Dialog, a Thomson company, has announced the fruits of 3 years of labor in two guises this month. One, SmartTerms(TM), an internally-developed taxonomy of company names, industry names, geographic locations and subject terms; and the other an integrated platform for company reports, analyst reports, market research reports and news (i.e., Dialog Profound and Dialog NewsRoom). These are encouraging moves by the company that provides access to hundreds of databases via multiple services some of which require separate passwords and use different search interfaces, which were inherited through acquisitions. In his article in Information Today, Matthew McBride posits that perhaps the "technology tide [is] turning for Dialog?" Indeed, with these announcements, it is clear that they are investing resources in adding value to their database collection through improved functionality.

However, two key issues confront Dialog as it tries to maintain its position in the era of search engines and Web distribution. First is alternatives for contributing publishers. With publishers increasingly providing direct access to their content via the Web--whether it be free or for-fee--it becomes more difficult for them to justify sharing revenue according to the royalty models that were established before direct distribution was feasible. Second is pricing. Dialog adds fees on top of document charges. Again, with new, more efficient distribution models of aggregation developing on the Web, will customers continue to pay a premium for access via Dialog?