Star Tribune's eEdition: What's going on?

The Star Tribune's eEdition, a digital version of the paper that resembles the print pages, seems to be in a transition to a new program and company, but they aren't telling their subscribers about it.

The paper used to use News Stand to distribute their eEdition. On Monday and Tuesday of this week, the site said they were experiencing delays with the Star Tribune edition and to try back later. Come Wednesday, nothing had changed.

An email to the New Stand customer service got this surprising response:

Thank you for contacting NewsStand's Customer Support. Unfortunately we no longer carry this publication. The Star Tribune has chosen to discontinue the NewsStand electronic edition. All subscriptions have been cancelled and prorated refunds have been provided. I apologize for the inconvenience.

Should you have any other questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Best Regards,

Zoe
NewsStand Support

Now when you go to the Star Tribune eEdition link on their site, it sends you to a new company link, this one from Olive Software.

But if you go through Subscription Services, it still sends you to News Stand.

What's going on here? Is this a cost saving measure in conjunction with other cuts and changes? Emails and phone calls to staff at the Star Tribune haven't been returned.

There's nothing wrong with changing the companies you use to distribute your online content, but not alerting subscribers is really bad business. Does the Star Tribune really need to be pissing off their subscribers these days?

If/when we hear back from the Strib, we will update. Not like anyone uses an eEdition anyway, right?