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Enter the Virtual Aggregator: Network
Subscriptions Opens a New Door on Premium Content |
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13 September 2004 |
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In The New Aggregation
the winners are those companies that can pick out specific
attributes of the content aggregation business model and
make them work with excellence. For
Network Subscriptions this means aggregating subscriptions
to premium content on the Web without bothering to use a
separate database. This model works very well for
individual professionals used to finding things on their
favorite search engines - and may yet work well for
institutions yearning for a better way to pay for and
access premium content. More content and more clients as
soon as possible will be the key to success for the
pioneers of this model, but the model itself is likely here
to stay. |
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I have to
admit that there are times when we we don't find the warmest
welcome at major
subscription database companies when we talk about
The New Aggregation. There are in those uncomfortable
moments self-assured looks of satisfaction on the faces of executives
spinning off the purportedly vast advantages of taxonomies,
normalization, highly tuned search interfaces and exclusive
distribution agreements. "Real" content doesn't come from the
Web, it comes from premium content aggregators who leave the
chaff behind and offer the pure wheat of leading publishers.
The Web is for consumers, the Web is for people who can't
afford a real service, the Web is...well, you get the picture.
It's as if the rise of premium publishers offering their
subscription products online had never happened. Yet as we
detail in our report
The New Aggregation: Models for Success in Creating Content
Value, aggregators with content databases at their core are
struggling to find significant profit growth while
Web-based content and content service providers are surging on
both the open Web and in enterprise environments. If the Web is
so useless, why is it such a profitable environment these days?
The short answer is that today's
professional content user is no fool, whether a high-class
investment portfolio manager or an
entrepreneur trying to get a business off the ground. Good
content is where you find it, and more people than ever are
finding it through a variety of tools via the database known as
cyberspace. Moreover, more professionals are discovering that
the context and community that primary publishers provide for
content on their own Web sites oftentimes adds far more value
to the content that they seek than the sterile, stripped,
constrained forms found in aggregator databases. Now if only
they could somehow manage multiple subscriptions on the open
Web the way that aggregators do...
Ta-da.
Network Subscriptions out of Cambridge, Massachusetts has
announced opening the door to business-oriented aggregated
content subscriptions for leading premium Web sites via
one-stop shopping on the Web. USD 23.95 a month gets you
a subscription to the Business Network, just six sites for starters - The Economist, The Wall Street
Journal, getAbstract business book summaries, Harvard
Management Update, MIT's TechnologyReview.com and the
Encyclopedia Britannica - not the Library of Congress yet hardly left-over chaff.
Sign up and access this content directly or via your favorite
search engine. Though it's billed as a consumer play clearly
the consumers in mind are business-minded folks, individuals
who already traverse the Web for a broadening array of content
to support their professional decision making. It will take far
more content providers and more cost-effective subscription
plans before this effort can represent any sort of significant
play in the professionally-oriented aggregation marketplace,
yet the model is now there for all to consider: you don't have
to have a separate database to sell bundled subscriptions of
business content effectively.
What are some possible lessons to learn
from this key demonstration of The New Aggregation? Here are a
few items to consider:
- Publishers are yearning to dance with the devil.
Major publishers have been champing at the bit to get more
direct access to institutional marketplace for their
Web-based products, but it's not likely that a phalanx of
sales reps from these publishers are likely to win many minds
and hearts in the ranks of corporate libraries - much less
cost-effective sales. The Network Subscriptions model holds
out the possibility that institutions could engage an
aggregation model that will allow them to access any number
of premium sources via the Web in the same manner that they
do today via the proprietary database infrastructures of
major aggregators. The model is wrapped in "consumer"
clothing for now, but expect that publishers will pursue
institutional-level aggregated subscription sales via an open
Web model sooner rather than later if they like what they
see.
- Don't think that institutions aren't paying attention.
In an open Web subscription aggregation model employees may
access content in any number of ways - directly, via open Web
searches, via enterprise search engines - whatever makes
sense in a given work context. The constraints imposed by
separate interfaces into aggregators' databases are becoming
a more prominent impediment to assembling content effectively
in major institutions as they implement their own highly
sophisticated search engines and taxonomies. With a high
reliance on the open Web already a given in most business
environments, it only makes sense to allow an institution to
assemble content in their own environments using their Web
infrastructure. It's fairly clear that such an
arrangement will yield more potential for cost savings along
with more contextually valuable content - a proposition that
aggregators tied to their databases will be hard-pressed to
match.
- This may not be a game best played by amateurs.
You have to applaud a company like Network Subscriptions for
buttoning up great content from leading sources for the debut
of Business Network, but one wonders how long it will be
before major aggregators begin to flex some more muscle in
this space. With so many small players beginning to cater to
professionals willing to pay for their own content online,
the timeline for any one of them to succeed has to be fairly
short before major providers that have been watching them
from afar pick the best of lessons learned from their efforts
and begin to fold them into their own offerings. As we noted
in last week's news analysis
major aggregators are not notable for moving rapidly on new
business models, but unless a player like Network
Subscriptions can move aggressively with a diversified and
sophisticated revenue strategy that benefits both publishers
and institutions they may not have to.
Network Subscriptions has assembled some
prime sources that may yet allow them to piece together a
winning New Aggregation strategy. If they can make the leap
from individual subscribers to incorporating institutional
subscribers fairly quickly there's reason to think that this
can happen. The door has been opened; we'll see just how many
publishers and institutions decide to walk through it. And
when.
-
John Blossom
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