printing physical copies of media.
When I was younger, I remember reading Sports Illustrated, had no idea Time Inc was responsible for publishing it so that was a treat for me or a throwback to my younger days at least. Speaking of XML, turns out that Time Inc. outsources their media to converters in India. On one hand it, outsourcing potential jobs can hit people looking for work where it hurts while on the other hand it saves time and money for the company itself while the staff can work on more projects in a timely and efficient manner.
It’s amazing what goes on inside a company such as Time Inc. They have many programs that were created specifically for their wants and needs with an IT team ready to go the moment something goes wrong. I felt the need to question if they had back-up databases in other locations should the one stationed at the Time Inc. building goes down. Honestly speaking, I would never had anticipated such a small team could handle that sort of workload but then again there is always someone else on the foodchain that handles different levels of work and the notion of working from home is quite the bonus.
