The New Aggregation: Models For Success in Creating Content Value

RESEARCH
THE NEW AGGREGATION:

MODELS FOR SUCCESS
IN CREATING CONTENT VALUE
SHORE COMMUNICATIONS INC.

SCI-201001
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21 September 2010
SHORE COMMUNICATIONS INC. THE NEW AGGREGATION - SCI-201001
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. REPORT PROFILE .................................................................................... 1
2. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ............................................................................ 2
3. PREFACE TO 2010 EDITION .................................................................... 3
4. BACKGROUND .......................................................................................... 3
5. WHAT IS AGGREGATION? ....................................................................... 4
6. ATTRIBUTES OF AGGREGATION VALUE ............................................... 5
7. THE TRADITIONAL AGGREGATION MODEL : THE FACTORY .............. 7
8. THE NEW AGGREGATION MODEL : THE NETWORK ............................ 8
9. ATTRIBUTES OF AGGREGATION: TRADITIONAL VS. NEW ................ 12
10. THE IMPACT ON TRADITIONAL AGGREGATORS ................................ 14
11. HOW VENDORS APPLY THE AGGREGATION MODEL ........................ 15
12. SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MODELS IN THE NEW AGGREGATION .... 17
13. WHERE TRADITIONAL AGGREGATION MODELS STILL MATTER ..... 19
14. A CHECKLIST FOR APPLYING THE NEW AGGREGATION MODEL .... 21
15. RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION ........................................... 22
15.1 General Recommendations............................................................................................. 22
15.2 Recommendations for Commercial Aggregators ......................................................... 24
15.3 Recommendations for Publishers .................................................................................. 24
15.4 Recommendations for Institutions ................................................................................. 26
15.5 Recommendations for Technology Companies ........................................................... 27
15.6 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 28
16. ABOUT THE AUTHOR ............................................................................. 29

17. ABOUT SHORE ....................................................................................... 31

21 September 2010 COPYRIGHT © 1999-2010 SHORE COMMUNICATIONS INC. i

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21 September 2010 COPYRIGHT © 1999-2010 SHORE COMMUNICATIONS INC. ii

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1. REPORT PROFILE
FOCUS The New Aggregation is an evolving model for commercial electronic content
aggregation services. It rewards content and technology suppliers that focus
product and service development on the specific attributes of content aggregation
that best suit the needs of audiences participating aggressively in the content
production, aggregation and distribution process. With today’s powerful and highly
affordable content technologies and universal network connectivity, commercial
content aggregators face an array of new challenges and opportunities in meeting
the needs of individuals and institutions equipped with many of these technologies.
This New Aggregation requires aggregators, publishers and the institutions that they
serve to rethink how they can face the future of content monetization effectively.
AUDIENCE Senior executives, strategists and marketing managers of content aggregation and
content technology providers seeking to position their firms for higher profits and
margins, most especially those reliant on institutional sales; senior executives,
strategists and marketing managers of publishing companies trying to maximize
profits and market penetration through online distribution while maintaining
revenues from traditional sources; senior information technology managers and
information professionals at major institutions trying to maximize the value of their
commercial content investments across content platforms and technologies.
CONTENT A detailed analysis of how changes in content technologies have rendered many
aspects of commercial electronic content aggregation obsolete. Numerous
diagrams and tables provide clear illustrations of how technology has impacted
business models and how new business models are filling in the gaps where
aggregators and publishers have failed to provide value. A diagnostic checklist
provides executives an opportunity to consider how their own operations are
impacted by these trends. Recommendations for clear actions to take in the light of
these trends to produce successful business models are provided for commercial
aggregators, publishers and the major institutions that they serve.
Vendors of products and services mentioned or discussed in this paper include: AOL,
Apple, Bloomberg, L.P., Connotate, Content Directions, Copyright Clearance Center,
ECNext, Eliyon, EMC/Documentum, Endeca, Factiva, Google, IBM, Inside Scoop, ISYS,
LexisNexis, MarkLogic, Microsoft, Movable Type, MSN, OpenText, PHP Nuke,
Thomson Dialog, Verity, Vignette and Yahoo!
USE An assessment that can be used to stimulate market research, product planning
and market positioning that will improve the operational and financial performance
of commercial aggregators, publishers, content technology providers and the
institutions that they serve. Those responsible for marketing strategies will find this
paper to be useful in considering how to position products and services by focusing
on those attributes of content aggregation most likely to yield high value in their
marketplaces. Implementers at major institutions will learn how to manage vendor
relationships in a changing content marketplace.
21 September 2010 COPYRIGHT © 1999-2010 SHORE COMMUNICATIONS INC. 1

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2. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Traditional business models for commercial electronic content aggregation are now challenged by
individuals and institutions equipped with powerful content technologies that see commercial content
as one component of a wide array of valuable resources at their disposal. Today’s leading corporate,
academic and public institutions purchase content from aggregators with increasing reluctance. They
see aggregators’ business models and operations methods being largely out of touch with their needs
for sophisticated content integration and much more efficient management of commercial terms and
payments.
Modern networking, search engines and more decentralized content publication and sharing techniques
have rendered many of these database‐driven content aggregator “factories” obsolete by reducing or
eliminating the benefits a vendor‐provided central database. Content oftentimes can be collected from
individual publishers more effectively in a client’s computer directly from publishers via Web‐based
technologies. This has turned the vertical “content factory” aggregation model on its side, exposing
specific attributes of content aggregation such as indexing and retrieval to exploitation by suppliers who
can service specific needs without collecting commercial content in an aggregator’s database. Some
aggregators have responded to technology threats by developing their own increasingly sophisticated
interfaces and tools to integrate content from their databases into institutional workflows more
effectively. But better interfaces from aggregators cover up the more basic issue of whether today’s
underlying business models for commercial content aggregation are viable in the long run. New
technologies and content consumptions patterns challenge these business models as never before.
The New Aggregation is the process of focusing product and service development on those specific
attributes of the content aggregation model that best suit the needs of specific audiences
participating aggressively in the content production, aggregation and distribution process. In the New
Aggregation model profits flow to those suppliers that can optimize specific attributes of the content
aggregation model most effectively, allowing clients equipped with powerful technology to select them
at will. In reaction to the New Aggregation some aggregators will focus on engineering more exclusive
content redistribution rights. This will be too expensive a proposition for both publishers and
aggregators to consider in most instances and ignores the ability of clients to be highly effective
commercial content redistributors when equipped with appropriate technologies. Most aggregators will
wind up having to select those portions of the aggregation model that will allow them to survive most
effectively. Most that insist on trying to make the old aggregation model more efficient will fail unless
they provide truly unique content that has little competition.
The onus is on institutions and publishers to demand significant changes that align with the New
Aggregation, but aggregators should consider major adjustments to their marketing and product
strategies that will allow them to transition to the New Aggregation model profitably. This paper
provides specific recommendations on methods and strategies for aggregators to consider in that
transition and models for success that already exist in the marketplace.

