Factiva Targeting Individual Users With Tiered Subscription Access
Aggregator Factiva has announced the availability of tiered subscription access to its extensive news and business informaiton sources, targeted at individual users and small businesses. Unspoken is exactly which individuals, but clearly Factiva is trying to position their capabilities better with professional content users who may not have access to Factiva through institutional contracts and who are more likely to use content than the "by the drink" offerings through WSJ.com. The concept is sound, but Factiva's execution is still a work in progress. Subscription pricing is about as steep as a full Journal subscription (USD $69 annually, $39 during the introductory period), with additional monthly charges for tracking folders, per-article retrieval, headlines plus lead paragraphs, keyworkds in context and custom formats with lead paragraphs. Did you understand half of that? Neither did I when I went through the purchasing process. Selling to individuals - including professional individuals - is about a lot more than coming up with price points that protect institutional margins and making the technology and content available. To succeed in the individual marketplace, major aggregators will have to think much more carefully about the human and relationship aspects of how they engage their audience online.