There are two exciting developments at Network World I want to tell you about, because they have a bearing on how we deliver content to you.

The first is a new electronic delivery tool called iDemand that is slick enough that it may just persuade you to do away with the print version of our product. But first, a little background.

Publishers and readers alike have been interested in digital distribution of magazines for some time. Publishers are interested because it saves money, is better for the environment and makes for a richer hyperlinked reader experience. Readers are interested because electronic delivery is ostensibly more convenient and it saves trees.

Early digital magazines looked exactly like miniature magazines on screen. In fact, they even emulated the page turning experience. But they failed on multiple levels. One, you had to zoom in and out to read anything. And, two, stories were continued on inside pages, meaning you had to zoom out, advance multiple pages and then zoom back in -- and then repeat the process to get back to where you started.

We have developed a digital deliverable that overcomes those failures. With iDemand, we send to you in background mode an entire issue of Network World as a PDF that automatically sizes itself to fit your screen when opened. You never have to scroll up and down or side to side. The content is readable without pushing a single button.

The front page of our e-dition highlights the top stories of the week and clicking on any one takes you to that story inside. From there everything is organized sequentially, meaning you can read through a story by simply hitting the page advance key.

In terms of document navigation, you can page through the document front to back using the standard Adobe PDF navigation tools or use the hyperlinked table of contents. And unlike print, you can comment on a story or e-mail a copy to a friend from any page within the PDF (even the ads are hyperlinked in case you see something you want to pursue).

The way we deliver the PDF in the background is by asking you to install a small iDemand client. Besides saving you the trouble of downloading the PDF every week, the client lets you receive Network World breaking-news notices. And it's customizable, so you can specify the type of news that interests you most. The client even lets you save stories for later viewing.