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3. PREFACE TO 2010 EDITION

This is a white paper that was written originally by John Blossom in 2004. It is being updated to reflect
some of the changes in the content industry since that time, and will be reissued in a few months. What
is amazing is how this paper laid out the case for what was going to happen in the content industry for
the next six years. Almost all of its predictions and recommendations have proven to be the roadmap for
success in the content industry since that time. Almost none have been contradicted. Some of the
companies mentioned in this version of the paper have come and gone, while new ones have come
along. Source‐agnostic aggregation has reshaped the face of the content industry. Search engines such
as Google and Bing have used the New Aggregation roadmap to redefine what people view as a valuable
publication. New aggregators such as The Huffington Post have leveraged the New Aggregation model
to provide a source‐agnostic approach to creating value in publishing that challenges traditional
publishers to reconsider their models. More enterprise‐oriented publishers are now moving towards
interfaces and marketing arrangements for their content that maximize its value within a New
Aggregation model. And social media, referenced heavily in concept if not in name in this paper, has
changed the balance of what types of content need to be aggregated – and how they are aggregated.
In spite of these types of advancements, though, the publishing industry as a whole still fights against
the New Aggregation model. Therefore, the lessons of this paper are as valuable today as they were in
2004. Feel free to provide feedback on the paper that will help us to shape its next edition so that its
lessons may be adapted to the concerns that you focus on most today.
4. BACKGROUND
The concept of creating value out of a collection of content is as old as the cave paintings of prehistoric
humans, a concept that has formed the highly profitable basis of the publishing industry since its
inception. Through books, journals, newspapers, Web portals, databases and search engines publishers
and technologists alike have fashioned an array of products and capabilities that people have been
willing to pay for to get valuable collections of information and experiences at their fingertips.
Aggregation of content is a fundamental factor in creating knowledge that can lead to action: people
want to know they have most of all the information available and needed to make an informed decision.
People like having access to content collections, sometimes just for the sake of having them.
But over the past few years the content industry has reached a tipping point as to where and how value
in aggregating content is formed. Long‐held assumptions about how companies may create content
value in aggregation are being upended by the proliferation of technologies and content consumption
models that are challenging many of those fundamental assumptions. In virtually every segment of the
content industry established giants must grow ever larger to retain profitable operations. Something has
changed in aggregation, something that many publishers and distributors of content are reluctant to
acknowledge in its entirety.
Yahoo! was one of the early heralds of a new period in aggregation services when it started adding little
banner ads at the top of its search portal pages several years ago. Search engines were no longer
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providing just technology but money‐making destination content, aggregation on the fly from a myriad
of sources that few would have taken seriously as content before search technology made them
available to anyone with a browser. More recently file sharing services such as KaZaa have challenged
premium content distributors to consider the power of individuals with access to new powerful and
affordable content distribution technologies that can easily bypass traditional electronic distribution
channels for premium content.
In major enterprises aggregation of published content is only a portion of a rich tapestry of content
weaved from internal and external sources into highly productive work environments. The advent of
powerful search technologies and Web content management systems are enabling institutions to create
portals that enable people in their organizations to take on content publishing and aggregation roles
traditionally reserved for external suppliers. With the advent of stringent corporate governance
regulations many of these institutions are now required to have more sophisticated management and
control of their own content than do the content aggregators that supply them with premium content.
All these and many additional facets of content aggregation have created an environment that requires
us to carefully how content aggregation as a business model may thrive moving forward. This paper will
consider these trends in detail and offer concrete and viable ways in which content suppliers,
aggregators and consuming institutions may benefit from the New Aggregation.
5. WHAT IS AGGREGATION?
Content aggregation is the act of assembling and managing sets of content collected for use by an
audience. Many different products and services may be thought of as providing aggregation. For
example, a newspaper is an aggregation of content from journalists, news wire services and other
sources. A bookstore or library aggregates books, journals and other media for use or purchase by
consumer, professional or academic audiences. A cable television service aggregates video channels and
related multimedia services through a common distribution mechanism to audiences in local or regional
markets. A database service (LexisNexis, Factiva or Thomson Dialog) aggregates news, journals and
professional information produced by other publishers for distribution to individuals and institutional
audiences. Online services like Yahoo!, MSN and AOL collect content from traditional publishers and
non‐traditional sources for presentation to global and regional audiences.
All these models remain highly successful in their own right. However, some companies using
aggregation business models are having a hard time demonstrating they are providing value to their
respective audiences:
 Newspaper revenues are largely flat or in decline, with most growth centered on still‐young
online operations.
 Bookstores are facing challenges in maintaining content‐based revenues, becoming more like
cafes and gift stores than aggregators to boost margins.
 Library budgets in many public and private institutional sectors are facing severe challenges and
stunting the revenue growth of aggregators serving these markets. The value of content

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aggregation services that libraries provide is no longer a base assumption for many library
patrons used to online content access, even where libraries are well used and appreciated.

The following table illustrates the relatively slow revenue growth experienced by many of the leading
traditional content aggregator services in comparison to leading Web content outlets:
Company 2001- 2002- 1H03-

02 03 1H04
Yahoo! 33 71 163
Borders 3 6 9
Factiva 0 -2 5
ProQuest 7 10 1
LexisNexis 1 -2 3
The New York -1 5 2

Times
Underlying publicly reported revenue figures adjusted for comparison in similar calendar periods
Table 1. Percentage of Gross Revenue Growth for Select Aggregators, Period‐on‐Period

Certainly there are exceptions to this overall pattern, but even these few examples demonstrate that
aggregation is a low‐growth business for many prominent aggregators.
6. ATTRIBUTES OF AGGREGATION VALUE

To understand better why the value associated with content aggregation is undergoing significant
changes it helps to understand what provides value in content aggregation. There are several attributes
that comprise aggregation services:
 Commercial Supplier Agreements. Much of the premium content aggregation business has
been based on the concept of having the rights to multiple sources of hard‐to‐obtain content
and managing the commercial agreements with these multiple suppliers. When institutions
enter into commercial supplier agreements from multiple content vendors on behalf of their
staff or patrons they, too, act as aggregators of content value. As institutions and individuals
move more towards “just in time” purchasing of premium content for specific purposes and
form large purchasing consortiums for key content sources, traditional aggregators face the
devaluation of this kind of service.
 Collection. The ability to collect content into a discrete and coherent collection is thought of as a
core value in aggregation. Traditionally the concept of collecting content has implied storage of
content in a central location. With the advent of search engines and underlying technologies
that make traditional databases less important in defining content collections, though,
aggregating content into standing collections is far less valuable than before.
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 Normalization. Content comes in many formats and in many degrees of quality. A traditional
value in aggregation is to make content consistent in its form and presentation, as well as to
provide checks and processes to ensure that specified standards of content quality are met.
Quality controls may be mechanical, as in software that checks for likely data errors, or editorial,
as in the process of approving content for publication or posting. With the advent of widely
accepted technical standards for defining the structure of content and increased corporate
regulations for reporting content internally and externally, though, normalization expertise
provided by content aggregators is not as valuable as it used to be.
 Value‐Add Content. Providing a collection of pre‐existing content has some value, but being
able to add content to a collection that is unique to a given collection or usage context can
multiply the value of aggregation significantly to both suppliers and users. In today’s content
marketplace value‐add content comes from a wider array of suppliers than ever before and is
delivered in new ways that challenge traditional aggregation models.
 Indexing. Being able to locate content in a collection is as important as having a collection:
without ease of access, the value of aggregation is highly limited. Today’s search engines
minimize the value of a single content supplier’s indexing, though as more individual and
institutional content users demand indexing that can span multiple content collections and
place it in a broader context than one aggregator can manage.
 Storage. Being able to store content efficiently for future use is an important aspect of providing
aggregation value for archived collections. Storage costs have been reduced to virtually nothing
for even vast collections of content, though, no longer providing aggregators with unique
operational advantages. At the same time corporate governance regulations have pushed
institutions towards far more sophisticated and reliable content archiving capabilities,
oftentimes with more content security and rights management capabilities than provided by
today’s aggregators.
 Retrieval. Being able to retrieve and present content efficiently from a stored collection has
been a traditional aggregator advantage. Search engine technology has made retrieval a general
function, no longer requiring the specialization of content aggregators in many instances.
 Access Control. Having an aggregator manage access to premium content in a secure fashion is
oftentimes desirable from a publisher’s perspective. But many publishers now manage this
function themselves with efficiency, even as content users demand the ability to access and
redistribute content in a wide range of settings that challenge traditional access control
methods.
 Distribution. When computer networking was relatively expensive and rare the benefits of
electronic content aggregation for managing distribution were fairly clear to both publishers and
purchasers. Now ubiquitous and inexpensive networking makes the “where” of content both
less important and more complex than ever before. Content distribution still provides an edge
where expertise in distribution technologies is at the core of a supplier’s value proposition but
most of today’s content aggregators and publishers can no longer afford to focus on those skills
cost‐effectively.

All of these attributes are still part of the scenario for content aggregation, but as noted there are fewer
and fewer companies that can provide the full range of these attributes profitably. Why is that so ‐ and
where are the pressures on the traditional aggregation model leading today’s publishers and suppliers
of premium content?

