We note with great interest the Library Journal's coverage of ProQuest's purchase of Serials Solutions, a highly respected supplier of tools to help libraries search and manage electronic content collections more effectively. Serials Solutions is moving into the Electronic Resource Management space including federated search capabilities, which combined with their current capabilities makes it a great choice for ProQuest to position itself more effectively as a solutions provider for the library community. But is this where it will stop? The Article Linker, for example, provides a great general infrastructure for deploying OpenURL solutions across an enterprise - or beyond. When you look at how ProQuest has positioned itself with numerous innovators trying to bridge the gap between subscription database content and open Web content, and then look at how it is positioning itself for the institutional space, one wonders whether ProQuest may be positioning itself for a more direct assault on solving the problems of premium content access in more inclusive and open environments as well as for established libraries. Library patrons would certainly benefit if this is the case but it will be interesting to see how the ProQuest business model unfolds with this acquisition.

The new Scoop premium content service from NetContent, Inc. provides content from the open Web, Proquest and Gale - kind of like HighBeam but with a more business oriented twist, as noted in Paula Hane's Information Today article. I signed up for the free trial and discovered a service that's fairly bare-bones in appearance - never hurt Google, mind you - and decent features that have been tuned to the needs of competitive intelligence. Six tabs - home search function, stored searches, alerts triggering taxonomy-driven topic search, company profile lookup and a promised newsfeed publishing feature. First off, searches combine both "good" Web sources and sources from aggregators in one search interface, with options to specify which sources you'd prefer to be included - Web sites, wire services, trade journals, company records from Gale and so on. Thanks for acknowledging what we say at Shore: "good content is where you find it." The taxonomy-based search is limited in its topics - roughly Moreover's default scope. Alerts and stored searches are fairly straightforward and the company lookup is a very handy feature. Pricing of the service is tiered and on the relatively pricey side - $29 a month with alerts and detailed company reports at $35 each or $195 a for a three-month subcription with full company reports access - which hits a much higher mark than Highbeam and actually at somewhat of a premium to Hoover's smallest annual small business plan.

The content and feature set are kind of underwhelming except for the Gale company content but it's a basic first step towards the needs of a business-oriented market. As noted in our news analysis this week many relaunching content technology companies seem to benefit from meeting the needs of specific user groups and market sectors with depth and excellence. Just as technology companies sometimes suffer from the "we've got this great code, how do we market it to human beings?" syndrome, companies that license content collections sometimes fall into "build it and they will come" propositions that fail to add enough value on the front end to attract specific markets. Hopefully Scoop can continue to tune their competitive intelligence angle and come up with a highly tuned business proposition that suits the needs of specific professionals with excellence.

WebProNews confirmed what seemed evident from their recent axing of the new WinFS file system from Microsoft's upcoming "Longhorn" operating system release: their desktop search tool that was supposed to do battle with Google and others vying for local search supremacy is now history as well. We're not going to I.T. you to death on this one, but it's a key factor for content providers to consider. Combined with the also-removed "Palladium" rights management environment and upcoming hardware from Intel and others Microsoft had been promising many kinds of content Nirvana to publishers and institutions alike where there would be one worldwide transparent environment for digital objects to be stored sercurely and monetized easily. Oops. Premium publishers need to get their own "long horns" out and start thinking more seriously about owning their technology futures for secure and universally accessible content objects instead of hoping that Microsoft will simplify matters for them. It's a big, messy world of content out there and it promises to be that way for the foreseeable future.

Microsoft Confirms No Desktop Search For Longhorn
Be the Portal, Google
Turn Search Into Find
Intranet Trends to Watch For
eBooks Seamlessly Integrated into Sirsi System
FBI Selects Convera's RetrievalWare for Multi-Million Dollar Enterprise License
Groove to ink deals for knowledge management software
Vivisimo Clustering Engine Enhances BoardReader.com
Autonomy Selected to Help Champion Consumers' Rights in the Netherlands
OneSource Information Services Announce New Vice President of Sales

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The newly renamed Rocketinfo, Inc. is a revitalized content technology company emblematic of so many similar tech-born efforts that are discovering the beauties of content focusing on specific market sector and user requirements. They're not abandoning their techie roots but leveraging them effectively to create content solutions that span the gap between pure I.T. solutions and lagging publishers and aggregators with increasing effectiveness. There are worse fates than to succeed by focusing on what people need most with what you do best - and worse ways to create a profitable company that can stand on its own or fit nicely into the folds of a major market sector suitor.

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Shore Senior Analyst Jack McConville reports on the expanding scope of the U.S. equities research settlement as more major financial instituions are targeted for independent research sources.

