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| Sunday, September 30, 2007 |
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By John Blossom - posted at 11:16 PM |
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| Friday, September 28, 2007 |
  One of the key product introductions that raised some dust at this year's Infocommerce conference was Generate's new gClick service, which was also introduced simultaneously at the DEMO07 conference by Generate CEO Tom Aley. gClick on one level is a prety simple content contextualization tool: click on a gClick link embedded in a page or Browser bar and Generate's gClick service will extract events, people and company names from a displayed page and return in a popup page content from Generate's business information database that relates to those extracted entities. gClick content includes not only straight profiles but also hooks into Generate's opt-in relationship mapping service to accelerate introductions to key figures. Tom indicated that Generate is going to launch an enterprise version of the tool next week, but he already had his media-flavor pitch down pretty pat: generate high-value page inventory on demand, brand the link tool privately or co-brand it - a good amount of curb appeal to those with business-oriented content, including Generate's announced gClick partners Hearst's magazines and newspapers, Bizjournals, Media News Group and Philly.com. The option to do a page-embedded include link to gClick similar to Sphere or Stumbleupon as well as the ability to use a browser toolbar is a smart move, enabling partners to move on a relationship without having to figure out screen real estate issues. This is one of the downside of widgets for many publishers: there's only so much screen real estate, all of it precious, and since most embeddable content can't be analyzed by search engines it's not content that will help crawlers to sense the added depth in a page. So the lighter the footprint, the easier it is to move quickly, as evidenced by Sphere's rapid propagation. None of this is rocket science, but it's science that's finally beginning to move markets for contextual content at an astounding pace. Just as Google has snatched up valuable context for content via its search results, mapping tools and mashing technologies Generate is making a first-mover claim for on-demand contextual business information that may help it to move rapidly past traditional aggregators used to building context around business information using licensed content in their own databases. Instead of relying on taxonomies or other semantic tools the gClick approach enables any page of content to provide the semantics necessary to contextualize business information on demand. It's a clever move, one that can highlight the strengths of Generate's business information wherever audiences are focusing automatically. This "searchless search" capability with near-zero setup allows virtual aggregation of all kinds of content - and therefore opportunities for all kinds of database providers to consider how to partner with media and enterprise companies to gain a foothold for high-value content in places where traditional licensing deals can no longer make swift headway. The proof of this play will be in the quality of the content as much as the context, but for now consider the dealmaking of Generate combined with a clever use of its text mining capabilities a nifty little coup that's well-timed for a publishing market in search of more value in publishing with as little direct investment as possible. Labels: Business Information, Business Intelligence, DEMO07, embedding, Generate, Infocommerce
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By John Blossom - posted at 4:41 PM |
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 The Alacra Store sells a wide variety of high-grade research reports targeted at business information consumers across a wide variety of business sectors, but like many premium content plays it's not always easy to get people enthused about new research offerings. Some services market content proactively via telemarketing forces and push out traditional press releases to beat the drum for new premium reports, but with their awareness and enthusiasm for Web 2.0 technologies it's not surprising that Alacra opted to launch Research Recap, a weblog highlighting recent additions of reports to the Alacra Store. Research Recap is based on standard WordPress weblogging technology and features some of the nicer capabilities of that service, including a handy tag cloud that helps people see what research topics are hot, category-based navigation and RSS feeds. The feed is particularly important for analysts and business intelligence professionals who want to get tuned into the latest research as efficiently as possible: instead of having to slog through press release feeds with lots of unrelated topics or deal with search engine alerts filters that can find documents but not necessarily recommend the most