 |
|
|
Feed on This: Publishers Face the Dilemma of Content in Motion |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
6 December 2006 |
|
|
|
|
XML-based datafeeds are becoming popular tools for
delivering content to online audiences from Web sites. But
feeds are far from popular with publishers intent on
boosting page view statistics and fearing leakage through
content that's delivered to users who will never come in to
their sites. The real issue is not feeds but the need for
publishers to accept that an important portion of their
revenues will rely on understanding how to make money from
content delivered to their audience's personal devices and
Web sites. Some leaders are already making good money on
feeds: what will it take for others to follow suit? |
|
Datafeeds were not always the
most popular products to be selling in my days as a
Reuters
marketing manager. Feeds were seen by some as a threat to the Reuters
Terminal product, a PC-based software package loaded with
graphics and analytics features that cost a bundle to put
on the typical securities trader's desk. Oftentimes those
Reuters Terminal PCs
got their securities market data and news from a Reuters datafeed anyway, but if the client chose to take the feed into
another content display system or just pump it into a database,
their revenues per user would be less.
Today market data feeds are a way of life the securities
industry. Companies like Reuters are doing just fine, though,
thanks to major adjustments in their marketing strategies that
focus on optimizing feed products for the venues that matter most to
their clients. Ultra-fast feeds support
their increasingly automated trading functions and sophisticated analysis
software used by their most talented staff. With major financial institutions trimming their
trading staffs aggressively in favor of more efficient
strategies supported by feeds the days of the all-singing,
all-dancing financial display product as a revenue leader are numbered, if not already past.
As a new generation of feeds begin to flourish on the Web
some of the same worries that have furrowed brows at financial
content companies are wrinkling the
foreheads of major media company executives.
 Clicking on
the familiar orange icon found in many Web browsers can produce
an XML-formatted feed of updates from a Web site into your
PC or mobile device - or your own Web site. The
popularity of this fairly standard
feature is growing quickly amongst both online trend-setters
and enterprises trying to absorb online content into their own
operations.
So the recent
news of Yahoo's
trimming of support for XML feeds does not come as a complete
surprise. Feeds have spread fear before. Yahoo is pushing hard to become the
online destination of choice
for media content, grabbing a boatload of licensed and acquired
content to pump up its page views and
its advertising revenues. While there's a fair amount of
user-generated content in Yahoo's recipe it's still a classic
aggregation play: my site will have more good stuff than your
site, so it will be worth more to advertisers and subscribers.
Feeds will only cloud the issue in Yahoo's view as it tries to
build its page view statistics into powerful sales tools for
advertisers and subscribers.
In spite of Yahoo's apparent skepticism online feeds are on
the rise. A
recent report on major magazine and newspaper publishers
shows 78 percent of surveyed newspapers using RSS-formatted XML
feeds and 48 percent of magazines using RSS feeds. But none of
the respondents were placing advertising in those feeds:
they're seen mostly as a lure to bring users back to their Web
site.
The Wall Street Journal is now monetizing its feeds with ads,
though, pointing the way for others to reconsider feeds as a
tool for revenues.
With the rise of online feeds publishers need to consider
how best to position themselves aggressively with a medium that
promises to upend profit equations as much as financial feeds
reset the stage in financial market data. Here are a few
thoughts as to how to approach using online feeds profitably:
- The limits of Web sites as content services are
showing. With the strong emphasis on page views some
media companies are missing out on the value of the Web as a
broadcast medium that people can filter according to their
own needs. Web sites are important tools for providing
convenient content packaging but
The New Aggregation argues that insisting on Web site
visits draws content away from the uses that audiences demand
in their own business and personal lifestyles. Think of feeds
as a broadcast to home and mobile theatres and your Web site
as your downtown theatre: today it takes both experiences to
build up a property into a profitable media star.
- Time for a new generation of metrics. As
Steve Rubel points out in a recent article page views
don't always capture how people interact with increasingly
sophisticated content that combines text, graphics and
software-enabled functionality into something that's far more
than just a page. As feeds enable a new generation of content
services to add value on desktops and mobile devices
publishers need to get more comfortable with devising
performance metrics that follow content into the audience's
own platforms - and that travel with content as users share
it with one another. Services like
FeedBurner already provide measurable performance for
feed content: it's up to publishers to take advantage of
advanced content performance measurements to appeal to a new
generation of advertisers.
- Not all feeds need to be created equal. The
proliferation of bone-simple content syndication via XML
feeds belies the full potential of feeds as a transport for
delivering valuable content. As content becomes more a blend
of information and services wrapped in XML "widget" packaging
these packages are going to make their way up feeds to be
consumed by audiences on the platform of their choice. Some
feeds may be free or ad-supported broadcasts but there's a
lot of potential for premium feeds that go beyond mere text,
links and graphics to sophisticated payloads that engage
audiences at a higher level. Just because you're using
standards such as XML to shuttle content around in feeds
doesn't mean that your content can't break out into unique
value-add configurations once it's delivered.
Feeds are neither a panacea nor a threat for online
publishing: they are only a transport mechanism that allows
publishers to service clients in multiple venues of their own
choosing. The proliferation of feeds calls upon publishers to
take a far more sophisticated view of how content payloads sent
out via feeds can be shaped into products that can return
revenues. Companies like Reuters struggled for years to shape
feeds into a "terminal"-centric view of markets before
accepting that old performance metrics weren't as important as
happy customers who were helping them to make money. That's a
thought worth feeding on for a while in the world of online
content.
-
John Blossom
To top of
page
 |
