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Breaking News
Posted 30 Jun 2009
Posted 30 Jun 2009
Posted 30 Jun 2009
Posted 26 Jun 2009
Posted 26 Jun 2009
News Features
Most of the country has been looking at President Obama's stimulus package and wondering just what's in it for them. Among the millions of people wondering what economic relief might come their way are researchers—people whose success, and sometimes their jobs, rely on government funding. With $10 billion earmarked for the NIH and another $3 billion of stimulus funds set aside for the National Science Foundation, researchers will be scrambling to compete for the highly sought-after funds.
For decades, the fee versus free debate has carried on—with content industry players digging in deep at each end of the spectrum. Yet a more moderate model seems to be emerging: freemium. While not an entirely new concept in other sectors, traditional content players have only recently begun to leverage the business model in which the owner or service provider offers basic features to users at no cost and charges a premium for supplemental or advanced features. The term, which combines the words free and premium, was coined by Jarid Lukin of Alacra in 2006 after venture capitalist Fred Wilson developed the concept. With the launch of its Alacra Street Pulse product this week, the company is drinking its own catchphrase Kool-Aid.
The French search company Exalead has long maintained a reputation for the scalability of its OEM solutions. With the Jan. 26 release of the 5.0 version of its CloudView OEM Edition, the company has once again aimed to make strides in this area in order to enable organizations large and small to manage their information more effectively.
An idea that has been years in the making will finally come to fruition at the ALA Midwinter Conference, Jan. 23-26, in Denver. A new, online open access journal called Collaborative Librarianship will see its inaugural issue be released to the public at the conference; and it should be no surprise that working together is at the heart of this project.
Investors never stray very far from their favorite source of financial news. Whether it comes in over the internet, their BlackBerries, or even old-fashioned newspapers, getting business information from Bangladesh to Boston before it becomes old news is a big business in its own right.
Featured Stories
As we enter 2009, it's clear to any reputable scientist that our planet is in peril. Individuals and institutions alike—have begun to look at ways to reduce our impact on the planet. The publishing industry is no different, and there are a number of ways that it is working to minimize its negative impact.
Take a closer look at ProQuest, one of the 12 companies that inspired the most banter among the EContent 100 judges during the voting process.
Above all, search is about finding information, be it about a product or a bit of data essential for closing a deal. Thus, content providers leverage dynamic navigation to better lead customers to what they are looking for.
A closer look at Newstex, which doesn't add just any old blog to its network.
These five case studies explore the day-to-day impact of digital content on the way people really work. They demonstrate the transformative power of econtent on the way we create, collaborate, and connect.
Product Reviews
I appreciate one of NoteScribe's taglines: Save a Forest, NoteScribe It! because it advocates saving paper by taking and storing notes online. But I'd add another phrase: Save your Sanity, NoteScribe It! because this excellent program allows you to organize your notes by categories, keywords, and sources; add files from a variety of formats; and find your notes quickly and painlessly.
The world is an oyster for Euromonitor Passport subscribers. Whether it is gauging the market potential for baby food in Greece, identifying acquisition targets in Poland, or evaluating Chile's suitability as a manufacturing location, Passport is the Mercedes of business intelligence on industries, countries, and consumers.
When I reviewed Referenceware by Books24x7, I felt like a kid in a candy store. As a former reference librarian and a lifelong knowledge junkie, I loved having quick access to a wide variety of quality reference material from my computer. On an enterprise level, Referenceware is a great way to provide employees with the information they need, when they need it and where they need it.
Hoover's deserves a round of applause for completing its tenth anniversary on the web. Since its debut as a business portal in 1995, Hoover's has been one of the first sites consulted for business information by thousands of searchers. With the "New Hoover's" recently launched in April 2006, Hoover's expands its range of products and enhances its search functionality, making it an even more valuable product.
For years, Factiva has been a favorite source of business and company news for many professional and casual researchers. It provides not only an extensive collection of news but also powerful searching and alert systems. With 2.0, Factiva is taking its search platform to a whole new level. But seasoned Factiva users, brace yourselves: Factiva 2.0 is completely different. The familiar Search Builder interface that allows you to construct a search by outlining your search parameters has been replaced with a Google-like search box. New Factiva customers, welcome to a fun, powerful, interactive source of business data and news.
Columns
I am now living through the third wave of arguments for fee-based digital content models in the decade and a half I have covered the internet publishing world. The inevitable response to the dual forces of recessionary ad decline and the more tectonic and irreversible shift to digital has been: "Make 'em pay." Almost everyone on the consumer side of the fence is talking about "hybrid" models and "pay areas." It is hard to listen to such a conversation without someone dropping "the iTunes precedent" as an argument that both micropayment mechanisms and consumer attitudes have turned the corner on this issue. People are ready to underwrite the costly content industry. They see the ugly alternative (bad or shallow content), and they are more willing to put a cash value on digital media now.
When I was a bartender back in my college days, I often marveled at what people were willing to do to get a free t-shirt. OK, it went beyond marveling: Sometimes the bouncers and I would really push it, trying to find a point at which the crowd would cry out, "No, we will not do a chicken dance while singing ‘The Tide Is High' just to get that Jägermeister t-shirt." The thing is, there was almost always someone willing.
My husband often jokes that he married me for the gadgets. When we first met, this certainly wasn't the case—I was a literary scout, and my booty consisted of manuscripts of forthcoming books (exciting stuff only to those of us eternally on the lookout for a great read). Not long afterward, however, he did fall in love with me (or my job) all over again: I joined the team at EMedia magazine, where we reviewed exciting emerging technologies, such as CD and DVD burners; and a variety of related technologies, such as different types of surround sound.
As the eyes of old print, radio, and TV media turn to the internet for a bridge to take them across the current media business abyss, one troubling fact is becoming abundantly clear: The "real money" isn't there yet. Top executives at TV networks, magazine companies, and even newspapers have known for a while that on-air minutes and print pages sell at much higher rates and produce more revenue in most cases than even the most ambitious digital models.
My column's moniker has a cruel irony to it this month as companies peer into the abyss of a business decline with no apparent bottom. Follow the Money only begs two questions nowadays: What money? Where do we follow it to? Like a fog-locked airport with a damaged radar dish, the emedia fleet feels grounded as we edge toward a wholly uncertain 2009.
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