significant content a weblog of editorial recommendations can focus potential buyers on the content that's not only pertinent but also provide insights into the content in an editorial style that is more engaging than your usual report abstract. It turns newsworthy research into news right away, rather than having to wait for a journalist to get a press release packaged into a more readable format with an editorial voice. You may not sell premium research every one who reads a summary (2/3 of Research Recap reports profiled are free) but by packaging the summary as a highly readable blog you establish a conversation with your markets that's more likely to result in research getting the context that will lead to more report sales. We've been doing the same for quite a few years, so it's a positive development to see a company like Alacra putting their beliefs and talents on the line to build both great newsworthy content and better sales channels. Labels: alacra, blogs, First Research, reports, research recap, Web 2.0 Expo, weblogs
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By John Blossom - posted at 12:39 PM |
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| Thursday, September 27, 2007 |
 I have enjoyed using the Compete.com traffic analysis service, which provides some useful data to compare Web site traffic performance more accurately and finely than the oft-bashed Alexa statistics. While Compete offers a more limited range of sites for analysis and only a year's worth of data to mull through it's able to track real visitors, audience engagement and growth with more meaningful data. On the Compete blog recently was a post that looked at how major search engines are performing in comparison to one another for both traffic and performance. While Google leads Yahoo and Microsoft with 67 percent of market share, the Compete stats claim that Yahoo comes out on top in terms of search fulfillment - the percentage of searches that actually result in someone clicking on a link in a search results page. Compete claims that Yahoo's search fulfillment rate is 75 percent, compared with Google's 64 percent and Microsoft's 61 percent. Does this mean that Yahoo's search results are more "clickable" than Yahoo's? Maybe so, but it's a rather ambiguous claim to make. One has to assume that with only 20 percent of people using Yahoo for searching to start with that a minority find its search results to be more useful than Google's. So for that minority they seem to use them more effectively. Overall, Yahoo searches are more optimized for people in a purchasing mode than Google search results, which tend to be optimized more for people seeing general information. With this in mind it could be that Yahoo tends to lead shoppers somewhat more specifically to product information that they're seeking - a factor that's likely to attract the brand advertisers that are at the core of Yahoo's marketing strategy. Yahoo search benefits from doing fewer things better for fewer people, but Compete also shows that Yahoo as a whole performs far better than Google in the total attention that it gets from audiences:  While Yahoo's strong destination content helps to bolster its attention ratings it's losing ground to Microsoft in total page views as Microsoft bolsters its Live.com search engine:  In the middle of this is Google, still the overall search leader but beginning to stagnate as a destination as other search-oriented sites bolster content that transforms search portals more into destination content sites. Google has these abilities also but focuses more on solving a broader array of requirements for a broader search audience. Google also has more partners using its search technology as well as mashups and other API-based services so to some degree the Compete statistics are not revealing the full strength of Google's market presence. Google's growth as a destination search engine may have slowed, but its presence as a technology platform that influences where and how people find content in valuable contexts is growing in highly profitable directions. All of this should serve to remind us that there is no longer one clear answer to how to create marketable value through search. You can focus on becoming more portal-like, you can focus on being more embeddable, you can focus more on a specific function such as ecommerce or you can focus on a range of functions - but regardless of the focus it's no longer a matter of just having great ranking algorithms or great server farms. Search has become just one of many tools for contextualizing Web content effectively on demand, one that will continue to grow in importance but just one tool in an arsenal of methods to be used for more effective audience engagement. Labels: Compete.com, Google, Microsoft, search, Yahoo
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By John Blossom - posted at 5:29 PM |
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By John Blossom - posted at 3:06 PM |
