"Quality is as quality does" may not be a saying that came out of Forrest Gump's mouth but it's a simple formula that seems to be proving itself on the Web as traditional sources of quality content lose audience share to search engines and social media sites. At the same time, though, the ever-increasing popularity of social media sites does not always seem to be balanced by mature quality control. But don't mistake immature techniques with inadequate potential: the techniques used to generate social media are carving out a new path to content quality that's here to stay.

Click here to read the full News Analysis

Labels: Forbes, News Analysis, Quality, Wikianswers, Wikipedia

As Thomson prepares to subsume the assets of Reuters many eyes are on the impact to financial content markets from this historic merger. But with Reuters CEO Tom Glocer expected to take the overall helm at Thomson the more important impact might come from the lessons that Glocer is prepared to apply to Thomson's other divisions. With decades of experience in both real-time and media markets Glocer may have the opportunity to transform Thomson into a far more agile player in global markets for business information.

Click here to read the full News Analysis

Labels: Bloomberg, Deals Partnerships and Sales, News Analysis, Reuters, Thomson

Social media is booming, but is all of the activity surrounding its growth a precursor to a dot-com-like bubble burst? While in some ways investors may overextend themselves on the social media trend as much as any other social media is growing to become a trend that is based on countless tiny bubbles rather than the huge risk-takers that we're used to seeing in the media limelight. At is core social media is about human communications returning to normal levels of discourse that may have been forgotten in the push to cash in on electronic content - and that will require more sophisticated monetization models than those being pursued by most media companies.

Click here to read the full News Analysis

Labels: econSM, News Analysis, Social Media, Web 2.0 Expo

Two major conferences focusing on business information services point towards two very different approaches to creating revenues and profits from today's enterprise and media markets. Yet both database publishers and media companies are circling around many of the same opportunities to develop value for business information markets. The battle for the future of business information has just begun in earnest, with no clear winners in sight but with many "old guard" attitudes from both camps in dire need of ejection from the scene.

Click here to read the full News Analysis

Labels: Business Information, enterprise, Factiva, LexisNexis, media, News Analysis

Companies such as Zoominfo and Generate are using born-on-the-Web content and technologies to create business information services that are several notches above previous efforts to glean quality information from Web sites and other key sources. With an emphasis on analytics and semantic processing and business plans that are targeted towards the meat of traditional business information markets you could say that Business Information 3.0 has been born. Are traditional vendors ready to take on these well-funded BI 3.0 challengers?

Click here to read the full News Analysis

Labels: BI 3.0, Business Information, Generate, News Analysis, Trends, Zoominfo

While social media has become the hot trend in publishing many of the properties generating social media content are not attracting headline experts into their frays. Gather.com is addressing this by seeding leading figures from book publishing, music, heath and finance to post content and field comments on a peer basis with other Gather members. Getting experts to act as community members should not be too unfamiliar to publishers already used to organizing conferences but using experts effectively in social media outlets may require them to lay aside some preconceived notions about how experts support their publishing requirements.

Click here to read the full News Analysis

Labels: Best Practices, Gather, Near-Time, News Analysis, Social Media