Real estate self-service software provider Wave 2 has announced sales to APN News & Media and privately-owned New Zealand publisher Beacon Media.

The move will boost customer experience for the APN businesses on both sides of the Tasman, and put independent tri-weekly the ‘Whakatane Beacon’ at the edge of current technology.

At APN Australian Regional Media, programme director Terry Kirkland said the decision followed consideration of a range of systems and visits to Wave2 users in the UK and USA. “We see Wave2 as a strategic supplier that can deliver a trans-Tasman solution upon which to build for the future,” he says.

Due to the geographic spread of the regional businesses, the solution needed to be low maintenance in terms of ongoing training, as well as a simple and useful tool for customers.

Family-owned Beacon owns seven companies in the Bay of Plenty and Waikato regions involved in commercial and digital printing as well as newspaper publishing and printing. Its foundations go back to 1939, with acquisitions in the last two decades adding six other business units. Other newspaper mastheads are the ‘Waitomo News’, ‘Opotiki News’ and ‘Bay Weekend’.

Chief executive Simon Ellis says Wave2’s mix of products will allow the company to develop new revenue streams and enter the online classified advertising space: “Clients will have greater control, more flexibility and later deadlines,” he says.

He says initial developments early next year will focus on newspaper customers, with integration of the group’s commercial companies on to the Wave2 Marketplace platform following meid-year. “The variety of media customers in the UK and USA using Wave2 gave us the confidence to choose them as a strategic partner,” he says.

Heart of the UK-developed system is a platform which builds ads for both print and online delivery. The company says it a platform independent, highly scalable and automated system incorporating its own powerful rules engine. Given a set of styles and design rules, it automatically constructs a multi-channel document – from a single advertisement to a multi-page document such as an advertising flyer or newsletter.

W2PP incorporates Adobe’s InDesign Server, providing an easy template system for both print and online applications. A rich media engine extends capability to Flash formats for animations and video.

Both companies have also licensed AdPortal and Inventory modules, giving real estate customers an interface through which they can create full and multi-page ads and manage large volumes of property.