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| Wednesday, September 26, 2007 |
 It seems kind of silly beyond a certain point to call Amazon's launching of an MP3 store news, but with about 2 million audio tracks available for 99 cents or less and reduced-price album downloads it's at least significant that major content vendors are beginning to offer what consumers have been creating themselves for years. The delay in both music publishers and content distributors accepting that cross-platform, DRM-free music distribution via the common MP3 file format was already the de facto standard of the music industry from a consumer's perspective has to be one of the most monumental strategic blunders in publishing history. After years of struggling against MP3s with lawsuits, DRM schemes and other ineffective techniques to persuade the marketplace otherwise it took Apple's proprietary lock on music distribution via its own DRM scheme to awaken at least some music publishers to the need to let consumers be customers and not just licensees. The real enemy of the music industry is not music copying but consumer attention. With social media, games, mobile devices and online video capturing more of the music industry market's attention span it no longer pays to limit the ability of consumers to move their basic content to where it's valued the most. MP3s enable music and other audio to move quickly and efficiently into to social contexts that are most likely to create consumer enthusiasm for a product quickly when it first gains attention and popularity and enables " long tail" content to get the exposure that it needs to allow consumers to get enthusiasm that will lead to purchases. Amazon's recommendation system is ideal for such purchasers, enabling content that would otherwise be obscure to become immediately relevant to a browser turned on to an artist that they had not known previously. From that point on out it's up to music producers to become more intelligent about how they merchandise the talents and following of an artist to maximize revenues, but singles sales are a great starting point. With Microsoft and others investigating audio watermarking capabilities it won't be too long before the ability to distribute audio content without DRM and with appropriate audit trails for copyright abuse becomes the industry standard across the board - a factor which should enable music companies to begin to take full advantage of the Web's radio-like ability to broadcast enthusiasm for artists effectively. As to whether the leaders in music publishing will remain the ususal suspects remains to be seen, but by adopting MP3s as a default distribution medium for radio-quality audio they stand a chance on reinventing themselves in time for the next generation of music lovers. Labels: amazon, apple, DRM, MP3, music
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By John Blossom - posted at 8:35 AM |
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By John Blossom - posted at 1:09 AM |
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| Tuesday, September 25, 2007 |
Trends It's official - you can't build Web revenues around news content that search and social media can't access... Times to Stop Charging for Parts of Its Web Site The New York Times (no *!) Murdoch makes case for free WSJ online Reuters via Yahoo! News Online Newspapers Grab Ad Spending eMarketer Making getting content and ads in user defined contexts more important than ever before... Information-Rich, Interactive, Engaging, Portable - These Are The New Google Gadgets Ads Robin Good Content is Dead. Community is King Now Search Engine Guide As the king of context prepares new heights to crown... Google hits all-time high amid flurry of upbeat news MarketWatch Google Extends Search Lead Over Yahoo, Nielsen Says Bloomberg News Google phone rumors heat up Crave Google Launches AdSense for Mobile InformationWeek Google To “Out Open” Facebook On November 5 TechCrunch GoogleNET Going Global GigaOM Google seeks EU approval to buy DoubleClick Reuters via CNET News Google Boasts Display Ads Raise Viewership Online And Off paidContent.org Making it that much harder to figure out what to do with portal aggregation models... Neutron Randy Vaporizes AOL The New York Times Dick Parsons, CEO, Time Warner: No Spinoff Of AOL Yet paidContent.org News Corp. Plans to Save $100 Million From Dow Jones Bloomberg News And that much more important to get content in the contexts that audiences want... NBC to offer a free video download service The New York Times Facebook backs fund to help find new apps Mercury News Digg turns its social networking up a few notches CNET News With SaaS building momentum enterprise content services and technologies face growing competition... Salesforce targets enterprise content management VNUNet Salesforce to Launch Community Platform for Clients Mashable Media companies start to wrestle with how to give audiences more flexible use of premium content... Macrovision: Legal DVD Copying On Deck IBD via CNN Money DVD burning finally