A great event so far, one that seems to have met everyone's expectations - and then some. Lunch included 3-minute presentations by the sponsoring vendors, which dragged on a little bit but was a nice mini-event in its own right that gave people an idea as to which vendor's table might be worth visiting afterwards. Good format. I was also interested to see the parade of content technology and services sponsorts included Convera, which has built up a business servicing government agencies and knowledge management practitioners with search results clustering. Now they're targeting publishers eager to provide more value on each and every page of their offerings. One of their angles is providing vertical search capabilities, as well as drawing in related content from a publisher's own site and from Web sources into sidebar links on a page of a publisher's content.

This all seems to underscore the new tagline for ABM: "The Association of Business Information Companies." It's a stretch for where most B2B media publishers are today, but it points to the intersection of media, enterprise and personal content markets that Shore has been emphasizing for the past few years. Business information companies like Hoover's push to build up editorial value through original and licensed content, even as B2B publishers are trying to add value through more technology-manufactured content. We are going to see more of these kinds of intersections over the next few years, with B2B media companies trying to find their place in a business information environment

Labels: ABM, business information, Convera, Digital Velocity, events, Hoover's