The Portable Document Format, or .PDF, sometimes feels silly these days - doesn't it? Sure, they are often pretty - but they feel so static and inflexible. No more! With the new integration of contextual search tool Apture, HTML5-powered PDF viewing and sharing community Scribd now offers a radically new way to read PDFs.

Above, you can see an image of my screen while reading a PDF titled The Internet of things: Networked objects and smart devices. I highlighted the name of a company quoted in the report and with two quick clicks I was watching a YouTube video of a product demo. I highlighted an expert's name and was able to learn all about their career and find them on Twitter - without leaving the page.

Those are strong words, but really - the user experience is there and remarkable. Apture says that Scribd represents the biggest installation of the company's service to date. Other Scribd docs appear in the Apture search results when searches are performed on site.

ReadWriteWeb uses Apture as well - try it out here by highlighting any word or phrase on any page. Just this afternoon I used it to watch a YouTube video about a historical event brought up in comments here with just a few clicks. I am a big, big fan of Apture. Now that I can read PDFs with Apture in Scribd, that's where I'm most likely to be reading PDFs in the future.

Most of the time right now I read PDFs on my iPad. Scribd says it's working on a native iPad experience for its service, but that won't arrive until later this year or next year. There's not word whether the company will try to incorporate Apture there - but that sure would be great.

In partnership with Entertainment Weekly, YouTube just announced the launch of a specialized site for getting a sneak peek at the new television season which includes "bite-sized previews of programs, reality TV, comedies, dramas and more."

The site, which is essentially just an EW-branded YouTube channel, isn't all that notable in and of itself . But it's just one of EW's many digital initiatives as of late. This print-mag-turned-media-company has also launched a number of other digital offerings over the past months, including a popular "Must List" app for the iPad and now iPhone, the integration of 2D barcodes into its print pages and experiments with video-in-print ads.

Entertainment Weekly, which also runs the successful digital property at EW.com, has never been one to shy away from embracing the digital age, and this YouTube channel is only a small part of that.

In a post on the YouTube blog, EW's editor, Jess Cagle, introduces the new YouTube channel, which arrives ahead of the magazine's Fall TV print issue, one of its most popular of year. Cagle says that, in addition to the previews of the new and returning shows, the channel will also offer exclusive interviews with both producers and actors from the hottest shows.

EW's Mobile Platform

Earlier this year, EW also launched its first iPad app called the "Must List," a weekly top 10 featuring the best in film, books, TV and music, where each item is linked to associated media like song clips or movie trailers. Not exactly a digital magazine own its own, the app hits a sweet spot for iPad users, taking advantage of the device's Internet connectivity to deliver streaming music and video, while also understanding how iPad owners want consume content - that is, interactively.

With the iPad app's success in hand, the company redesigned its content for the smaller screen and introduced the Must List app for the iPhone and iPod Touch last month. The magazine is now officially introducing the new iPhone app to its print readers via the Editor's Letter in the August issue.

What's more interesting, perhaps, about EW's mobile operation, is how it generates revenue for the company. As iPad and iPhone users peruse EW's content recommendations, they're offered the opportunity to purchase items immediately within iTunes. Although the purchases take place outside the app itself, Apple splits the profits from those purchases with EW in a revenue-sharing deal. In addition, the ads shown within the mobile apps are often a part of a multiplatform ad buy which also includes print and the EW.com website.

Experiments with Video-in-Print

Last year, EW experimented with technology that introduced video advertising in its printed pages, using wafer-thin screens that were used to promote CBS TV shows and Pepsi products. The small screens, about the size of a mobile phone's screen, each held their own chip that stored the ads. Only select issues of the magazine mailed to subscribers in New York and L.A. included these digital advertisements, however, and the video-print ads have not been seen since.

The ads were likely more of a marketing stunt than a realistic venture for magazine ads, but they were intriguing nonetheless. How many other magazines are willing to experiment like this? Very few. Outside of Esquire's 2008 anniversary issue which featured an e-ink cover, there aren't many other digital experiments like this of note.

