NEWS ANALYSIS: ITEM

			Common Market: The Power of Transactions Draws in Business Publishers
			John Blossom
			12 September 2005
SUMMARY:			Reed Construction Data has dipped a toe into the surging world of online ecommerce with a new relationship with eBay, the world's largest public online marketplace for goods. While the deal is fairly tame in its overall shape, it's an indication of where business database and directory publishers are going to need to head in the months ahead to position their content effectively as eBay grows its business-oriented services. Where transactions take place is where content reaches one of its most valuable contexts, a concept long exploited in financial markets but an idea whose time appears to be dawning now in new Web-driven markets. Business database and directory publishers need to move quickly to consider how eBay and other online marketplaces can help to position their content most effectively in the transaction-driven workflow of today's business content users.

When people think of eBay they probably think of its infinite online "aisles" of consumer goods and bric-a-brac up for auction and sale. Most folks aren't really aware that in June eBay began to extend its online ecommerce infrastructure to include a business portal for buying and selling commercial and scientific equipment, supplies and parts. The eBay functions that support business-oriented sales are essentially the same as those serving consumers, but consumers aren't likely to come looking for video duodenoscopes  or laser welder systems any time soon or to traipse through a taxonomy of product categories that include harvesting combines and trade show displays. This is not just a marketplace for moving goods: this is hard-core business content that confronts the scattered resources of many business database publishers who support the buying and selling decisions of industries large and small.  Like the ticker systems and database services supporting traders and exchanges in financial and commodities markets, eBay has proven that transaction opportunities are one of the most valuable contexts for content.

No small wonder, then, that business content providers are beginning to wrestle with how to leverage this powerful force in marketing professionally-oriented goods. The recent announcement of Reed Construction Data's marketing alliance with eBay underscores both the opportunities and the challenges of working with online marketplaces such as eBay. The deal itself is fairly straightforward: eBay gets promotional links for construction equipment searches on key Reed business sites (example) and eBay users get limited free access to construction project data and cost calculators. With more than 2.5 million people in the construction industry using eBay by Reed's estimates this is a very well targeted marketing campaign to promote the usefulness of Reed Business content for its core audience. The question is, though, whether a promotion of existing business content products sold through traditional channels is really enough to position business content providers effectively with eBay's remarkably potent brew of content from buyers and sellers. In some ways it's a little like trying to hawk newsletter subscriptions in front of the stock exchange: the real action is inside the marketplace itself. This is underscored by the irony of Reed's RSMeans publications being sold by a bookseller via eBay: the markets know that eBay is a valuable place to sell and position business content but the business content providers are still mostly in the wings.

The growing presence of eBay promises to provide a whole new transaction-oriented focus to positioning business content that will touch publishers in some pretty profound ways. Here are a few thoughts as to how the eBay experience is likely to move business publishers in the months ahead:

• Craigslist meets the database directories business. With a strong taxonomy and useful features eBay is in many ways a powerful product directory in its own right. Yes, it lacks some of the sophisticated filtering and editing of publisher-grown services, but it has a "go-to" appeal as powerful as a Google is in many ways for people ready to make a purchase. Product database publishers are already wary of eBay, but it seems to be a wariness equivalent to where newspapers were with eyeing the threat of Craigslist to their classified ads business a year or so ago. With alarming swiftness Craigslist then grew to the point where it now threatens to pull out the rug from newspaper classifieds advertising altogether. Database and directories publishers need to be working aggressively now to consider how they can position their content in this rapidly shifting marketplace for supporting business transactions.
   
• It's all about the integration. Business publishers in many markets are working far more aggressively to integrate their content into the workflow of their targeted users. In transaction-driven financial markets, integrating market data with supporting research and analysis is a long-standing approach to providing a much more powerful content experience - a concept that is only now coming to light for goods-oriented markets through services such as eBay. Business publishers need to think far more aggressively about how they can integrate in eBay with their own database products to create a seamless experience for their content users that includes the actual buying experience into their workflow. While this may mean working to get content integrated into eBay itself it's far more likely that a winning approach would feature using a programming interface to eBay's content that could bring it into a publisher's own Web and desktop products.
   
• Markets are conversations. It's no small wonder that eBay's has just announced their acquisition of Skype, the Web-based telephony service. Markets are conversations, as the classic book The Cluetrain Manifiesto noted years ago, and no more so when it comes to ecommerce. The ability for markets to "talk" to one another has always been there in eBay via its ratings feedback system, but with the free Skype phone system eBay has the opportunity to find an excellent way to use actual conversations to lubricate online ecommerce, and vice versa. Like the "squawk boxes" on the trading floors of securities dealers that allow counterparties in high-stakes trades to speak with one another globally, Skype underscores the value of markets speaking with themselves as valuable content in and of itself. Traditional publishers generally balk at being just a conversation facilitator or find very controlled ways to manage them such as forums and events. Just as major media companies are starting to embrace user-generated media business publishers need to consider their changing position in transaction-oriented business conversations and develop channels for joining those conversations far more aggressively. 

The importance of transactions as a force for driving content value is still not widely felt or understood in the content industry. It's no longer just a matter of advertising or getting quotes from point "A" to point "B" that draws commerce into publishing: the content must be embedded in the transaction itself to find its most valuable context. The moves by Reed Business Information to explore this realm with eBay are very early first steps, but they are steps in the right direction for business publishers to follow. The only question is how quickly these publishers can turn their steps into an all-out sprint.

- John Blossom

For Follow-up:		Contact the Analyst
		Arrange for an Analyst Briefing on this Topic
		View and add comments regarding this article

To top of page