approved Content Agenda One Anti-Piracy System to Rule Them All The New York Times If you can't beat them on the facts baffle them with a push to sway opinion makers and lawmakers... Traditional Journal Publishers' Anti-Open-Access PR Plan Revealed Wired Science Print remains a robust medium as a fashion accessory for focused communities...Magazines Eclipse Newspapers in Ad Revenue Share FOLIO: Magazine Big bets are still being placed on social media but in many instances it's the small bets that pay off best... Yahoo adds wiki twist to Mash VNUNet MySpace to Discuss Effort to Customize Ads The New York Times Why Some Web 2.0 Sites Will Never Attract Big Ad Dollars Micro Persuasion With the Web economy a mainstay of the American economy lawmakers consider how to help it grow... U.S. Senate considers extending internet tax ban Download Squad FCC: What to do with unused spectrum? CNET News Trade music for marketing information? Sounds like a great idea - if it actually works...First Look: SpiralFrog Offers Free Music with a Hefty Price PC World Turns out that Web talking heads shouldn't confuse themselves with the production talent... Amanda Congdon and ABC Part Ways The New York Times In other major trends in content this week... Gannett Planning Newspaper Size Reduction At Several Papers Editor & Publisher Zillow Raises $30 Million More, Up To $87 Million in Venture Capital TechCrunch Man files best lawsuit ever against Google Download Squad Alfred A Knopf: How the great literary publisher proved to be the great rejecter The Independent China: Net spy damage has been 'massive' Reuters via CNET Best Practices User Generated Content on Social Networking Sites Set to Go Pro and Boost Broadband Penetration Newswire Business Intelligence: One Version of the Truth Computerworld Semantic Web: Difficulties with the Classic Approach Read/Write Web Study: Internet Access at Libraries Crucial, but Lagging Library Journal Study says DRM counters Canadian privacy laws IT World Canada Comparing Mobile Ads In Google & Yahoo Search Engine Land How to Data Mine Google Reader Feeds for Trends Micro Persuasion Peer Review and a Proposal for Revision E Pluribus Media Economist Confused About the Semantic Web? O'Reilly Radar Bill Gates, the man with the remotest idea to change lives Fairfax Digital Cool Tools Reuters Labs Launches Search People in Video Feature Mashable Yahoo Launches Map Mixer: Make Your Map O'Reilly Radar Hey Nielsen: Influence the Ratings through Social Networking Mashable NoseRub.com - Decentralising Social Networks Killer Startups Patent App would trigger Zune downloads based on user’s musical preferences ZDNet Bob Dylan’s Facebook App Rocks Mashable Google debuts ad creation tool for newspaper print ads BtoB Online Learn to speak a foreign language with Mango Download Squad Google Expands Google Gadget Ads For Advertisers Beta Search Engine Land NASA, Google Bring More of the Moon to Earth PC World iPhone Heads to Germany TheStreet.com / Content Agenda No more wallet needed with MobiBucks Download Squad Google Offers 'Collaboration in the Cloud' eWeek
Deals, Partnerships & Sales Mark Logic and Trinity Technologies Partner to Deliver XML Technology to Financial Services Industry Marketwire Cygnus Business Media Deploys iCopyright on 60 Web Sites Marketwire VMS Selects Autonomy to Support Real-Time Media
Intelligence PR Newswire Hearst Acquires 'Real Age' FOLIO: Magazine Products, Markets & People Alacra Launches Research Recap Ad Hoc News Pearson Helps Break World Record for Largest Shared Reading Experience PR Newswire MSN and Variety Forge Distribution Relationship PR Newswire via CNN Money Multiply Selects Omniture to Enhance the Social Networking Experience Marketwire via CNN Money Borders(R) and Sony(R) Team Up to Promote e-books PR Newswire via CNN Money Tacit Software's illumio Upgrade Makes Sharing Knowledge and Monitor News, Blogs, and Wikis Easy PRWeb Thomas Technology Solutions and ThomComp, Inc. Merge to Form Content Data Solutions, Inc. BusinessWire John Wiley & Sons Ltd: Wiley-Blackwell to Publish Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine Trading Markets Business Objects Launches BI OnDemand Intelligent Enterprise InfoUSA to compile U.K. database BtoB Online Referex eBooks Database Launches 3 New Collections And Over 900 Additional Titles WebWire Google Formally Introduces AdSense For Mobile Search Engine Land Labels: summaries
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By John Blossom - posted at 11:21 PM |
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| Saturday, September 22, 2007 |
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By John Blossom - posted at 1:04 AM |
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| Thursday, September 20, 2007 |
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By John Blossom - posted at 11:40 PM |
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By John Blossom - posted at 1:23 AM |
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| Tuesday, September 18, 2007 |