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7. THE TRADITIONAL AGGREGATION MODEL : THE FACTORY

In the traditional aggregation model, one company performs or contracts for all the functions of content
aggregation to provide a base of clients with a finished product based on content provided from
numerous publishers, authors and other content sources, including sometimes their own unique “in‐
house” content. Be it a publishing house, a newspaper, a news and journals retrieval service or a
business and scientific data supplier, the profitability of aggregation services has been premised on
having all the components of aggregation under its command. This is illustrated in the pyramid‐like
structure found below in Figure 1, in which one content production capability provides a base for the
next capability. It is similar to the model of manufacturing automobiles introduced by Henry Ford and
others when massive quantities of standardized components from internal and external suppliers were
assembled in a central facility to ensure the economies of scale, trained labor and product quality
required to produce a product affordably.
Distribution
Access Control
Retrieval
Storage
Indexing
Value‐Add Content
Normalization
Collection
Commercial Supplier Agreements

Figure 1. The Traditional Aggregator Service Hierarchical Model
In the era of printing press dominance, the correlation between the factory model and the publishing
and aggregation process was exact: publishers were manufacturers and distributors of content from
centralized plants. In the more recent era of computers the “factory” became a computer center, with
the relational database as the primary production engine , a software method for organizing content for
efficient aggregation. Databases allowed for efficient content collection, normalization, indexing,
storage, retrieval and access control, capabilities around which content aggregators developed
commercial supplier agreements and distribution channels.

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Why did this model succeed so well for so long? In large part because it had no viable competition. As
illustrated in Figure 2 below, the underlying basis for centralized production control’s efficiency is the
premise that the producer has strong technology to produce a product and that the client for a product
has comparatively weak technology to produce the same. With technology dominance came premium
prices.
USERS WITH WEAK TECHNOLOGY
Centralized Content
Distribution
POINT OF VALUE
CONTROL
Centralized Content
Aggregation
PRODUCERS WITH STRONG TECHNOLOGY

Figure 2. The Basis for Traditional Aggregator Strength is Technology Imbalance
In this representation of the traditional aggregation model, the production pyramid results in a “choke
point” –the point of value control ‐ at the top of the production pyramid at which the value of an
aggregator’s products and services can be easily established and maintained prior to fanning it out for
distribution to clients who have no choice but to accept the control that the vendor has over accessing
the content product. Once the product escapes the control of the producer it is in the hands of the
purchaser as they please.
8. THE NEW AGGREGATION MODEL : THE NETWORK

Content aggregation has changed forever due to two key factors: inexpensive, powerful computers and
the Internet. The average new desktop or laptop computer has the ability to collect, produce, store and
distribute vast quantities of content efficiently; even the relatively inexpensive, pocket‐sized Apple iPod
can store up to 40 gigabytes of information, enough for thousands of multimedia documents and
recordings, while the processing power of today’s desktop computers dwarfs the needs of all but the
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most demanding software designed for individual use. While it’s easy to imagine that new forms of
storage and new production technologies will create more demand for content storage and generation
by individuals, already at these levels simple and affordable devices intended for use by individuals are
capable of being both content “factories” and content “warehouses” of a scale that exceed the abilities
of individuals to absorb that content easily. To think of it in terms of traditional economics, we have
created an infinite supply of content production capacity and storage capacity, which creates huge
pressures on any factory‐oriented content aggregation model to produce goods and services at a profit.
The Internet exacerbates the problem of profitable content production in the factory model
significantly. With the Internet one effectively eliminates distribution as a competitive barrier, a factor
that favors not only traditional content “factories” but virtually any node on the distribution network
that can be both factory and storage units for anyone in the world. Designed inherently to resist
centralized control and bottlenecks, the Internet makes it simple for individuals and institutions to
create their own aggregation capabilities locally using powerful and affordable technologies and then to
create and to redistribute content to other individuals and institutions with ease. As illustrated in Figure
3 below, the point of strongest value control – the “choke point” – is no longer the aggregator’s
“factory” but the Web‐connected desktops of individuals and the computer rooms of institutions where
most content aggregation now occurs. Either of these new choke points can create their own pyramids
of aggregation from content sourced from the Internet and local sources and distribution pyramids
locally and within the greater distribution funnel of global content.
USERS WITH STRONG & WEAK TECHNOLOGY
Decentralized
Content
Redistribution
POINT OF VALUE CONTROL
USERS WITH STRONG TECHNOLOGY
POINT OF VALUE CONTROL
Decentralized
Content Aggregation
PRODUCERS WITH STRONG & WEAK TECHNOLOGY

Figure 3. In The New Aggregation Strong User Technology is the Focus

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Thus the worries about file sharing networks representing an unusual outside threat to mainstream
content aggregation and distribution are largely misplaced. In fact file sharing networks and other peer‐
based content distribution methods represent the normative form of content aggregation given how
today’s content technology has empowered content consumers in far greater proportion than content
aggregators. The willingness of individuals and institutions to pursue their own aggregation schemes
using that technology is only natural. From simple weblogs collected by newsreader software to global
“server farms” to search engines scanning innumerable Web sites, the world is awash in technology that
allows any individual or institution to collect high‐quality content from any number of sources and share
it easily with others. File sharing is a simple example of capabilities that are deployed in many variant
forms that place technology‐empowered users at the center of the world of content. By taking in and
generating more content sources than any traditional aggregator could contemplate assembling in their
“factory” database, the networked world itself has become both the content factory and its warehouse.
In the view of Shore today’s leading publishers are the individuals and institutions equipped with
powerful and affordable publishing technologies who create valuable content for more audiences in
more venues than ever before.
Does this mean that aggregation is dead as a business model? Far from it: aggregation is thriving in this
environment – when its providers adapt to the concept of a user‐centric, network‐driven model for
providing their products and services and move away from the “all‐singing, all‐dancing” factory model.
The New Aggregation is the process of focusing product and service development on those specific
attributes of the content aggregation model that best suit the needs of specific audiences that can
participate aggressively in the content production, aggregation and distribution process.
Individuals Individuals Individuals

Institutions Institutions Institutions
Aggregators, Agents and Networks
Commercial Agreements
Value‐Add Content
Access Control
Normalization
Distribution
Collection
Retrieval
Indexing
Storage

Figure 4. The New Aggregation: The Unbundled Factory

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In the traditional aggregation model, content is production‐centric, building a monolithic service similar
to our pyramid diagram in Figure 1. By contrast, as illustrated in Figure 4 above, the New Aggregation
topples that pyramid and turns it on its side, with individuals and institutions being able to select specific
attributes of aggregation products and services from multiple suppliers via aggregators and other agents
as well as without any intermediaries via network connections. At the top of the value chain Individuals
and institutions may in turn feed content to others to amplify its personal and professional value and in
turn gain value from one another via business or personal transactions. Understanding individual and
institutional users as key components of the aggregation model is a crucial factor in developing a
services‐driven aggregation model. The attributes that many aggregators once provided as necessary
components of the production chain are now often replicated by tools readily available to their clients,
who are able to combine them in innovative ways to create content value more efficiently than
traditional publishers and aggregators. When aggregators offer product attributes that are largely
redundant to client‐supplied capabilities they increase the likelihood of competitors eliminating those
redundant attributes to produce content value for clients more cost‐effectively. Clever marketing and
implementation techniques can overcome these redundancies to some degree but they cannot
eliminate the inevitable pressure on profit margins to eliminate them. Competitive stances for
aggregators therefore must be evaluated not only in terms of their positioning against other similar
companies but also on an attribute‐by‐attribute basis with all those suppliers that meet the needs of
their target audiences – including technology companies and the individuals and institutions equipped
with technology products.

