As some of the world’s finest newspapers flock to make their content freely available online, information professionals and end-users could be forgiven for thinking there’s little point in spending any of their depleted budgets on subscriptions to news aggregators. But in discussions with information professionals at leading corporations and the vendors themselves, IWR has discovered that the aggregation market is still alive and kicking.

Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch got the ball rolling earlier this year when he put in his ultimately successful bid for the Dow Jones group, which owns the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and aggregator Factiva. Throughout his discussions with the US publisher, Murdoch said he envisaged the WSJ becoming a free news resource. As the deal neared completion, WSJ rival the New York Times dropped its Times Select subscription service and made access to its historic archive and columnists free.
In early October the Financial Times introduced two new packages. The main FT.com website now allows visitors to view up to 30 articles a month for no fee and only a simple level of registration.

“The figure of 30 is not random,” says Ien Cheng, FT.com publisher. “We have studied carefully how people come to the site.” Cheng says bloggers will now be able to link to FT content more readily.

The pink paper has also announced a new corporate content licence. Organisations with more than 10 employees can pay an annual fee to receive the FT in any form they wish ­ the newspaper, through a personal digital assistant (PDA), or online.

Freebie force

So are the aggregators concerned about the new free news websites?
“These developments are about publishers, especially if they have a significant print product, looking for the best way forward in a time of great change,” says Simon Alterman, senior vice president of business development at Dow Jones’ enterprise media group.

Aneil Rakity at online information provider LexisNexis agrees. “The traditional newspaper business faces a lot of challenges for subscriptions. They have to have a healthy business model. As yet there is not one that works best for every one of them.”

Alterman and Rakity both believe that aggregators have a vested interest in supporting online newspapers.

“The health of our business is dependent on the health of theirs,” Rakity says. “I don’t expect to see a trade-off. The FT is looking to emphasise the value of its content.”

Information professionals comparing the services they get from aggregators and newspapers side with the aggregators for the depth and variety of their coverage. As one of them puts it: the WSJ is not easy to read and doesn’t have a usable website. “The news sites are no competitor to aggregators,” says an info pro at a major European bank.

The aggregator model grew out of a need for major corporations to be able to view a wide variety of news and information sources and to discover and drill down into that information easily. It’s a model that the two main players, Factiva and LexisNexis, still believe is imperative for corporations to buy into.

“Aggregators put it all together as a one-stop-shop,” says Rakity. Alterman adds that the market is changing subtly.

“The simple fact of access to the content is not enough ­ you have to add value,” he says. He points out that the newspapers are just the latest addition to a continuing trend of free information available over the internet. Factiva not only uploads newspapers and business magazines, but incorporates web-only content resources into its search results.

Rakity says subscribers are not about to ditch aggregators and focus on free news sites because they don’t know the whereabouts of the information they need. “Often you don’t know if the story you once saw or need is from the Guardian, the Times or the Wall Street Journal.” He says this is highlighted by LexisNexis’ largest group of customers ­ the media companies: “They value the search and the consistency of information discovery.”

Factiva first

Among the information professionals that IWR talked to, Factiva emerges as the clear favourite.

One info pro at a European bank is highly critical of LexisNexis, describing it as slow, badly indexed and cumbersome: “The partners hated it.” He thinks a major flaw in the site is its geographic index, which starts with Antarctica. “Where is there any business activity there?” he asks. Many highlight the speed of Factiva and its good design.

LexisNexis and Factiva are confident that their strategies of focusing on specific applications are working. LexisNexis now offers Datops, an analysis tool that provides organisations with a scorecard of how they are being reported in the media. Rakity says Datops has been well received by decision-makers in major insurance companies.

Alterman says Factiva’s strategy of offering services based on job roles, such as SalesWorks and Companies & Executives, is a reflection that “information needs are often very different”.