Broken Frontier

At the beginning of this month, WOWIO relaunched its website (www.wowio.com) in preparation of a roll-out of new projects and applications that will fortify its position in the digital publishing market. WOWIO CEO Brian Altounian felt the old site had served its purpose and that an upgrade was necessary to reflect the progressive nature of the company.

“We’ve been making a lot of changes and improvements at WOWIO, and the old site design just wasn’t really conducive for the goals we’re trying to accomplish, one of which is to build a strong, connected online community,” Altounian said.  “In addition to improving social networking tools, navigation of the site was another area we wanted to improve.  Basically, it was just time to modernize the site.”

WOWIO’s revamped online home should help the company realize one of its primary objectives: a better packaging of eBooks for its readers. “One of our goals has always been to provide free eBooks to consumers through sponsorships,” Altounian adds. “ The new site provides a much better platform for our sponsors to build a brand relationship with our readers.  We’ve also aimed to be a publisher-friendly company, and the new site allows for better ways to showcase their content.”

Through WOWIO’s recent acquisition of webcomics portal DrunkDuck, and WeVolt, a community platform with a strong comics-minded fanbase, the company hopes to set itself apart from the competition by putting some building blocks in place that will make reading books through WOWIO a different experience that what you’ll find on similar online outlets.

Asked about what exactly it is that they do differently, Altounian replied “Many eBook companies focus on the latest books and the current bestsellers.  They’re caught in this DRM quagmire, this mindset of a traditional publishing model, and they’re not sensitive to publishers’ needs.  We’re about thinking outside the box, being progressive and moving towards new models that work for all parties involved - publishers, consumers, and sponsors – and building a community around that.”

WOWIO's new (left) and old (right) site designs side by side.

Interested parties should check out what WOWIO’s doing at next week’s San Diego Comic-Con, where the new phase of the company will be rolled out effectively. “Comic-Con is a natural fit for us to celebrate this new phase of WOWIO.  With the first ever Comic Cruise, we’ll be introducing the new WOWIO to fans and business partners.  We’re not only having a party to celebrate our site relaunch, the additions of WEvolt and DrunkDuck, and to thank our supporters, but we’ll also see the launch of WowioTV.”

WowioTV will become an ongoing digital channel where people can find lots of information on eBooks and eComics, flanked by a healthy (or unhealthy, depending on how you feel about it) dose of gossip and interviews with celebrities, comic creators and other industry insiders.

The story isn’t finished yet when WowioTV has launched though, as Altounian concludes, “Beyond Comic-Con, you’ll be seeing an increase in titles and sponsorships, and yes, you’ll be seeing an iPad app from us very soon!”