AGGREGATING CONTENT FOR THE CORPORATE USER: A shift in the power base?

Overview

• Licensing content to a range of different aggregators has provided a steady, comfortable revenue stream for many content providers over the last couple of decades.

• Aggregators themselves have always struggled to achieve impressive margins because:
  • content providers squeeze them on royalties;

  • selling major subscriptions into large organisations is a complicated process;

  • engaging in a technological arms race with competitors is expensive.

• Aggregators serving corporate markets have begun to target end users rather than information professionals as the recipients of their content, exploiting the widespread use of intranets.

• There is also now a focus on integrating aggregated content with the workflow systems around which end users build their working day.

• Different types of aggregators are distinguished by:
  • the types of technology used to deliver content;

  • the nature of the customer;

  • the type of content aggregated on the service.

• Varieties of aggregators include:
  • Online hosts such as Dialog NewsEdge, STN, Questel.Orbit and LexisNexis;

  • Web-based aggregators aimed at corporates, including Factiva, LexisNexis, Westlaw, Ovid, OneSource, the Financial Times and Dialog;

  • Library-focused aggregators including ProQuest and Gale;

  • Document delivery aggregators including the British Library, Infotrieve and OCLC;

  • Hosts of aggregated journals content such as Extenza, Metapress and Ingenta;

  • Aggregators of freely available content (typically news) including Pinnacor, Google News, Northern Light, Moreover and NewsNow.

The business models

For the content provider

• A royalty rate which depends on:
  • how valuable the content provider?s brand is to the service;

  • how much content they provide;

  • the intrinsic value of the content provided.

• Some content providers have been able to negotiate a guaranteed minimum so that they can budget for the amount that they will receive from aggregators.

• Some aggregators such as OneSource negotiate a flat fee for content providers on an annual or monthly basis.

For the subscribing organisation

• Pricing tiers based on service usage. Once a client company reaches a certain usage watershed, its subscription moves up into a higher tier.

• A flat rate for a whole client company (this model is used by OneSource, for example).

• Connection-time-based or value-based charging models are used by companies such as Dialog.

Benefits and problems for content providers working with aggregators

Benefits

• Aggregators are experienced at understanding and meeting customer expectations: their business lies in driving the right content to the right user rather than in creating content.

• Content users? requirements may be summarised as follows:
  • Quality of content;

  • Quantity of material to search through;

  • Searchability (being able to find what they are looking for);

  • Serendipity (being able to find what they need);

  • Interoperability with internal systems and other applications;

  • Currency of content - it must be up-to-date; and

  • Timeliness of content - it should ideally be available immediately.

• Aggregators derive the upper hand from the quantity and variety of quality assets that the aggregator can promise the client.

• Breadth of content is achieved by the many agreements that aggregators hold - Ovid alone has around 127 content provider relationships

• Timeliness and currency are key to end-user needs - content providers do not have the technology and infrastructure to drive content items to multiple sources within minutes.

• Aggregators add value to the data they receive by tagging and categorisation.

• Aggregators are learning how to integrate external content into the day-to-day workflow of its customers.