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9. ATTRIBUTES OF AGGREGATION: TRADITIONAL VS. NEW

The full force of why there is a new regimen for aggregation can be seen most clearly when one
examines what is happening in specific attributes of aggregation. The following table illustrates the shift
in methodologies from traditional aggregation to methods being pioneered and perfected in the New
Aggregation:
CONTENT AGGREGATION VALUE ATTRIBUTES
Attribute Attribute Traditional New

Methods Aggregation Aggregation
Commercial  Licensing and  Agreements for  Agreements for

Agreements Distribution Agreements accessing databases accessing content
with suppliers objects
 Precursor to collection
 Licensing Agreements or distribution  Objects may be
with purchasers distributed prior to
 Redistribution collecting licensing fees
 Billing and payment discouraged, difficult to
services monetize  Redistribution
encouraged and
 Agreements tied to monetized
distribution channels
 Agreements may be
 Billing and payment independent of
usually centralized via distribution channels
aggregator
 Oftentimes no billing,
direct billing via original
suppliers or billing via
other parties
Collection  Making content  Collection into central  Content oftentimes

available for control and facilities controlled by never collected for
distribution aggregator permanent storage, or
indexing data only
 Collection generally
mandatory for  Client oftentimes
distribution provides storage if
required
 Generally project-driven
by data center staffs of  Oftentimes automated
supplier and with no supplier
aggregators intervention
Normalization  Presenting content in a  Oftentimes requires  Content generally

normalized form and adaptation of content developed to widely
format for easier use from a proprietary accepted industry
and distribution supplier or aggregator standards with no
format adaptation required
 Identifying and
correcting content that  Standards closely held,  Standards open, public
may not meet expected oftentimes opaque and easily accessed
standards
 Standard quality control  Quality control
an essential component oftentimes provided by
peer review

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Value-Add  Deriving additional  Centrally designed  Oftentimes user-driven

Content content to complement
supplied content  Centrally managed  Individual and
collaborative sources
 Centrally archived
 Generated or stored in
content objects or local
repositories
Indexing  Generating information  Indexes generally  Indexes generally

that will ease content limited to collections include all relevant
storage and retrieval under license by content, whether under
aggregator license or not
 Additional content  Indexing may include

indexed separately input from content users
(links, usage, etc.)
 Indexing based on
content attributes and  Indexing may include
established taxonomies dynamically generated
taxonomies
Storage  Retaining content for  Content stored in  Content storage

retrieval and delivery central databases of oftentimes distributed,
aggregator with some content retrieved and
copying to client sites stored at client site, at
individual publishers’
 Archive retention based sites and separate
on commercial policies archiving services
of aggregators,
oftentimes without long-  Archive retention
term guaranteed access requirements based on
archiving standards or
regulatory policies
Retrieval  Locating content for  Search engines tailored  Search engines capable
delivery to highly structured of locating both highly
content structured and
unstructured content
 Searches for
aggregator’s content  Searches across
only multiple sources in
multiple locations –
 Multiple search filters including client sources
and criteria
 Simplified searches and
 Interfaces oftentimes “advanced searches”
oriented towards
information  Intuitive search
professionals interfaces, some using
natural language

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Access  Managing permissions  Database login “choke  Multiple access models:

Control to access and use point” , limited to open access, tiered
content subscribers access, federated
access or digital rights
 Little direct management
management of
redistribution  Rights management
and copyright
management interfaces
allow for effective
monetization of
redistribution
Distribution  Making content  Physical and electronic  Electronic media with

accessible to media physical as a service
individuals and option
institutions who are  Public and private
qualified for access network delivery  Primarily public network
delivery to local
 From central “choke networks, or vice versa
point” to clients
 Distribution from
multiple nodes and sub-
distribution points,
including publishers’
sites, download portals,
clients and individual
users

10. THE IMPACT ON TRADITIONAL AGGREGATORS

As the above table illustrates there are fewer and fewer attributes of aggregation in which traditional
suppliers of premium content hold a clear advantage:
 Commercial agreements, while still the “bread and butter” of most aggregators, are slipping
away as their own content and technology suppliers become more independent in their
marketing efforts.
 Content collection often falls in to the hands of their clients, especially as they become adept at
collecting their own content via Web‐centric technologies and publishing content to their own
networks of associates and clients.
 Vendor‐proprietary content standards are largely in disfavor and content quality assurance is
becoming a specialty service fairly rapidly, accelerated by the growth of cost‐effective services
markets such as India.
 Value‐add content just as likely to be generated via client facilities, using software and Web
services (Web‐delivered digital objects that include both content and software functionality)
developed by technology companies or their own staffs.

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 Indexing requirements for clients oftentimes exceed the large but universally limited universes
of content provided by the traditional aggregator; storage of content needs to be more at the
convenience of the client than the provider.
 Retrieval of content can come via any number of client‐centric channels, rarely controlled by the
aggregator.
 Access control no longer aligns with the technology needs and capabilities of clients who require
transparent access to content from multiple repositories.
 Distribution can come via any number of established and innovative channels, most of which are
not controlled by aggregators directly.

With so many points of potential weakness, the impact of the New Aggregation on traditional
aggregators is turning out to be immense, even though its full impact on aggregator and major publisher
revenues is seen mostly in terms of stagnant revenue growth. With traditional aggregators having
virtually no long‐lasting and clear‐cut technology advantages over their clients and suppliers,
aggregation as we know it today is held together largely by the inertia that comes from the
unwillingness to unravel established commercial agreements and increasingly clever work by
aggregators in distributing premium content via software applications that wed them more closely to
their clients’ needs. Yet since at the core of their operations many aggregators no longer offer significant
operational advantages via technology, distribution advantages may be short lived at best as content
suppliers employ other content distribution routes with more profitable or commercial terms
management or more effective content distribution.
The solution for many traditional aggregators is clear: they must decide which attributes will benefit
them in the New Aggregation model and move to focus on those attributes more exclusively. The
business models that come out of that focus, however, are likely to differ significantly from those they
employ today.
11. HOW VENDORS APPLY THE AGGREGATION MODEL

To see how aggregation models differ in the New Aggregation versus traditional aggregation, it may help
to compare an established aggregator to companies that are playing new roles in aggregation along the
lines of the New Aggregation model. For the purposes of broad contrast I have chosen for comparison
purposes:
 LexisNexis, a major aggregator of professionally‐oriented content
 Google, the leading open Web search engine used in both professional and personal settings
 Verity, one of the leading search solutions providers in enterprise content
 Weed, a technology company established to promote the effective sale of premium content via
file sharing networks and other peer‐to‐peer and supplier‐oriented distribution channels

The following table summarizes how the key attributes in these vendors’ offerings vary from one
another in general terms:

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CONTENT AGGREGATION MODEL COMPARISONS
Attribute LexisNexis Google Verity Weed
Commercial  Central attribute;  Mostly between  May integrate  Central attribute;

Agreements traditional terms suppliers and premium content ability for
and conditions clients, no billing via Factiva, but suppliers and
with suppliers and except for not involved in redistributors to
clients, central advertising premium content collect via Weed,
billing. services terms, no billing. outsourced
billing.
Collection  Collects most  Indexing and  Indexing only  Clients and other
content in a contextual collected networks mostly
central database content collected responsible for
collecting
Normalization  Collected content  Formats under  Formats under  Enables

is normalized into control of clients control of clients industry-
internal and distributors, and distributors, standard file
standards. high standard Web standard Web distribution, no
QA standards interface, no interface, no content quality
enforced by staff content quality content quality assurance
and technology assurance assurance
Value-Add  Derived content  Derived content  Derived content  Distributors and

Content stored and linked to in linked via search clients provide
distributed search results, interface and value-add
contextual ads Web services content
Indexing  Indexes primarily  Indexes all  Indexes client  Indexing

databased exposed Web content, responsibility of
content content, some federation of distributors and
databased premium and clients
content Web content
Storage  Primarily central  Only indexing  Only indexing  Primarily on

storage in storage storage client and file
database sharing
networks, initial
download
storage
Retrieval  Primarily via  Primarily via  Primarily via  Via client

central database supplier sites client-internal storage and file
and supplier sharing networks
sites
Access  Database login or  Responsibility of  Oftentimes  Rights

Control commercial individual integrated into management
terms, suppliers, federated checks access
redistribution not redistribution not access, rights for each
controlled controlled redistribution not item accessed,
controlled redistribution
controlled and
monetized
Distribution  Via Web, private  Via Web and  Via private  Via Web, file
networks and mobile device networks, Web sharing networks
mobile device networks and mobile and mobile
networks device networks device networks