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A New Scoop for Business Information Makes Its Debut
They Don't Get It (Yet): A Look Back at the Rude Awakening that Was Search Engine Strategies
No resisting RSS
Google, Shmoogle. The Biggest I.P.O.'s Went Unnoticed.
MSN Music: It's really about Windows
Web will never be free of content piracy
Reaping the rewards of compliance to the Freedom of Information Act
CCH and LexisNexis Extend Exclusive Content Relationship
MarketWatch Launches "ETF Trader" Weekly Fund Newsletter for Recommendations and Information
Vignette Ships Industry's Deepest Native Integration of Portal and Content Management

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The launch of Apple iPod from HP was front page of the business section in my Saturday morning paper, the San Jose Mercury News. I follow this with interest since both companies are located in my local community of Cupertino, California, and they've had their share of ups and downs, with copious local and national press. Essentially, this is a marketing alliance--the HP version is a different color, an additional logo, and a free "tattoo" to personalize the device. Of course, HP will sell additional entertainer "tattoos", plus a package of 14 printable "tattoos", to be printed on a HP photo printer, of course!

Earlier, this week, I had been interviewed by CNET for an article entitled "Have e-books turned a page?" and asked whether a device was on the horizon for e-books that would transform the publishing industry in the same way that iPod has transformed the music industry. My answer was no--and the biggest issue is the number of titles available in a standard electronic format. The iTunes Music Store has 700,000 available tunes, and the iPod can store up to 5,000 individual tunes. By contrast, there are no more than about 50,000 total e-book titles available in an industry that lists 5 million titles in the venerable Books in Print database, and over 60,000 new titles printed each year. So even if a breakthrough reader hardware were created today, the critical mass of available titles for commercial success is still under development. Perhaps iPod will lead the way for audio books!

There's lots of room to disagree when it comes to contextual advertising -- and that's what makes the decision on whether or not to participate in programs such as Google AdSense so challenging for publishers right now. What I'm seeing in the market are the first steps towards refining and improving the whole concept, and that, as with all things Internet, will mean even more confusion before we get to anything approaching clarity.

One company that's getting some buzz right now is Quigo. By mixing technology with a new model that combines contextual ad placement with categories such as travel, it claims it is creating an even higher level of relevancy. The underlying logic seems good. For example, if you are a cruise ship operator, do you want your ad on a recipe site where there is mention of a recipe found during someone's travels to Spain , or a travel site talking about all the wonderful things one can do if one travels to Spain? Neither site is a bad place to advertise, but from a clickthrough perspective, the cruise ship company is likely to do better on the travel site.

Some theorists are going further, suggesting that advertisers could place their ads at a central location, and publishers would select what ads to place on their sites. Presumably, they would select the ads most relevant to their audiences in order to maximize clickthroughs, and thus their own revenue. A nice side benefit is that publishers would have complete control over what appears on their sites.

That's an interesting peek into the future, but what about today? My contention is that publishers can't come out winners in the current game of contextual advertising. Here's my reasoning, excerpted from my June speech at the Canadian Business Press annual conference:

Some of us are already engaged in a form of self-abuse by allowing contextual advertising on our sites. The rationale for a publisher to accept advertising from a search engine is simple and seductive: some money from advertisers you'd never sell anyway is better than no money. Some publishers are already reporting nice monthly checks rolling in -- with no work at all. What's not to like? After all, aren't you the clever one for turning the search engines into ad sales reps for you?

Yet what would you say if an independent sales rep came to you and made this proposition:

• I want you to give me space in your publication, and by the way, I'm looking for good positions, maybe even your home page
• I'll sell ads into that space, and keep the lion's share of the revenue
• I won't specifically chase your advertisers, but if they should come to me, tough on you
• I'll sell using a whole different pricing approach than you use, which may turn out to be a cheaper rate than you offer your advertisers
• I'll essentially be the judge of who advertises what on your site, without regard to your brand or your market position
• I'll be building a huge syndicate, so you'll always need me more than I need you
• I will be telling the advertising community, day in and day out, that my approach to advertising is far superior to yours

How long would that rep be in your office? Probably just long enough for you to stop laughing. Yet when Google talks, we listen.

