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Open for Business: Why Open Access is
Good for Business and Science Publications |
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Janice McCallum |
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25 October 2004 |
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Many B2B and STM publishers have been struggling to find
the right model for distributing their content as they
confront pressures that are pushing them towards opening
their databases to Web and enterprise search engines. These
publishers are seeking the right balance between maximizing
the reach and influence of their publications while
maintaining the ability to provide - and to be compensated
for - premium features for their core readers. If anyone
doubts if there are successful business models in an open
access environment, they need only look at Google, whose
share price has more than doubled since it went public. B2B
and STM publishers cannot be Googles, but they can leverage
the openness that user-empowering technologies provide to
create richer revenue models. |
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The Public Library of Science (PLoS)
shook the world of academic research last week with the
launch of its
second open access journal.
PLoS Medicine
is seen by many as being targeted squarely at Reed Elsevier's
long-established journal
The Lancet,
a subscription-based publication. At the same time
Mark Glaser in the
USC Annenberg Online Journalism Review (OJR) was noting the increasing use of links from major online news
sources to additional relevant content, as well as the same
news publishers allowing more links into their content. Most
notably, Glaser reports that the
Wall Street Journal
will be opening access to its subscription site for a week in
November, presumably to gauge how much traffic the site would
attract if it were open to all and thus to gauge the potential
for shifting its revenue model. The parallels between the changes occurring in the
scientific, technical and medical (STM)
publishing industry and the B2B publishing industry and related
general news markets reflected
in these stories may not seem evident at first glance. But
viewed through the lens of Shore's industry outlook, important similarities emerge.
Both the STM and B2B publishing market segments are facing pressure from their
readers, purchasers, and associated online constituent groups
to open up access to articles that have been kept behind
firewalls with restricted access for paid subscribers or
password holders. Both
sets of publishers understand the value of having links to
their content via search engines and bilateral links from other
sites; however, they remain concerned about opening the
floodgates to their entire collections of content, since they
rely on subscription revenues as the foundation of their
business models. And both must face two key drivers moving
content users towards open access:
Empowered users. In both B2B and STM markets technology is
driving
user behavior and expectations and empowering them in new ways. Standalone subscription
publications are not well adapted to survive on desktops
dominated by sophisticated content search and desktop workflow
management software that can span both subscription and openly
available content with ease. Increasingly the first option for data discovery for
professional and consumer audiences is via these tools that
have little to do with how content is presented or aggregated
on a publisher's Web site or in their database. To maximize the
user-perceived value of a publication content needs to be
discoverable via the tools that empower a user to consider all
content sources objectively and effectively. It doesn’t follow
automatically that empowered users expect all content to
be free: users are willing to recognize the value of content that comes from a
respected source and answers urgent business questions or
solves a recurring need. But the "how" of how that value is
recognized is changing rapidly in the hands of
technology-empowered users.
Empowered authors. The value chain for the publishing industry has shifted. As
described in John Blossom’s paper on
The New Aggregation, creators of
content increasingly have tools at their disposal to publish
content without the aid of a publishing company. But individuals still need help in areas such as creating an
audience around a collection of content and providing marketing
and administrative support for titles. To differentiate
themselves, publishers need to concentrate more on those
specific functions in the
publishing and aggregation value chain that cannot be carried out
effectively by
individual authors.
Note that there is still a scenario that provides free
access and profitable returns for publishers. Tearing down the
walls to provide basic access to content with broad appeal is a good business move. It improves
discoverability, helps the publisher build its brand among a
wide audience, and if executed properly, can serve as a
marketing lever to sell premium content and related services.
That scenario parallels what Stevan Harnad, a leading voice in
the open access movement, describes as
“the inevitable and the
optimal”.
Following are a few suggestions to publishers who are facing
the threats and opportunities of open access to their content:
- Embrace the inevitable. Provide links to improve information discovery. To thrive,
publishers need to either break down the walls to their silos
or at least create permeable walls that allow two-way links.
Richard Deverell of BBC News Interactive points to audience
research that indicated that “People do not trust individual
sources, no brand is trusted completely…. And people value a
range of perspectives.” (From the OJR article.)
- Understand your audience. Market segmentation analysis has never been in more demand.
Knowledge of the applications and processes in which content is
used is essential. Interaction with users of the content is
necessary to create products and services that meet their
needs. Changes in channel relationships may be necessary to get
closer to the customer.
- Employ Appropriate media. Leverage your content in multiple media. Print is still
appropriate for some audiences and applications. Publishers
need to be expert at producing
vContent, that is, content that
is packaged to match the needs of defined segments of users
using appropriate technology and delivery mechanisms.
- Focus on the Future. Opening access to the core information will drive publishers
to focus on features and tools that increase the utility of the
information to its primary audience. Furthermore, the “open”
content offers opportunities for publishers to aggregate and
edit content by subject area for a consumer audience and
monetize the collections with advertising revenues.
Even though the pricing, distribution methods and content
funding mechanisms for the B2B and STM segments have differed
significantly at times, the lessons being learned in the B2B
segment are highly applicable to the STM segment. In an open
access environment, STM publishers need to move beyond
controlling access to text as the primary revenue driver and to
differentiate their value to their reading communities and
publishing partners via new premium products, services, and
events that take their technology-enabled empowerment into full
account. Being open to new revenue models is the true lesson of
open access, a lesson that should have a positive impact on all
publishing businesses that are willing to explore those models
aggressively and effectively.
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Janice McCallum
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