2D Barcode Integration in Print Mag

More recently, though, the magazine released its Summer Movie Preview issue which came to life thanks to its inclusion of 2D barcodes. The barcodes could be snapped using the cross-platform Microsoft Tag mobile application which links a barcode to Web content. In EW's case, the barcodes linked to YouTube videos of sixteen official movie trailers. Also barcoded were ads from five big name brands including Absolut, HBO, History Channel, Honda and CTAM/Movies on Demand. In the latest (August 2010) issue, the Fall Movie Preview, EW has again included barcodes into its pages, but this time only eleven films are digitally linked. However, the advertiser lineup has expanded, with seventeen advertisers offering barcoded ads, some across multiple pages.

The digital initiatives EW experiments with have a lot to do with the EW audience, made up of "entertainment enthusiasts," explains Barrie Gordon, senior manager of public relations at Entertainment Weekly, New York. This sort of person "likes to be the first to try things and talk about it with their network of friends." In other words, EW caters to the entertainment-focused "early adopter." Given our own obsession with technology around here, we're calling EW one to watch for an example of a print company that's successfully navigating the waters of the digital age. In fact, we'll added it to our own "Must List."

A study released this month by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) found that people who engage with the arts through various digital media are three times more likely (59% over 21%) to attend live arts performances, and do so twice as often (6 events per year over 3) as non-media participants. Titled Audience 2.0: How Technology Influences Arts Participation, the survey concluded that "media-based arts participation appears to encourage - rather than replace - live arts attendance."

The report, which can be viewed in its entirety online for the first time this year, outlines several examples of how arts organizations are reaching out to audiences with online media initiatives. The New York Public Library, KQED Public Media and the Smithsonian Institution are just a few of the groups providing arts media online via services like YouTube and iTunes U.

St. Louis-based television network Higher Education Learning Channel takes its offerings to the next level, providing iPhone and iPad apps for new audiences to engage with videos and sound recordings of local performances.

"We are faced with the Internet, social media, and other new technologies, and I believe the arts field must embrace them and integrate them into our work," said NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman.

Digital Performance

But the reach of new media in the arts doesn't end once organizations attract audience members to their venues; many performing arts productions are integrating technology and interactive media into the actual performances. Last summer, the National Symphony introduced real-time program notes that were delivered to the audience via Twitter.

Composers have even begun to write music that specifically calls for the use of computers and technology during performance. Computer programs that allow for the live processing of sounds created from the actions of the performer have widely expanded the possibilities of sound creation beyond the normal realm of instrumentation. Other programs can produce rich visualizations based on live sound inputs, creating unique artistic experiences with each performance.

Other music composers, like Eric Whitacre, have gone as far as to use social media to create virtual crowdsourced performances of their music. For his choir works "Sleep" and "Lux Aurumque," Whitacre released a video of himself conducting each piece so that users could record the various tracks (soprano, alto, bass, etc) and submit them. Whitacre then synced them together to create "virtual choir" performances which were then published on YouTube.

It's terrific for a music lover like myself to see social media and technology used in these unique ways to increase awareness for the arts among new audiences. These last several examples only focused on music, but there are many other ways new media is being used in theater, dance and other live arts.

Photo by Flickr user DeusXFlorida.

The latest addition to their collection of utilities is a new, experimental Firefox extension called the Pixelpipe Media Uploader 1.0. With this add-on, you can upload media all across the social web either through drag-and-drop or by selecting from a chooser.

After installing the extension and restarting Firefox, you'll see that there's a new orange "P" button in your toolbar. Click that once and the Pixelpipe sidebar will display on the left side of the screen. The first time you go to use this tool, you'll need to sign in with your Pixelpipe account and authorize it to work in Firefox. Once that's done, you can then drag-and-drop any media into the sidebar to upload it to Pixelpipe which then, of course, shoots it out to any of the services you've configured. Alternately, you can right-click on any image on the web and choose the "Upload image with Pixelpipe Uploader" option from the menu that appears.

One of the nice things about the uploader is that you can add the title, any appropriate tags, and set the privacy levels before you click "Upload." That way, you don't have to actually go visit the sites afterwards to configure these sorts of settings. 

This new utility is just another reminder of how desktop software tools are slowly being replaced by browser-based services. Who needs the Flickr uploader anymore when you can drag photos to your browser and send them directly to Flickr, Facebook, and a slew of other sites with only a click or two?

If you want to try the new Pixelpipe Media Uploader, you can download the Firefox extension here.