Contextual advertising may in fact be clever and beneficial if most of your revenue doesn't come from advertising. But if you generate the bulk of your revenue from advertising, you need to be afraid -- very afraid -- of contextual advertising. Let's go back to that rationale I mentioned earlier: you're getting some money from advertisers you'd never sell anyway. Actually, that was the rationale for going with some of the old syndicated advertising services like DoubleClick. They sold massive traffic in broad categories to marketers of broad-appeal consumer products. That is indeed free money for any specialized publication. But if you publish a magazine for, say, the machine tool industry, and a contextual ad appears on your site based on the keywords "NC simulation," that's your advertiser -- or it should be -- meaning the search engine supplying that ad is competing with you and you're helping them do it. Let me say it another way: by definition and design, contextual advertising is competitive with your own advertising sales efforts.

The future of contextual advertising might be a lot friendlier to publishers, but for now, fear and loathing appear to be the correct response.

Have e-books turned a page?
Professional blogging as a career choice
Meet the Bloggers, Part Two: The Republican Convention
Thomson to Buy KnowledgeNet
Endeavor, Elsevier Engineering Information Develop XML Gateway
IBM to acquire content management firm Venetica
Inteliseek Releases Tools and Technologies to Aid Content Integration, Mining and Analysis
Knowledge Management Gets Practical as Atlassian Announces Confluence 1.2
iPhrase and KnowledgeBase Solutions Join Forces to Deliver Content Authoring
Reducing Expenditures and Driving Costs Out of the Corporate Library Budget

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We've been having an interesting internal discussion here at Shore about the value of paid search ads for online publishers from services such as Overture, Google AdSense, Kanoodle and IndustryBrains. According to Silicon.com there's no doubt that United Kingdom-based online publishers such as The Financial Times, Guardian Newspapers and Independent News and Media are enjoying their Overture campaigns, but there's no surprise there when youy come to think of it. In some ways paid search ads are like instant and painless classified ads served up to a highly targeted audience in context with the content that draws them there. Readers can turn instantly into buyers without the overhead of traditional classified operations - though with some careful thought the papers would be wise to consider this route also with their own classifieds. On the other side of the equation are the trade magazine empires such as CMP and IDG which so far shun paid search ads, prefering to go with premium ad sales via traditional channels to gather in as much revenue as possible. This may be the way to go in many ways, but it's very narrow thinking in terms of how to exploit context in their Web operations. Whether with partners like Overture or via their own facilities, the size, shape and intent of paid search ads tend to complement premium ads with full graphics and multimedia very nicely. In analyzing the log files trade publishers may find some interesting opportunities to take them beyond the perceived threats of contextual search ads.

Now that the fog of IPO fever is lifting a bit it seems that Google is back on track with product developments, finally adding some long-needed business model focus to its weblog facility Blogger. The new proposition for Blogger is simple: "blog for bucks." According to Internetnews.com there is still not a specific revenue split announced, but given the experience provided by AdWords and AdSense it is probably going to be enough to have the vanity blogs feel like they're playing in the big time and the serious weblog content providers a no-hassle business model that might actually pay the car payments, if not the mortgage. Weblog impressarios such as WeblogsInc and Kinja may be discouraged by this move somewhat, but the longer term picture is one in which major publishers have to consider and compete with people who can monetize their content in a very direct fashion without traditional publishing channels or other organizations playing various infomediary/factor roles. After nearly two years of toying with the enormous potential of weblog content value via Blogger, it looks as if this "sleeping" giant is about to do some very interesting things with content business models that challenge those portals more reliant on traditional publishing sources.

Newspaper websites loving paid search ads
Google to Pay Bloggers
For Your Photocopier's Eyes Only
Pirates hounded out of P2P network
RIAA gives support to Duke University iPod plan
Alacra Adds Institutional Shareholder Services; Corporate Governance Content Now Available Clients
Thomas Industrial Network Buys Technology for Manufacturers to Turn More Engineers into Customers
Lafayette College Selects Cadmus' dPub(TM) and 3Path(TM) to Distribute Prospective Students Info
Pearson Education Creates New Business Units to Accelerate Integration of Print and Technology
Rocketinfo Forms Strategic Alliance with Major News Agency

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EU to probe Microsoft-Time Warner buy
How Google's Broad Sweep Narrows the Web
Disclosing Information on the Internet: Is It Noise or Is It News?
Playboy posts unused Google excerpt to Web site
Hummingbird Announces Integration with LexisNexis(R) Total Search
Vignette R&D offers single view for content
Microsoft to Publish Blogger's PowerPoint Book
IM use booming at work
Music Companies To Launch Format With CD, DVD

