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Gold Rush: B2B Database and Media
Companies Eye the Same Veins for Growth |
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18 October 2006 |
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As database publishers and media companies converge on the
common ground of today's business information markets
they're discovering that they both need to learn the same
lessons from different angles. At this year's InfoCommerce
conference database publishers demonstrated how they were
building more powerful value-add services that are
embracing editorial assets while media companies pushed
further into data assets that enhance core editorial
operations. At the intersection of these two efforts is a
gold mine of opportunities in enterprise, media and
personal content markets. |
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The world of business database
publishing is a shifting landscape that remains profitable but
is facing new challenges, as outlined by panelists and speakers
at this year's
InfoCommerce
conference. Attendees for this conference used to come largely
from industrial directories and yellow page providers,
nuts-and-bolts services with little drama but silvery revenues
for years. But as new generations of electronic database
services have come online this sleepy niche of publishing has
had to wake up to the realities of a publishing world dominated
by open Web search engines and enterprises intent on building
their own data gold mines. At the same time business media
companies, facing the limitations of traditional trade
publications reliant on dwindling print ad revenues, have been
racing to find more reliable revenue streams through data-based
content services.
These two camps were both well represented at the
Infocommerce conference, displaying advanced approaches to
getting in on new gold mines for publishing revenues. In the
instance of a company like
Congressional Quarterly, they've been able to leverage
content management infrastructure to turn an operation once
focused on traditional editorial services into a client-focused
government information service lead by strong electronic
revenues from more than 28 subscription databases. On the flip
side of this gold rush are companies like the online
procurement database
BuyerZone,
which is adding on industry-specific newsletter services to
develop relationships and ad revenues via key market
participants.
Editorial staffs are adjusting to the world of databases as
database publishers adjust to editorial relationships with
their audiences. It's a converging marketplace that's rich in
potential but also one that requires broader outlooks from both
sides. As Robert G. Ottenhoff, President and CEO of
GuideStar, expressed it
in his panel presentation at the conference, "The era of
assumed virtue is over." Neither database publishers nor media
outlets can assume that the talents that have brought them to
where they are today can be sufficient to ensure healthy
revenue streams in the future from enterprise and media content
markets. Quality is what quality does these days.
Database publishers, long comfortable with focusing on
assembling huge databases with high levels of quality control
as their key focus are being challenged to think about building
conversational relationships with their audiences through media
presences. Having terabytes of clean data that fails to solve a
specific business problem in a timely fashion is a formula for
slow growth - or worse.
Magazine and journal publishers, long reliant on the art and
judgment of editorial staffs to craft great insights and
layouts in media packages, must learn how to think how content
gains its greatest value to business audiences when it's in a
valuable context with other information assets to solve
specific business problems. Having fantastic editorial assets
without a way to leverage them into flexible and repurposeable
content products and services is a sure-fire call for a
low-valuation exit.
For both database publishers and media companies the panels
of this conference offered many insights as to how to meet this
merging world of enterprise and media business information
head-on with successful strategies. Here are a few of the more
crucial insights that surfaced:
- Go beyond search to vertical knowledge services.
Database publishers grew up on the importance of
parameterized searches into their specialty databases as the
focus of their products' virtues. But Shannon Holman,
Director, Content Strategy & Development for
ALM, noted a key axiom for
content product development in this era: "Don't build a
railroad." If your content is accessible in only one format
from one infrastructure-oriented interface, then you're not
meeting the knowledge requirements of your users where they
need to be met. This holds true then looking at the buzz
surrounding vertical search solutions, many of which offer
only filtering and not a full range of audience-specific
content and features. Start with what your audience needs to
know and how they need to know it - and work back from there
to gather all the assets that address their needs and deliver
them however they fit into the audience's perception of
value.
- Data derived from data leads the way to profits.
While having rock-solid data assets is the foundation of many
database providers' business plans the presentations at the
conference highlighted several instances where insights
derived from that data were the key drivers for value. Scott
Bernhardt, SVP Sales and Marketing for
Planalytics, demonstrated how their database of weather
forecast information is used to support retailers and
investors who need to have well-founded estimates of how
weather trends will impact their markets at a very detailed
level.
Really Strategies' new RSuite CMS service demonstrated at
the conference how it's possible to develop highly flexible
and repurposeable editorial assets from structured and
unstructured content that can address multiple audiences
effectively. Any way you slice it it's the value-add on top
of fundamental content assets that's the key.
- Use online services to build relationships on many
levels. Even as database publishers begin to reach out to
the world of media to highlight their insights the world of
media is reaching into databases to provide both content and
relationships through more effective online services. In the
instance of Hanley Wood's
eBbuild
product directory and the
Hoover's business information this meant redesigning
their online interfaces for usability to make finding
information much more intuitive and engaging. For companies
like TradeComet,
Spoke and
ShopWiki building
relationships online is about leveraging user-generated
content to form key components of their data and editorial
assets that enhance product loyalty and engagement. In an era
where quality is as quality does, it helps to get the
audiences showing us how the quality of a content service is
about the human touch as much as assets.
It is indeed a prosperous era for publishers who can rise to
the opportunities that lie in the intersecting worlds of
enterprise, media and personal publishing. It takes a little
more agility and a broader focus to sift out the best nuggets
of gold to be found there, but as demonstrated by many of the
leaders at this conference it's a lot more fun to look for that
"Eureka!" moment than to settle for yesterday's silver. Happy
mining!
-
John Blossom
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