In the crowded market for digital content delivery platforms there are some very big names who
collate content, pay for it, process and distribute to specific industry and business groups across the world. They include Dow Jones Factiva and LexisNexis, the business service and library experts, who have a different business model from aggregators like ProQuest and Acxiom or large search engines like Google and Bing.
Reducing the absurdity of search
The difference between data aggregators, search engines and paid niche content delivery platforms is the quality of data dished out to users.
Google search is often frustrating to the researcher and the business executive hard pressed for time as it throws up a million options to every keyword, most of which are irrelevant. Very few users go beyond the first page of Google search due to the diminishing value of information in the later pages. Apart from this, much good quality paid content does not appear in free Google search. The content delivery platform business is aimed at the busy executive who does not have the time to go into the process of finding information by endlessly changing key words and finding the correct combination to
locate authentic relevant material on the net.
The Factiva service previously known as Dow Jones interactive was set up in 1999 when Dow Jones and Reuters decided to pool in their respective strengths to operate a meta data-based search from reputed sources. They devised a reputation analysis tool that made content selected by them look distinctly different from Google search and was focused and relevant. Newspapers at that point of time were still grappling with changes due to the arrival of digital news. The product was perfectly timed as the decline of most
print newspapers began, although the shakeout effects became apparent only after the 2008 crisis, a decade later.
Incremental revenue for publishers
Factiva is a paid search service of content from 118 countries in 22 languages that cover over 9,000 publishers worldwide besides 11,000 websites and 4 million authentic blogs and message boards updated on a daily basis. The portal helps newspaper and magazine publishers earn incremental revenue from their already published content. The service provides full text access to leading international and national newspapers including the Wall Street Journal which is part of the Dow Jones group. Factiva also brings to the table the content provided by business journals, news wires, market surveys, analyst reports, select blogs, library and corporate websites that produce content on a regular basis.
Apart from text the content also has visuals images, graphs and charts to make original content appear in the form they would while browsing a publisher site. Publishers who produce content on a regular basis, be it trade, industry or business can opt to join the Factiva service free of cost and earn an incremental secondary
revenue from sale of content. Former Dow Jones CEO and former Bloomberg Ventures boss Lex Fenwick announced last year that users worldwide would be charged US$ 249 a month or US$ 399 a month (depending upon the level of Factiva privilege) on a per-user basis, rather than firm-wide basis. At least a fifth of that revenue would go to the publishers.
Belying expectations
Dow Jones faces stiff competition from Bloomberg and Reuters that could intensify especially since the strong back room business data provider acquired Business Week. Dow Jones on the other hand stepped off the pedal after the News of The World controversy. In 2009, Mitya New, the
then managing director, Dow Jones India, told the financial press that Dow Jones planned to double investments in India and even look at new acquisitions. Dow Jones in India has a tie-up with HT Media’s Mint through Wall Street Journal (WSJ) apart from operating Dow Jones Newswires, Factiva, Dow Jones Indexes, Financial Information Services and Client Solutions.
Apart from the launch of mobile apps, the WSJ blog India Realtime and a few derivative indices in the NSE, nothing really happened till September 2013 when Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and S&P Dow Jones Indices announced the incorporation of Asia Index. The joint venture company was created to calculate, disseminate, and license the suite of
S&P BSE indices in a 50:50 partnership between India’s 100-year- old BSE with its widely followed Sensex index and S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC, a subsidiary of McGraw- Hill. The big question amongst media watchers is whether Dow Jones will really try to or be able to enter India big time or just keep watching from the sidelines as Indian media groups grow to global proportions.
