TrendAlert: The New Frontier – “Web Content Phase 2” Creates New Competitive Playing Field

This Briefing outlines an emerging trend in what we are calling Web Content Phase 2: creating new content from the Web rather than just 'tracking' the Web or using it to 'operationalize' the publishing business. In this phase, the Web itself has begun to create content in fresh and interesting ways; coupled with the right technology, this allows for new firms to emerge and traditional firms to reinvent themselves. The Briefing identifies three different flavors of this new content creation movement: companies like Eliyon that harvest information from the Web and reformat it into new products; companies like Nielsen//NetRatings and DoubleClick that have moved from merely counting clicks and page accesses to tracking behaviors of Web users; and companies like eBay that are creating marketable information products as a by-product of transactional data generated from the buying patterns of millions of users. The Briefing identifies models and provides examples of these emerging content businesses, and includes a table of 14 players and their attributes. For commercial content vendors, the Briefing identifies a range of possibilities for new products, and suggests likely partnership prospects for various kinds of players. For information management professionals, it suggests looking into some of these new products as cost-effective alternatives to traditional market research offerings.