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Note in this comparison how new players in content aggregation gain advantage by paring away the
most expensive and complex components of aggregation – storage, quality control and centralized
commercial agreement management – and concentrating their business models on those aspects of
content that are least replicated elsewhere and most valuable to their audiences. Google still has
extensive infrastructure for content indexing, but it’s free to change that infrastructure with few
expensive dependencies on suppliers and users. This frees Google to concentrate more internal
resources on providing indexing power. Verity and other enterprise search technology providers also
steer clear of storage, QA and commercial content issues (though content management providers and
archival specialists embrace them in narrower niches), concentrating primarily on indexing and access
control management. Weed discards almost all attributes of the traditional aggregation model, retaining
only commercial agreements, standards and access control as primary attributes, yet provides effective
content monetization for multiple sources via numerous collection, storage and distribution models.
Each of these New Aggregation players discards those attributes of the “factory” that no longer make
economic sense to them and concentrate on those attributes of aggregation that benefit their audiences
most within user‐centric content distribution networks.
12. SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MODELS IN THE NEW AGGREGATION

All major aggregators provide some blending of old and new attributes in their current offerings, even as
many vendors who provide New Aggregation services also opt for aspects of traditional content
aggregation. But overall there are distinct business models arising in aggregation that are clearly
different from those that have formed the basis of traditional publishing. Following are some of the
more significant models evolving from the New Aggregation model:
NEW AGGREGATION BUSINESS MODELS
Model Key Key Key Examples

Attributes Strengths Weaknesses
Open  Public and  Source-Neutral;  Reliant on others to  Google

Collection Enterprise quality not provide access
Search facilities indexing presumed control to premium  Yahoo!
Engines content and

providing  Easily adapted
and restricted
content
 Verity
relevance and to a wide range  Endeca

of content  Limited content
context
collections monetization  FAST
 Generally no
 Highly tuned
capabilities
 IBM “Masala”
limits to types,
sources and new  Content quality
 ISYS
volume of technologies difficult to ascertain
content
Content  Collaborative  Enabling most  Sometimes difficult  KaZaa

Sharing content knowledgeable to index sources
collection and and capable  Groove
Networks
distribution content experts  Archival access
 Microsoft
uncertain
SharePoint
 With and without  Infinite storage
 Loose borders on
rights
management
capacity and
flexibility content usage  OpenText
LiveLink

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Archival  Storage arrays  Minimize impact  Standards for  EMC

Products with vast of “content glut” addressability still
capacity with not universal  DOI (Content
and
content-oriented  Ensure that Directions)
Services
addressability content in  Efforts for
 Alexandria
original form is independent
Project
 Affordable, accessible archiving of
highly scalable commercial content
mass storage  Ongoing access weak
Content  Database-driven  Creating highly  Enterprise-scale  Vignette

Management development, reusable content systems expensive
management in enterprises  IBM WebSphere
and delivery of  Learning how to be
 Stellant
content for  Workflow and an effective
individuals and collaborative
content easy to
publisher is harder
than most would
 PHP Nuke
enterprises
develop think  MovableType
 Integration of
 Weblogging and  Content  ECNext
commercial
content via Web cheap/free CM ecommerce rarely
services packages integrated well
popularizing
publishing
Content  Deriving useful  Streamlining of  Derived content  Eliyon

Mining & content from content may lack quality
Content existing Web repurposing to controls  Connotate
Services sites, networks

and databases
specific client
needs
comparable to
commercial
 Inside Scoop
sources
 Packaging  Quickly
derived content configurable and  With no formal
for reuse and highly adaptable agreements with
sale sources content
may come and go
 Outsourced
quality
assurance
Rights &  Ensuring and  Allows for  Implementation has  Sealed Media
Distribution enabling usage content object been awkward in
Management and commercial use in many the past, but now  Copyright
terms settings without much more Clearance
logins streamlined Center
 Enabling
 Weed
authorized  Ability to control  Lacking industry
redistribution value and
security of
standards  eMeta
content as it is
redistributed

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Contextual  Assembling and  Enhancing  Limited capabilities  Google AdSense

Advertising placing contextual to date for placing
contextual ad content value content itself  Yahoo! Overture
inventory in Web
Sites
cost-effectively contextually  Kanoodle
 Enables  Algorithms used to
 Enabling otherwise manage bidding
automated invisible content process not very
bidding for ad to get exposure mature
inventory

Many of these solutions have been available for some time in various forms and some are used by
aggregators for key operations. For example, content management has been used since the beginning of
the Web era and is used by many commercial publishers for their operations. But it’s been only recently
that content management suppliers have provided mature and complete enterprise‐level content
management solutions. Content management and Web portal providers now compete very effectively
with aggregators who are vying to provide workflow management software as a way to lock in content
sales.
No single example of a services‐driven aggregation model may appear to present an impressive threat
individually. But when taken in sum all of these are instances of increasingly successful businesses that
are taking away key segments of the aggregators’ traditional business model. These new suppliers
succeed with individuals, enterprises and commercial publishers who are looking to have content
respond to a far more sophisticated set of requirements than most aggregators can manage to
encompass without threatening their core revenue base and margins. Thus most aggregators fail to
invest in content technologies anywhere near the level required to compete with players running with
New Aggregation attributes. In comparison New Aggregation companies are invested very highly in the
breakthrough content technologies that help the individuals and institutions that they serve to produce
content value breakthroughs.
13. WHERE TRADITIONAL AGGREGATION MODELS STILL MATTER

In the world as we know it old methods and models rarely disappear altogether, but instead find their
way into new forms of use. There will always be content aggregators with useful databases, just as
newspapers and books continue to be published some twenty years after the advent of personal
computing. Content databases will continue to thrive when their contents are truly unique or add value
to audiences at crucial moments when their own processes could not hope to replicate their value. But
even in these instances, the content “factories” as we know them may find themselves with increasingly
abbreviated versions of the production pyramid, focusing on only those attributes of aggregation for
their audiences that are reasonably profitable. For example, having databases that store data that is
highly suited to the database technology in use and difficult to replicate elsewhere may remain the basis
for a very viable aggregation business model, but standards for querying and delivering that content
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may “lop off” much of the traditional business model built around other aggregation attributes. So even
when the factory model still applies in terms of producing content it is really a choice between selecting
a smaller market in which the full model can still operate cost‐effectively or servicing a broader market
with fewer aggregation attributes. Improving production efficiencies and techniques may be necessary
to maintain competitive production, but the pace and breadth of technology development and
distribution is unlikely to allow those improvements to be long‐term market differentiators unless they
take full advantage of the peer‐to‐peer strength of the New Aggregation model.
At the same time there will continue to be numerous individuals and institutions that prefer to have an
aggregator service act as a “choke point” for simplifying relationships with content sources and services.
For these clients having a “single neck to choke” when managing external content sources still offers
them operational advantages and many content purchasers will continue to purchase professional
content in this mode for some time to come. But as the New Aggregation model continues to take hold,
suppliers of “choke point” content aggregation services are beginning to discover that in the long run
this may be an opportunity that damages both revenues and margins. The obligation to maintain a wide
array of content increasingly available via other channels continues even as clients continue to put
pressure on these aggregators to lower price points or to add more content sources to diminish the
commoditization of their databased content. As suppliers learn how to allow clients to “choke” specific
content aggregation attributes separately across a wide range of content sources these pressures will
diminish, leaving aggregators to enjoy a wide and flexible range of aggregation models to suit their
clients’ needs and focus on the specific components of aggregation that offer their clients the most
value.
The key operational advantage that traditional aggregators provide is quality assurance procedures to
help normalize content into highly usable and standardized forms and formats. With some forms of
data‐oriented content this advantage will continue to endure, but for many forms of content, especially
text‐based content and entertainment content that is easily normalized via Web‐oriented standards,
these advantages will be limited or best pursued as part of a business model using quality assurance as
one of a limited set of product attributes. Notably traditional aggregators known for data quality
assurance such as Dun & Bradstreet find themselves increasingly selling their quality assurance
capabilities as outsourced services for their clients trying to rationalize their own business content –
already providing some selection of formerly product‐centric attributes and packaging them as
aggregation services.