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Plumtree Software and LexisNexis announced the extension of their marketing alliance at today's LawNet Conference in Phoenix, continuing an arrangement that has allowed the LexisNexis Portal strong extension into the law marketplace with contextualized content. It's a perfect marketing solution for aggregators that are hard-pressed to come up with rich content solutions that rely upon the content of their clients at least as much as their own content, allowing the client to specify custom extensions through the Plumtree framework easily. At the same time Plumtree's portal rival Hummingbird has had a veritable explosion of press releases in the last couple of days coinciding with the same conference event, most recently focusing on integrating knowledge managment with office automation and email services and extension of its capabilities onto Blackberry portable devices. Hummingbird is positioned competitively with LexisNexis in the legal space in the e-filing end of the legal business, but (update 25 August) has announced integration with LexisNexis TotalSearch, spreading further the contextual scope of LexisNexis content. It would be presumptive to say that deep content will always trump deep features but it's interesting to see how the LexisNexis relationship provides a depth to the Plumtree offering that provides value beyond mere integration. Perhaps "Flip" Filipowski was right after all about the goal of integrating premium content services with enterprise portal services - though it seems to work a bit better with profitable and strong allies than with a trumped-up conglomerate of also-rans that never quite gelled.

Google slammed for corporate sleaze
Ask Jeeves knocking on Japan's door
BlogAds Site Experiencing Outage Amid Surging Interest
Plumtree Software and LexisNexis Renew Strategic Alliance Agreement
TripleHop's MatchPoint Integrates with MS Office to Enable End-to-End Searching from Desktop to Internet
EBSCO Publishing Acquires HealthGate's The Natural Pharmacist, Signs Exclusive Distribution Agreement
Hummingbird Announces Content Library Consolidation for Legal Data Centralization Efforts
Zeppelin Energy Inc. Changing its Name to Rocketinfo Inc.
Inxight and New Taxonomy Partners Provide Faster, More Accurate Information Discovery
ECT News Network Offers KnowledgeStorm’s IT Search and Content for Online Business Publications

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When The New York Times op/ed section carries a piece focusing on the dominance of major search engines, you know that the time has come for a reality check. While major search engine indeed have changed the face of what's considered valuable content, search technology as a whole is empowering many more suppliers to bring the power of search to far more focused needs and interests in ways that highlight content that the majors leave behind. From enterprise search engines reaching out for Web content to innovative industry suppliers like the Thomas Industrial Network, content's voice is growing through a wide variety of search suppliers that promise greater profits supplying audiences with very specific needs and interests.

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More Is Not Necessarily Better
Is Real a Real Hypocrite on DRM?
EU Law on the Digital Economy (LEN) contains alarming threats to freedom of expression
New Industrial Search Engine - ThomasNet.com - Points to Specialized Future of Search Industry
After shakeout, medical websites find new health - with professionals as well as consumers
EMC Releases Content Integration
It’s Not Just About Searching—It's About Findability
Kazaa owner takes heart in P2P ruling
Hummingbird Delivers Broad New Content Management Functionalities for Legal Professionals
Zelle, Hofmann, Voelbel, Mason & Gette LLP Deploy Hummingbird's Business Intelligence Solution

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The Red Herring Conference on the Business of Publishing a Magazine at Seybold San Francisco 2004 proved to be an unexpected mix of technology, business, journalism and even social networks. The future of new traditional print magazines, and even established print magazines, is bleak due to high startup costs, decline in print advertising and high print production costs, a picture painted by Larry Crutcher of Veronis, Suhler Stevenson and Thad McIlroy of Arcadia House. Yet, overall, the panels painted a bright picture for publishers willing to experiment with the new technologies of the Web for product development. A magazine exists for an audience, and developing that voice and audience is the most expensive component of a publication. Once the audience is developed, the money follows. Web technologies are inexpensive compared to print, provide much faster feedback, and allow interactivity—all critical factors in developing communities of interest which can be developed into readership.

Blogs dominated the technology discussion. Joichi Ito, an executive with Technorati, and principal VC investor in Movable Type, a leading blogging software, spoke eloquently on the social networking aspects of blogging, and influence on the political process. His advice for magazine publishers is to create permanent URLs so bloggers can create permanent links, which are more valuable than search engine optimization. Susan Mernit of 5ive emphasized the importance of RSS and syndication for broadening audience to specialized niches. She cited Hearst Magazines as magazine publisher with a strong web presence for their magazines. CosmoGirl is a showcase for developing the audience with a successful website presence before launching a new print publication.

Mike Edelhart, formerly CEO of Zinio, sees the future bright for micro-publishing, but not for controlled circulation B-to-B trade publications and general circulation newspapers. Changes in human behavior is key to opportunities—our children are multi-channeled, watching digital TV, listening to music, and instant messaging simultaneously, so “magazines” as content need to respond to remain relevant. Business Week has tapped into college students by providing free email subscriptions, which results in high uptake of print subscriptions at a very low cost. Mitch Ratcliffe creates industry specific blogs as a marketing tool for InnovationWORLD, in addition to being the official blogger for Red Herring. As his blogs gains wider audiences, they attract paying sponsors.

