Heavy Hitters in Publishing and Digital Media Industry Join MAZ Advisory Board

NEW YORK, Sept. 5, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- MAZ, a company that works at the nexus of publishing and digital reading, has created an advisory board made up of some of the biggest names in digital publishing. Sarah Chubb, Colin Crawford, and Arie Abecassis have come together to officially form the MAZ Advisory Board.

Sarah Chubb is the former President of Conde Nast Digital and Conde Net, an online division of the publishing powerhouse.  Over her 15-year career at Conde Nast, Ms. Chubb is credited with helping to launch the publisher's digital arm and overseeing brands such as Glamour.com, VanityFair.com, Epicurious.com, Style.com, and Wired.com. She is regularly counted among the most powerful people in digital media.  Ms. Chubb made headlines when she was recently named as President of Gilt City, the local lifestyle site from Gilt Group.

"Sarah is a true pioneer in digital publishing, earning one of the best reputations within the industry through her innovative and forward looking ideas. Conde Nast is home to some of the world's most recognized brands and it was Sarah that is responsible for giving those brands a digital presence. Her leadership and advice have been invaluable to MAZ," said Paul Canetti, CEO and Founder of MAZ.

Colin Crawford is the former president and CEO of Macworld Communications. He is currently the CEO of Media7 and sits on the board of several other cutting edge firms in the digital platform space.

"Colin is not only an expert in digital publishing but he has been on the front lines since its inception. Since taking over Macworld as CEO in 1995, Colin has been deeply involved with the Apple marketplace, interacting with all the Apple CEOs especially Steve Jobs as the company redefined computers and mobile devices. Colin continues to have his finger on the pulse of how technology, most recently, tablets and smartphones, are changing the fabric of our culture," said Mr. Canetti.

Rounding out the team of digital publishing veterans is Arie Abecassis, Venture Partner at DreamIt Ventures and founder of AppStori. Mr. Abecassis has a 20-year history of working with tech companies that offer disruptive technologies and superior user experiences. In addition to serving on the board of several start-ups including SeatGeek and BiznessApps, he has held executive level positions at Marvel Entertainment and Thomson Reuters.

"Arie brings to us the hybrid experience of an entrepreneurial and financial background, with deep roots and passion for strong content. His experience as someone who has actively participated in building companies that marry content and technology is a perspective that we value as we continue to support the changes in the publishing industry," added Mr. Canetti.

Paul Canetti, formerly of Apple, Simon Baumer, formerly of web agency Soapbxx, and Shikha Arora, formerly of Adobe, recognized the need for publishers to offer interactive, updated content on the consumer's device of choice, the iPad, which was changing the digital publishing world right in front of their eyes. Capitalizing on the demand in the market, Canetti, Arora, and Baumer created MAZ, a dynamic, easy-to-use digital publishing platform that allows a publisher of any content to create a multimedia, interactive iPad app.

"Paul, Simon, Shikha, and the rest of the team at MAZ understand the need to merge high-quality, dynamic digital content with excellent analytics. It's great to have a beautiful 'app' version of a magazine, but you need to be able to provide advertisers with a platform for engagement, interaction, and e-commerce where appropriate," said Ms. Chubb.  "This is a company that truly understands the needs of the publisher, the advertiser, and the consumer, and has built a platform that is flexible enough to grow with the speed of the technology." 

About MAZ Digital LLC

MAZ (mazdigital.com) is a web-based digital publishing platform that allows publishers of any content to create and manage their own tablet apps easily, affordably and without having to hire a developer.  MAZ gives publishers easy-to-use tools to make their existing content come to life by adding interactive features such as web content, videos, audio, social media sharing tools, etc., all on one dynamic platform.  Best of all, they can do all this without having to learn a single line of code or dedicate enormous amounts of time and resources.

SOURCE MAZ