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14. A CHECKLIST FOR APPLYING THE NEW AGGREGATION MODEL

The New Aggregation challenges publishing institutions adding value to content via aggregation to
consider how this major shift affects their operations. Not every aggregator needs to worry about this
shift immediately, but it will help to understand when concern is warranted. The following is a simple
checklist of key questions for aggregators and publishers using aggregation services to consider when
approaching whether and how the New Aggregation may be providing opportunities or threats to their
operations:
 Is your revenue model locked in to login‐based access to premium content?
The New Aggregation is both user‐centric and network‐centric: rights to access content must
follow its usage through both initial distribution and redistribution to multiple devices – an
environment more conducive to rights management schemes attached to the content itself
rather than to a database. Remember, individuals and institutions equipped with powerful and
affordable content technologies are today’s leading publishers. It is you, the aggregators and
publishers, who are gaining access to the world’s publishing arena, not your clients.
 Are your content supplier commercial agreements tied tightly to your centralized storage and
distribution technology?
In traditional aggregation, locking in content suppliers to your storage and distribution
technology was a key tactic for ensuring supplier and client dependency. This works when you
control the technology that matters most to the client, but no longer works well at all for
secondary storage and distribution. Apple and Microsoft will do well with locking music
publishers into iPods and Portable Media Centers because the technology is close to the users’
needs and integrates well with standard networks and devices. Not since the Lexis UBIQ “Red
Box” and the eponymous Bloomberg data terminal have premium business content providers
tinkered effectively with their own user‐oriented devices. In this environment, tying commercial
agreements to centralized storage schemes will please neither the supplier nor the client and
lead to trailing revenues.
 Is your content mostly text‐based?
Specialized databases that have unique data as their primary content are less vulnerable to the
New Aggregation than text‐based aggregators. The original concept of storing text in a database
was to enhance indexing and repurposing. But effective indexing no longer requires storage of
content in a central facility and content repurposing is simpler now that standards based on
eXtensible Markup Language (XML) and other content normalization standards are prevalent.
Data providers still have much to worry about if their data is not certifiably unique in quality and
scope, especially since recent U.S. court judgments do little to protect databases of facts.
 Does your ability to store and retrieve historical content provide real product advantages?
The ability to store content indefinitely with immediate retrieval is not a major trick for most
institutions, which are required to do so in most instances for regulatory compliance purposes.
On the other end of the scale, petabyte‐scaled storage fits conveniently into the corner of most

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rooms these days. If you can do clever things with historical content that distinguishes it, then
great – otherwise, consider outsourcing it ASAP to services more adept at long‐term storage.
 Does your content integrate easily with client portals and processes?
This is an area in which many aggregators have made significant progress in the past few years.
“Workflow” is the buzzword of the moment for many publishers, and rightfully so from many
perspectives. What’s largely missing at this point from aggregators is sophisticated integration
that makes it as easy to search for and insert content into a portal application as looking
something up via a search engine. If you’re on the cutting edge of portal development, you can
buy yourself some time to transition your business model into something more in line with the
New Aggregation’s long‐term trends. If you’re not, you had best pick your battles carefully – and
soon.
 Can you easily enable, track and take advantage of content redistribution by clients as a
marketing and revenue opportunity?
Without an effective approach to rights management and content security most commercial
publishers and aggregators are slipping behind their institutional and individual clients in being
able to manage content value in ways that fit today’s content distribution realities. In a multi‐
device, multi‐role content consumption environment, being able to treat those individuals and
institutions as inherent and central components of the premium content distribution process is
essential to long‐term revenue growth. Those who control rights standards and methods will
control content commercialization in the New Aggregation ‐ leaving most publishers and
aggregators far from the action.
15. RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION
15.1 General Recommendations

“Good content is where you find it” is a favorite truism of ours at Shore. The marketplace for content
knows no borders, leaving most of today’s aggregators of premium content scrambling to figure out
how to position published premium assets. Most aggregators must confront a market that demands
much more value than most publishers and aggregators can provide individually. There is still a large and
significant place for commercial content aggregation in the New Aggregation model. However, the
shape of how money is made in content aggregation is changing rapidly because of this new model’s
strength. Except where content and central technologies are truly exceptional and unique, centralized
“choke points” will be of little use, leaving most content money to be made either inside user‐defined
and controlled choke points (search engine results, portals, local storage devices, online communities)
or very intertwined with high‐value network services (Radianz, cable television, XM Radio). Service
providers in the middle layer of this marketplace must specialize radically to survive in this new mix,
either on the basis of content sets or aggregation services – or both.

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There is no perfect answer to this problem, but there are a few general strategies that should be
considered for all concerned with the fate of aggregation services:
 Unless they provide real value, lose your databases.
In many instances the persistence of centralized databases that repeat content found elsewhere
is a useless anachronism that will only isolate premium content from the true contexts in which
it will find value. Tools such as MarkLogic’s Content Interaction Server provide the ability to
access content from many sources in a normalized form without resorting to typical databasing
schemes. Unless the content is unique in its context, put database‐centric business models
aside. In most instances a centrally controlled database no longer provides a great marketing
advantage for major aggregators, even when it provides technological advantages within the
scope of its content.
 Accept that monetization of distributed content objects is a necessary and ultimately more
powerful commercial model than controlled access to databases.
Again, good content is where you find it, so allowing content objects to flow to the point where
their value can be realized as quickly and effectively as possible is the most effective way to
ensure rapid and profitable content monetization. Enabling publishers of ALL content to create
and distribute these content objects with monetization capabilities built in to their framework
will be the cornerstone technology in the New Aggregation. Aggregators and publishers
servicing professional markets lag behind both their clients and consumer markets in developing
and deploying effective rights management techniques. The major aggregators that adapt
rapidly to rights management controls and move away from database access controls will be the
winners in the New Aggregation era.
 Controlling distribution is not as important as controlling monetization.
With so many powerful options for content distribution that are well beyond the abilities of
publishers and aggregators, including the current Information Lifecycle Management (ILM)
movement in corporate circles, it is largely pointless to control content distribution except in
those instances where there are few or no options for delivery (cable television franchises,
exclusive wireless networks, etc.). Allowing easily replicated electronic content to flow freely in
forms which ensure that monetization will be swift and convenient when it finds the right venue
is the key to effective aggregation services. Look at the Weed model of monetization carefully.
Like weeds, it’s far easier to have content find its right context when its movement is
unimpeded.
 Be flexible in your approach to monetization models.
In some instances rights management will be the key to this monetization process, but it need
not be the only solution, nor an “all or nothing” solution. Rights management and other controls
can enable not just purchasing but a wide range of access models, including subscriptions. Think
carefully about how your audiences value content in specific contexts, and work your
monetization models back from those human needs.

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15.2 Recommendations for Commercial Aggregators

As mentioned earlier many institutions are learning how to take advantage of the New Aggregation in
pieces and reaping significant advantages. But few major aggregators have embraced the notion that
these new techniques and technologies are anything more than useful extensions of their core business
model.
 Accept that your storage‐bound search engines are of limited value.
Your clients’ technology suppliers do it better, open Web search engines do it better – you have
neither the financing nor the positioning to provide superior content search capabilities in most
instances, in large part because your search engines are stuck on top of one database that’s
poorly integrated with your clients’ content and the Web. Except where unique content or
content structure makes their presence necessary or advantageous, try to allow content to flow
as readily as possible to where your search engine along with other search engines will
determine its uniqueness. If you can compete on a level playing field, the relevance of your
search will have credibility and will be integrated with other content sets far more easily. If you
can’t, then perhaps the searching business is not for you.
 Choose which aggregation attributes will be your points of excellence. Quickly.
With clients, publishers and common services taking care of storage for retrieval and search
engine companies taking care of indexing, this leaves the “front end” of the business –
interfaces, Web services and workflow products – and the “back end” – commercial
management – as the keys to success in supporting successful premium content aggregation.
Most aggregators will have to choose which of these will be their strengths, and work from
there.
 Beware the lure of workflow.
Products that integrate content into highly effective user interfaces are very hot right now and
can be expected to provide a great deal of value to aggregators for some time to come –
especially when they’re integrated into institutional workflows and operations. But for most
aggregators, workflow management can wind up being a shield that diverts attention from the
inherent weaknesses of their content base. For example, decades of improving client integration
and workflow via real‐time financial content products did not save market data vendors in the
financial securities sector from the inherent weaknesses in their content aggregation models
based on commonly available market data. Consolidation and thinner margins followed
inevitably, consolidation that is still unfolding. “Knowing the flow” can be valuable, but should
be part of a greater strategy of aggregation attribute repositioning.
15.3 Recommendations for Publishers