As for Red Herring itself, the Seybold conference marked the relaunch of their print publication which has existed as a website for the past year. As a reader of the “old” monthly Red Herring which bloated and died during the dot com era, I look forward to reading the “new” Red Herring in a weekly format tailored to today’s environment.

U.S. Court: Grokster, Streamcast not liable for copyright violations
An ear for downloads: Audible succeeding with newsworthy audio content
The Google Playboy Interview In Its Entirety
IOC prevents athletes from reporting on experiences through weblogs
Intelliseek Now Analyzes Content From Millions Of Blogs
CoreMedia Announces New Phase of MINDS Project
New study on Licensing and Copyright Mgt.: Best Practices of College, Special and Research Libraries
LexisNexis, NYC 2004 Host Committee to Support Media and Guests at Republican National Convention
Yonhap-Reuters Agreement Enhances Korean News Content
Solcara makes its case to the legal profession for knowledge management and enterprise search

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In posts past, I've dissed the newspaper industry for not harnessing the Web to build local buying guides and shopping sites, given what I see are built-in advantages to dominate local search. That's why it was with great anticipation that I went to take a look at ShopLocal.com, the newly announced local shopping site from CrossMedia Services, a company jointly owned by newspaper giants Gannett, Knight-Ridder, and Tribune Company.

Rather than a series of local micro-sites, the newspaper giants are thinking big and have built a national site to drive local shopping. But you quickly get to local offers by entering your city name or zip code on the opening screen. Any indications that the site was affiliated with my local newspaper were conspicuously absent, and there wasn't much in the way of explanatory text to position the site to users or even describe its contents and purpose.

I entered a zip code for Philadelphia and got a search results page split into three sections: categories, stores and brands. The category section of the screen gave me a list of yellow pages-like headings from which I could search. The stores section of the screen lists local stores (currently all national chains, buy hey, they're just getting started), and the brands section showed me a list of national brands. For fun, I clicked on "outdoor playsets," and found three offers: CVS offering not playsets, but rather a storewide discount, and two offers from Home Depot for playsets. Under each item was the option to "add to list," which creates a printable list that consumers can take shopping with them to remember what to buy. Under one Home Depot item was the option to "buy online," which didn't sound much like local shopping to me. I clicked on it and found that I could indeed order my playset online. Why do I already feel that ShopLocal may be missing the point?

The other thing I quickly learned about ShopLocal is that it is focused on special offers. Click on a category and you'll be presented with an eclectic list of whatever the various merchants in the category happen to be featuring at that moment -- sort of a giant electronic yard sale. Maybe you want these things, maybe you don't. The classification taxonomy appears to be a work in progress. Under the general heading of "automotive accessories" were only four sub-categories, one highly specific one for "power inverters," two much more general ones and one for "miscellaneous." It's not fatal, but if the site grows, this could quickly become a mess. What's really surprising is that the site doesn't allow users to print coupons to build involvement and help retailers track response -- it merely generates a simple shopping list.

One thing I liked about ShopLocal is that you can attach your email address to any store, brand or category and receive weekly emails with current specials. That's smart marketing, pushing special offers to targeted consumers, but in a way, the power of this feature really makes the rest of the site seem unnecessary.

What I saw with ShopLocal was a national site, utterly devoid of local personality and in no way leveraging or complementing the local paper. The fact that ShopLocal had no local merchants (at least in Philadelphia) I will attribute to its recent launch. However, this is a trap that's befallen other putative local shopping sites --- bringing on true local merchants is a pain compared to selling the big national chains, so guess what: they don't. So ShopLocal's commitment to local shopping will need to be proven over the next few months.

The press release for ShopLocal notes that its mission is to marry online research to offline shopping, making its many convenient links to online ordering a bit mysterious. The press releases also positions ShopLocal as saving the consumer from having to go to numerous different Web sites to find the best deals. But since ShopLocal only lists sale items, it will be a very long time before it has enough mass to present a real comparative shopping experience to consumers.

Another failed online venture by the newspaper industry? Perhaps not. The most interesting thing about the launch of ShopLocal was the sentence in the press release stating "...in the coming months, we expect to announce additional network partners such as portals, online directories, and other newspaper publishers." Will ShopLocal soon be sporting local yellow pages listings? Maybe the newspapers do get it after all.