Emerging
reputation management
niche lures content
aggregators
Electronic Information Report, July 26 2004
A demand for tools that can help companies determine return on investment for
marketing and public
relations coupled
with emerging analytics
technologies is
attracting content
aggregators to
a niche once dominated
by traditional
press clipping
services.
Software and technology companies such as Cymfony, Biz360 and IBM are partnering
with aggregators
Factiva, LexisNexis
and Dialog to offer
packaged products
that help companies
track and evaluate
what's being written
about them in the
media, on Web sites
and in blogs.
Companies
like Cymfony and
Biz360 provide
the technologies
that digest content
pulled from the
content amassed
by the news aggregators.
The
result is a service
that allows the
end user to measure
the return on investment
of marketing campaigns
and public relations
efforts, two areas
where determining
ROI has been notoriously
difficult.
"We
are seeing added
pressure especially
in the marketing
and communications
areas," said Andrew Bernstein, CEO of Cymfony. "The CFO is saying, 'how well did your marketing programs perform?' and we are
trying to help
marketers and corporate
communications
professionals answer
that question."
Press
clipping services
and aggregators
are also feeling
an increase in
demand.
"I
wouldn't call this
an explosion at
the moment, but
we are seeing a
fairly substantial
incremental increase
in the number of
companies that
have finally come
to understand the
value of knowing
what their customers
are saying about
them," said William Comcowich, president and CEO, of online press clipping service
CyberAlert.
Of
the news aggregators,
all three of the
major players have
partnerships with
either Biz360,
Cymfony, or both.
LexisNexis, however,
has made the first
major play to expand
its presence in
the growing market
by forming deeper
partnerships with
Cymfony and Biz360
in June (EIR, June
21). Both partnerships
package LexisNexis'
collection of 13,000
sources of content
with the analytics
technologies of
Cymfony and Biz360.
Factiva,
meanwhile, will
launch its own
salvo into the
market space later
this year with
IBM. The two companies
announced a partnership
in September to
co-develop a product
for reputation
management.
"There
is a lot of dependency
on analytics," Karin Borchert, chief product officer for Factiva, told EIR in September. "Right now people are doing analysis for themselves, or a team of information
professionals provide
that service. Products
that we are developing
will automate that
process. I think
it's going to be
a very big change
for our industry."
The
Factiva/IBM joint
product is currently
in testing and
is expected to
be released this
year. Meanwhile,
traditional press
clipping services
like CyberAlert
are finding themselves
going head to head
with the major
online content
aggregators. As
with the aggregators,
CyberAlert partners
with Biz360 and
Cymfony.
"When
we started, we
didn't think we
competed with Factiva,
LexisNexis and
Dialog," said CyberAlert's Comcowich. "We thought of ourselves as a traditional press clipping service. Now we are running
into Factiva, LexisNexis
and Dialog more
and more."
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