Commercial content providers that produce mostly their own exclusive and original content have much
to gain in the New Aggregation model and have gained much already. The Web has enabled publishers
of all kinds to reach both consumer, academic and professional audiences via search engines and other
new channels without having to rely on traditional aggregators, opening up both challenges and
opportunities. The key challenge publishers using aggregation services face when introducing direct
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Web‐based access is ensuring that direct Web access does not conflict with aggregation services in a
way that decreases overall revenue. Here are a few thoughts as to how publishers may approach the
New Aggregation and continue to reap benefits:
 You must enable your content to be aggregated by anyone at any time without having to
think about how it impacts your bottom line.
Many publishers have implemented online registration processes to provide some degree of
control and knowledge of users. This creates a proliferation of “choke points” that reduces the
value of content in the user’s eye due to this inconvenience. Already tools exist to allow people
to circumvent these controls, a sure indication of their undesirability as a commercial
management tool. Premium publishers need to embrace rights management technologies
aggressively, preferably in standard forms that will allow them to provide a user with rights to
view content via any electronic distribution channel. Attaching enforceable commercial policies
to each and every content item distributed is an essential element in rationalizing traditional
aggregation channels with more user‐centric distribution methods. This will allow content to
flow into the hands of people who need it most and value it most as quickly as possible –
enhancing the likelihood of people recognizing its value.
 Try to separate agents that can get content into the right context and agents that can manage
the enforcement and fulfillment of commercial terms.
Publishers have relied on traditional aggregators to provide both distribution and enforcement
of commercial terms of use. With distribution no longer a key strength of many traditional
aggregators, it may pay to consider how to license content for use by individuals and institutions
via agents that do not have to manage its distribution. Instead of having to negotiate dozens of
special deals with dozens of companies who would like to distribute your content, try to imagine
a world in which there are a handful of agents (ideally one) that can manage the technical
details of commercial use by consuming institutions and individuals independent of any specific
distribution channels via rights management capabilities. In this model there is still room for
traditional revenue streams such as subscriptions, “pay‐per‐view” and special redistribution
agreements, as well as new models such a peer‐to‐peer distribution. This new world of content
monetization is already upon us and promises to be very lucrative for those who know how to
manipulate the model to their advantage. Within this new model there is always room for
negotiating agreements that don’t fit this methodology well, but by focusing on simplifying
commercial terms with the ultimate consumers of content as much as possible it becomes far
easier to generate steady streams of revenue at maximum market penetration. This will all
happen – if publishers take the lead in fighting for it aggressively.
 Focus on creating more fully featured content objects.
Since content normalization is now more fully in the hands of commercial publishers and
increasingly redundant with the capabilities of traditional aggregators, it falls upon commercial
publishers to look much more carefully at how they package electronic content for use and
reuse. In earlier eras this meant looking at print, CD‐ROM and database options. But today’s
content marketplace favors rights‐protected content objects such as eBooks that can be moved
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from platform to platform with relative ease and reuse. Publishers need to build features into
content objects that make them more useful to their audiences, features that can be upgraded
as necessary to increase the content’s value. This is likely an area where most publishers will rely
on suppliers and distributors to provide useful technologies, but unlike the traditional
aggregation model it need not be a matter of sending your “dumb” content into someone else’s
database where it gets “smartened up”: these services can be brought in‐house or added
externally via technology providers who do not have to take a role in content licensing and
distribution. The more of the content packaging equation you control, the more value you can
retain for yourselves, so getting smart about building content objects for Web services and
other forms of object‐oriented content distribution is an essential skill for every primary
publishing organization today.
15.4 Recommendations for Institutions

In Shore’s view, today’s leading publishers are the individuals and institutions equipped with powerful
and affordable content technologies and a deep understanding of what people in their organization
need to accomplish their objectives. You are the real center of the content universe, yet you struggle
with suppliers of aggregated premium content whose products are still designed based on the premise
that commercial publishers and aggregators provide the leading edge of content value. In the meantime
your own content and Web‐sourced content demonstrate to you on a daily basis that while commercial
content is important and useful it’s not so important to be treated so differently from your other
content sources. The New Aggregation opens doors to new techniques that are already leveraged by
corporate, academic and public sector institutions in many ways beyond traditional aggregators’
capabilities. To accelerate the process of encouraging your suppliers to transition to more effective
services in the New Aggregation model, here are a few routes to consider when dealing with publishers
and aggregators:
 Demand more unbundling of workflow applications, content licensing and other aggregator
services.
Many of these workflow‐oriented products are excellent, but the cost of locking in to one
aggregator at the expense of locking out content acquisition budget from other potentially
crucial sources that emerge is hampering the move to “on‐demand” content licensing and
purchasing. Appreciate the value that aggregators are providing in these applications, but
appreciate more fully how much you’re getting locked in to solutions that will hamper your
competitiveness in the long run. Content licensing should be fully independent from content
workflow wherever possible.
 Consider carefully how you may employ rights management within your own institution to
manage commercial content.
Most suppliers of content for professional and academic use have been very slow to consider
how to implement digital rights management as a key content management technology. By
contrast many institutions have embraced DRM as a key mechanism to enable secure sharing of
content inside and beyond their organizations, even as DRM is gaining success quickly in
consumer content. If your content suppliers are unable or unwilling to adopt DRM, show them
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the way by incorporating their content in your own DRM schemes. Combined with Information
Lifecycle Management storage schemes you have the ability to make commercial content a
permanent and well‐controlled part of your greater content infrastructure – no matter where
instances of it may reside. This will be especially important for corporate compliance purposes,
where the context in which commercial content has been used may be as relevant as the
content itself.
 Consider how commercial content can be integrated into your search engine strategies more
directly.
Today’s major institutions are graced with both their own sophisticated search technologies and
open Web technologies to aid users in locating the right content for the right purpose. With
traditional commercial aggregation schemes, though, the best that most institutions can
manage for integration is federated search, an awkward mechanism at best, or indexed retrieval
via Web services. Caching commercial content “behind the firewall” is one widely‐used strategy
that can provide both more effective local indexing and less external knowledge of its use, but
can prove to be an expensive and complicated option for many. Consider how to source content
directly from publishers in a way that will enable its use more directly in your search
infrastructure, both via the open Web and via aggregators providing your search engines direct
access to their databases. Both publishers and aggregators may not feel terribly comfortable
with these arrangements at first, but when combined with digital rights management it makes
eminent sense to incite the movement towards object‐oriented publication by demanding
published content act the same as any other type of content in its ability to be manipulated by
today’s leading content technologies – regardless of its location.
15.5 Recommendations for Technology Companies

