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An inside look at trends, issues and products in the world of suppliers and aggregators providing cross-sector B2B content capabilities.
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ContentBloggerTM - Business Content Suppliers and Aggregators |
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| Wednesday, May 19, 2004 |
Shore Headlines Test
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posted by John Blossom at
10:13 PM |
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| Monday, February 09, 2004 |
The Other Shoe Drops: ValueAct Offers to Take OneSource Private
Business content aggregator OneSource Information Services, Inc. announced that it has received an unsolicited letter from its 32 percent stockholder ValueAct Capital stating that ValueAct is willing to buy outstanding shares of OneSource stock at USD 8.10 a share; as of this afternoon, shares were trading steadily on NASDAQ at about USD 7.82, recovering from an earlier plunge after OneSource's earnings announcement on 5 February. ValueAct had made rattling noises that it was becoming uninterested in taking OneSource private, but when the special committee reported back to the board that there were no other takers for a buyout, ValueAct made an offer. Is it an offer that OneSource can't refuse? With former CEO Dan Schimmel having bowed out, the way seems to be clear for a new direction at OneSource, one that could require changes in direction that may not please public investors in the short run. Going private at this point might be just the thing to allow OneSource to get some time to spark that new direction, but it will take some time to see if the atmosphere that ValueAct creates is really going to be positive enough to let such a transformation occur. Here's hoping for the best.
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posted by John Blossom at
4:08 PM |
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| Tuesday, January 27, 2004 |
Alacritude Dims, HighBeam Research Takes to the Road
Paula Hane of Information Today covers the name conversion of Alacritude to HighBeam Research, finally putting to bed the glaring similarity of naming to unrelated content aggregator Alacra. Different name, same game? I had a few minutes to catch up with HighBeam CEO Patrick Spain at the SIIA Global Briefing last night, and while it's still pretty much the same target market they're pursuing, the addition of "Research" to the company name is no accident. HighBeam is trying to define a research product positioned with the ease of a Google or Ask Jeeves but with content and features that can introduce professionals and nonprofessionals alike into a higher level of appreciation for what a really useful research tool can do. The interface is extremely friendly and well-developed. combining basic bone simplicity with the ability to use advanced features in a very intuitive manner. HighBeam is very sensibly positioned in a manner to attract people who are looking for something with a little more depth but who are afraid of feeling incompetent or frustrated with more sophisticated tools. That includes a lot of students professionals who are either independents or behind the firewall and looking to get at information more easily. There are a few nits yet to be worked out in the interface yet- would be nice to have help topics on the advanced search page to tell people who wouldn't know what a natural language or boolean search was if it walked up and kissed them - and contextual ads will probably come in time, but overall HighBeam has turned an ugly duckling into a swan that's ready to stretch its wings.
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posted by John Blossom at
6:37 AM |
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| Sunday, January 25, 2004 |
Businesses and Taxonomies: Some Clues Courtesy of Convera
How interested are businesses in taxonomies? A recent Convera seminar provided a few clues. The free event itself, held in the stylish surroundings of the Union Square W Hotel in New York, was far from oversubscribed. Perhaps this in itself is one very unscientific measure, given the quality of the speakers and Convera's top-notch hospitality. The first speaker, Dr. Rita Knox of Gartner, provided some better-baked evidence. The subject of taxonomies for organizing and retrieving company content more efficiently is coming up with increased frequency in the course of her discussions with vendors and clients alike. There would certainly appear to be some powerful drivers. As well as familiar arguments about knowledge-worker productivity, Dr. Knox cites Sarbanes-Oxley compliance as a big influence on financial companies. Still, Gartner does not exactly see taxonomies as a shoo-in for The Next Big Thing. It's Strategic Planning Assumption is a '0.6 probability' that in a year or two '25 percent of new search installations will incorporate automatic categorization and hierarchical ordering of information through taxonomies'. The main inhibitor to the adoption of taxonomies will be a lack of understanding of their benefits. Another industry expert, Tom Reamy of The Kaps Group, also sounded a note of caution. Surveys indicate that 76% of respondents think taxonomies important, he said, and 90% intend to have a taxonomy strategy within 24 months (as an aside, you wonder why 14% plan a strategy for an 'unimportant' development). Reamy cautions, though, that the term 'taxonomy' may cover a multitude of aims, including inventories, catalogs, metadata, and other non-taxonomy stuff. It certainly seems to this blogger that, if the objective is to win management buy-in, external pressure to meet customer expectations, or the demands of Sarbanes-Oxley, is much more likely to be effective than rather nebulous assertions of the benefits of efficient search on productivity. And what about the taxonomies marketed by major content vendors like LexisNexis and Factiva? Recent Shore research pointed to the relatively slow progress they are making in the market. Gartner's speaker was unaware of the offerings. A marketing challenge ahead, for sure.
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posted by Robert McWilliams at
9:28 PM |
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| Tuesday, January 13, 2004 |
ValueAct Wavers on Press to Take OneSource Private: Good or Bad Idea?
