 |
|
|
(Re)launch Pad: Rocketinfo and the
Shifting Focus of Content Technology Companies |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
30 August 2004 |
|
|
|
|
The newly renamed
Rocketinfo, Inc. is a revitalized content technology
company emblematic of so many similar tech-born efforts
that are discovering the beauties of content focusing on
specific market sector and user requirements. They're not
abandoning their techie roots but leveraging them
effectively to create content solutions that span the gap
between pure I.T. solutions and lagging publishers and
aggregators with increasing effectiveness. There are worse
fates than to succeed by focusing on what people need most
with what you do best - and worse ways to create a
profitable company that can stand on its own or fit nicely
into the folds of a major market sector suitor. |
|
You'd think
that people would get tired of trying to launch and relaunch
content technology companies. Even as
AOL's own research shows that few are willing to pay for
content technologies such as instant messaging that are already
bundled into existing services and software suites and content
management companies continue to consolidate there are many
hardy souls glad to take on today's content market challenges.
One such company is
Rocketinfo, Inc., newly reformed from Zeppelin Energy,
Inc., a company with marketing strengths in search of a
marketable product that purchased the remains of Ottawa-based
Rocket Technologies earlier this month for about USD 400,000.
You may remember Rocketinfo from the heady days of dot-com
fever when many companies with bright ideas on search
technology hoped to capture their own particular corner of the
search marketplace. That effort was fast falling out of orbit,
even though the Rocket scientists were closing in on an
attractive combination of content services that looked
increasingly promising.
The fuel for Rocketinfo's renewed hopes is a
combination of content search and extraction technologies
focused on enterprise and personal content targets fused with newsworthy content from
about 11,000 online sources, weblog newsfeeds, a free
online newsfeed reader and content from business
technology experts such as IDC, Gartner and book
publishers. This combination attracted
Canadian Press (CP) to establish a recently
announced alliance with Rocketinfo to resell their content
and tools as part of their business intelligence marketing
strategies for Canadian media markets - a pretty good test
launch for this renewed company.
In other words, while the technology is a
significant portion of the equation, the world of content is so
vast that it's a very rare specimen of content technology that
can survive without some sector-specific industry focus. A few
years ago Purple Yogi was relaunched as
Stratify,
offering a "we can solve the world's content discovery and
classification problems" approach to content technology; today
Stratify focuses their pitch on applying their content
discovery capabilities to the legal sector and governmental
agencies. Content management companies also find themselves
developing expertise in specific market sectors' workflow
issues, fueling competition with content aggregators and
publishers that have long plied the waters of specific
industries and sectors.
In the world of
vContent, highly valued content created by a fusion of
powerful and affordable technologies in the hands of both major
institutions and techno-savvy users and rich content from more
sources than ever before it's never just about the content or
the technology. It's always about finding the most potent
combinations of content and technology that matter most to
specific audiences in specific venues. I.T. specialists
oftentimes feel overwhelmed by these human factors, much less
the basics of getting today's infrastructure in place, just as
information professionals in major institutions find themselves
oftentimes on the "outs" as central points of service delivery.
This leaves companies plying the vContent space to step in to
solve real-world problems at this complex intersection more
than ever before.
What do companies like Rocketinfo and
other companies trying to position themselves effectively with
technology that meets the "buzzword" test but can't find a grip
in the content marketplace? Here are a few basic rules of thumb
to bear in mind:
- It's always about what a specific
audience finds to be valuable. A tool is only as good as
the work it does in specific hands. The steady progress of
companies like
Alacra
in carving out highly profitable and effective market niches
by solving specific business problems with premium and
enterprise content in finance and corporate governance with
specialized capabilities serves as an emblem to companies
that are trying to figure out what to do with a pile of great
code on their hands. Wherever your code came from is likely
to be its base marketplace for some time to come, so be
willing to put aside overly aggressive plans for expansion
until you've nailed down how to capture your native content
marketplace cold.
- It's sometimes about content
exclusivity. Sometimes.
NewsGator
Technologies, the weblog newsfeed tool provider, has
moved quickly in recent months to become a specialist in
newsfeed-based content distribution serving media-centric
markets from both individual webloggers and major publishers.
Focusing content on specific audiences helps and adding an
exclusive column from leadership development expert
Gene Mage certainly doesn't hurt, either. But exclusives are
more like an anchor defining your position relative to your
most valued markets than a fortress that can protect you from
able competitors. Many a publishing company has fallen by the
wayside banking too heavily on content exclusives that don't
tie to specific markets effectively, and many content
technology companies can do so just as easily.
- It's never just about publishing
and aggregating. But it's more about them than you may think.
Many of this new and revitalized wave of content technology
companies focus on solving real human problems with
technology into which premium content sources fit nicely with
other valuable content sources, rather than trying to hack
technology into an existing content distribution model.
Nevertheless, some still have the "technology is the pipes
for the water of content" attitude that glosses over many of
the peculiar complexities of how people purchase and relate
to premium content alongside other content sources.
Keeping an open perspective on content sourcing while
recognizing the role that your technology plays as a central
vehicle in enabling premium content value is a delicate
balance that today's content technology companies are
beginning to master far more effectively in the past, but
it's still a work in progress.
Will Rocketinfo boost itself into a more
competitive position any time soon in the greater content
marketplace? It's hard to give them the nod based on technology
alone. But if companies like Rocketinfo continue to adapt
intelligent strategies for specific types of content users in
specific markets they're more likely to come up with solutions
that create content value independent of major suppliers in
those sectors, making them more profitable targets for
acquisition by those dominant companies. That may not be as
juicy an exit strategy as some of these companies promised
their investors in the beginning of their sagas but it beats
being left at the launch pad.
-
John Blossom
To top of page
 |