In a recent SEC filing OneSource Information Services Inc. provided a letter from minority (32%) shareholder ValueAct Capital that began to qualify ValueAct's desire to take OneSource private and urged completion of an internal review by OneSource management to consider such a move, according to WSJ Online. ValueAct has been pushing for this review since last fall, but in its filed letter ValueAct partner George Hamel, Jr. notes that "Recognizing the passage of time, the level of interest we indicated more than three months ago has become stale." OneSource's Q403 earnings announcement on 5 February apparently will tell the tale of what ValueAct intends to do next. OneSource has been profitable for several years and steady with net revenues of about $4.5 million in 2001 and 2002, but in 2003 it began to see revenues slip back from its institutional subscription-based products, in spite of increased aggressiveness with its Catalyst Web services integration modules via CRM suppliers. OneSource continues to make strides in content quality assurance and other core strengths, but their model is still based solely on large-scale institutional subscriptions, which tends to limit the degree to which they can take advantage of relationships with individuals, professional services teams and small businesses who are more willing and able to consume business content in more limited ways. Compare and contrast this with Dun & Bradstreet's Hoover's property, which re-tiered their business model in '03 to pull back yet more content from their public side in favor of targeting larger clients but still offered small-scale licensing and D&B report add-ons. The challenge for OneSource is to continue to improve its premium quality assurance processes across multiple content sources while engaging extensions of its existing business model to fend off Hoover's advances into ever-larger portions of its home turf subscriptions with more structured content capsules and broadening editorial coverage. At the same time other players such as LexisNexis, Dialog and Factiva have also developed more flexible subscription models for their broader portfolios of content.
The bottom line is that while OneSource continues to be a profitable and stable company, it's understandable that its core investors who were counting on more aggressive growth shaking off recessionary trends are getting nervous about its prospects in a market that favors a broader array of business models for success. While it's far from clear that taking the company private in and of itself will solve these issues, the go-go IPO trend of the late 1990s may have put OneSource in the unfortunate position of having to concentrate on stable earnings prematurely in a period when the content business has been undergoing radical changes that required more aggressive development and marketing efforts. Regardless of whether it returns to private ownership or bites the bullet in the public marketplace, OneSource will need to consider how to position its considerable assets across more segments and sub-segments to fend off competition from above and below. The disruption in going private may not outweigh the turmoil to effect these changes in a public ownership venue if there's a strong commitment to undertake them, but if that commitment is not forthcoming, there may be no other good option. OneSource management is preparing materials that may provide some management responses to this situation, we'lll keep you posted.
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posted by John Blossom at
4:13 PM |
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New Content and Tools for EDGAR Online Pro
On January 5th EDGAR Online announced the addition of conference call transcripts, company webcasts and an events calendar to its EDGAR Online Pro service. Yesterday, I spoke with Jay Sears, EDGAR's SVP of Business and Strategy Development, about the enhancements, and how they fit with EDGAR's wider plans. Last week's announcement follows up on a key statement last October, announcing the addition of new content and tools to EDGAR Online Pro, and the targeting of that service at the financial sector. The financial services industry is now clearly EDGAR's core market, with the corporate and securities law areas taking something of a backseat. The transcripts, webcast and events information aims to make it easier for customers to track new corporate communications efforts undertaken in the wake of the Sarbanes-Oxley act and Regulation Fair Disclosure. Particularly at the height of the earnings season, it is just not possible for analysts to take part in all relevant conference calls. According to Sears, EDGAR will provide transcripts (sourced from partner CallStreet) for all 'major' companies, and has established a high correlation with companies already tracked by EDGAR Online Pro users. Transcripts are published in full within hours of the event, but may be released earlier in 'raw' versions. The transcripts are complemented with a corporate events calendar provided by another EDGAR partner, OpenCompany.info, and also through links to audio webcasts. All of this looks like plenty of useful new content and tools for EDGAR's users, but will it add to EDGAR's bottom line? EDGAR relies on customers' willingness to pay for improved usability of publicly available information, often a tough task. Sears points out, however, that EDGAR has made enormous strides over the past few years in making its core SEC content 'actionable and 'easy-to-use'. The challenge is to make that constantly apparent to the market. Further additions of content and tools around EDGAR's core markets and data sets are likely to be seen in the future.
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posted by Robert McWilliams at
3:55 PM |
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| Monday, December 22, 2003 |
Marie Giangrande Moves On from EDGAR Online
Heard in the wind this morning, Marie Giangrande has moved on recently from her senior marketing role at EDGAR Online, a supplier of business content and integration tools centered on SEC filings coming via their EDGAR feed. Marie took on the senior marketing role this spring in the wake of housecleaning at the Norwalk, CT based firm that took in its wake former President and COO Tom Vos. The reasons for Marie's departure are not under our fingernails just yet, but we'll keep you posted as information becomes available. Certainly EDGAR Online and other filings value-add providers have a tough row to hoe as the public SEC Web site has grown in its basic retrieval capabilites and filings information becomes integrated into broader workflow-oriented business and financial information products. It takes a broad array of contextual content and cutting-edge integration capabilities to make the most of freely available content; hopefully EDGAR Online can continue to refine their targeting to take advantage of the sweet spots left in this sector.
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posted by John Blossom at
12:35 PM |
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| Wednesday, December 17, 2003 |
Amazon's Shifting Role: A Lesson for Aggregators?
BusinessWeek reports on Amazon's ongoing transformation into a company that makes money as much on providing ecommerce technology and infrastructure to other companies as it does for its own sales - a trend that BW likens to a shopping mall that's developed and owned by one of its anchor stores. It's really the same aggregation business that majors such as Dialog, Factiva, LexisNexis and others have been providing for some time, a business that requires aggregators to provide a range of technology services to its publishing clients to enable content ecommerce. The emphasis on independent portal technology is perhaps a little more akin to the likes of ECNext, which services research providers with common infrastructure and independently designed and branded outlets for their content. And of course we pause for a moment of silence to remember Verticalnet...there, was that long enough? The difference between Amazon and all of these approaches is Amazon's willingness to take an "eat your own dog food", peer-like approach to providing the enabling technology, something that most publishers have been reluctant to do, given their historic reliance on aggregators who are supposed to simplify these matters for them. But in this world of "hands on" content ecommerce, the model to watch for premium content may be more akin to Amazon's as time goes on, bringing technological and content "co-opetition" to a new level.
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posted by John Blossom at
11:37 AM |
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