Technology companies have much to gain in the New Aggregation model and have done so already.
Unfettered by many of the basic assumptions about content aggregation models companies like Google
and Open Text Have made tremendous strides by exploiting specific aggregation attributes with
precision and excellence. Yet it is not all sweet news for technology companies in this new environment.
Many struggle to find a business model that will take them beyond their own traditional models of
software licensing fees that are increasingly hard to justify on a component or feature level, while others
wrestle with what it really means to be a content services provider as opposed to a pure technology
play. Here are a few thoughts as to how content technology companies focusing on professional and
institutional sales can succeed in the New Aggregation environment:
 Don’t get sucked in to the old business models as a growth strategy.
Between a tiny number of lucky technology companies turned aggregators such as Yahoo! and a
galaxy of publishers and aggregators there are not many plays out there that are going to
capture significant market share replacing existing aggregators by doing their old models a little
better. Even Apple’s iTunes is starting to flounder as a destination content site as new
technology companies and distributors enter the picture to carve off pieces of the aggregation
puzzle. Stick to specific attributes of the aggregation model that match your strengths well and
let your clients decide how to mix and match them to their needs. Think IBM, which has been
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
successful at creating synergy with content providers while gradually developing key
components that strip away their core strengths.
 Unless you’ve got really new technology, focus on specific content sectors.
The graveyard of the content technology industry is lined with companies that tried to market
an idea without understanding which content markets were best suited for its exploitation.
Smart technology companies do research on which content market sectors need their
technology the most and develop highly tuned product development and marketing plans to
meet those sectors’ user‐level content needs. Get to know not just the stats and the outline of
those sectors but the personalities and work styles of the end users in great detail. In doing so
you’ll be creating content value and not just technology – positioning yourself for ongoing
marketing to that sector or a sellout to sector‐specific aggregators eager to hold on to revenues
and market share.
 If you DO have really new technology, focus on dominating an aggregation attribute with it.
Search engines and related technologies are glutting the market for indexing and retrieval
services, for example, but nobody does rights management well for content purchased by both
institutions and individuals. The company that can dominate with this capability will in effect
become the commercial hub for all professionally‐oriented content purchasing and licensing.
This may cramp the style of folks coming out of universities with concentrations in already
crowded content technology markets, but order them a few pizzas more to have them think
about that they can do with other more underexploited aggregation attributes and your new
technology will penetrate more markets far more quickly.
15.6 Conclusion
In some ways the New Aggregation is hardly new at all: the Internet and the Internet Protocol (IP) that
enable both public and institutional networks have been with us for decades and the Web itself is hardly
a new phenomenon. What is different today is a far more sophisticated approach being taken by
individuals and institutions to content value informed by this long exposure to the Web and the absolute
ubiquity of IP as a worldwide communications medium. Having scrambled for the better part of a
decade to catch up with this phenomenon commercial aggregators and the publishers that they service
are at the edge of having to accept that the balance in their business models is about to shift over
permanently in favor of New Aggregation attributes as the way to highly profitable operations. Many
aggregators lack the financial depth to continue in their present form and will be challenged further as
more institutions and individuals demand that their suppliers fall in line with these new norms. It’s up to
these aggregators and publishers to embrace the New Aggregation rapidly – and it’s up to today’s major
institutions to push their aggregators and publishers to embrace it. The end result of these efforts will
be a world of commercial content that’s far more in line with how people have used content for
centuries. The center of publishing technology moved long ago into our own hands; it’s time for the
business methods and commercial models of commercial aggregators and publishers to follow that
movement at long last.

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16. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Blossom
President
Shore Communications Inc.
jblossom@shore.com
John Blossom is one of the most widely recognized content industry analysts, providing thought
leadership to executives in search of new approaches to rapidly changing markets for publishing and
technology products and services. Mr. Blossom founded Shore Communications Inc. in 1997, specializing
in research and advisory services and strategic marketing consulting for publishers and content service
providers in enterprise and media markets. Mr. Blossom’s engagements have included strategic
marketing consulting for major corporations and startups as well as speaking engagements at major
conferences and advisory services for senior industry executives. Mr. Blossom is the author of the book
"Content Nation: Surviving and Thriving as Social Media Changes Our Work, Our Lives and Our Future,"
published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. in January 2009, and speaks frequently at industry and corporate
events on publishing in enterprise and media markets..
Mr. Blossom's career spans more than twenty years of marketing, research, product management and
development in advanced information and media venues, including the marketing and development of
financial information services at global financial publishers and financial services companies (Citicorp,
Quotron and for Reuters Holdings PLC), as well as earlier experience in broadcast media. Mr. Blossom
served as a Vice President and Lead Analyst at Outsell, Inc., where he provided research and analysis
coverage of content technologies and financial and corporate information markets for major corporate
clients, and developed successful online ecommerce services for research reports. For his excellence in
qualiitative research, Mr. Blossom was recognized with the Vendor of the Year award by Standard &
Poor's in 2001. Mr. Blossom's ContentBlogger weblog won the Software and Information Industry
Association 2007 CODiE award for Best Media Blog. Mr. Blossom is currently writing a book on social
media.
Mr. Blossom's extensive global experience with the marketing and management of financial information
services, including real‐time datafeeds, established him as one of the thought leaders in this important
market segment, leading to strategic assignments with the executive management team of Reuters
Group PLC. Mr. Blossom was also a key player in a number of ground‐breaking Internet‐oriented
initiatives at Reuters, including the introduction of content management services and a global effort to
integrate Internet‐based information suppliers into the mainstream Reuters information services
environment. Mr. Blossom has traveled to and is familiar with both European and Asian markets for
content as well as North American markets..

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In 1999, Mr. Blossom joined Waters Information Services as Director of Market Research, where he
spearheaded the design, development and marketing of The Waters Survey, the first publicly published
survey to collect highly detailed information on financial information product usage from financially
oriented institutions in the United States.
Mr. Blossom has been interviewed frequently by the business press and has been quoted in many major
news and trade publications and media outlets, including:
The Wall Street Journal
Financial Times
Washington Post
Denver Post
USA Today
Marketplace radio
ABC Radio National
CEO Magazine
Information Today
EContent Magazine
Upgrade Magazine
BusinessNow television
Wall Street and Technology
Waters Magazine
Securities Industry News
Red Herring

Mr. Blossom speaks regularly at major industry conferences and events, including:
SIIA Information Industry Summit
SIIA NetGain
SIIA Financial Information Summit (Rome)
SLA Annual Conference
The National Press Club
The Commonwealth Club
ASIDIC
NFAIS
Buying and Selling eContent
Search Engine Strategies
Infovision (India)
InfoCommerce Annual Conference
OCLC Symposium
TransPromo Annual Conference
Uchida Spectrum User Symposium (Tokyo)

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17. ABOUT SHORE

Shore Communications Inc. is a leading research and advisory service focusing on organizations that
create, market, purchase, deploy and use professionally‐oriented content and the technologies that
enable its value in individual and collaborative environments. Unlike many other research and advisory
services, Shore is unique in its focus on understanding not just content or technology or users but the
complex interplay between these forces that create value in enterprise and media content markets.
This positioning is important to our clients, who increasingly view their own operations in the same
unified manner.
Shore focuses on the research and advisory needs of the creators and consumers of content and related
technologies in the professional world. At the core of Shore's operations is a talented and experienced
team of analysts and specialists who are dedicated to an unbiased and objective approach to servicing
your needs. Shore’s team includes senior analysts with years of experience in providing marketing and
research services to major communications companies, including major quantitative and qualitative
research projects that have oftentimes set standards for coverage and quality. Shore’s clients include
major publishing companies, emerging content technology companies and other new and established
companies needing leading edge thinking to drive their product development and purchasing plans.
Shore is a stock‐issuing corporation incorporated in the State of Connecticut and in continuous
operation since 1999, with operations and team members throughout the United States. Our team
consists of numerous industry experts with years of experience in the publishing and communications
industry and who have worked as successful independent consultants providing research and advisory
services prior to joining Shore’s virtual team.
Shore works with its clients on a highly confidential basis. In general outline, our engagements have
included:
 Major market opportunity evaluations for enterprise and media content and technology
companies, including competitive product evaluations, executive interviews, market surveys,
market research, narrative research, market sizings, marketing and product plan evaluations,
platform evaluations, go‐to‐market plans and strategic investments and acquisitions advice.
 Services for major and emerging companies in financial information, legal, regulatory and
compliance information, scientific, technical and medical information, business information,
mobile markets, social media publishing, search, categorization and aggregation technologies.
 Engagements and work experience with global enterprise publishers, including experience in
Asia and the EU.
For further information please contact us at:
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Shore Communications Inc.
4 Merritt Lane
Westport, CT 06880‐1421
203.293.8511
http://www.shore.com/
inquiries@shore.com

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16. ABOUT THE AUTHOR ............................................................................. 29

21 September 2010 COPYRIGHT © 1999-2010 SHORE COMMUNICATIONS INC. i

NOTICE - PROPRIETARY INFORMATION - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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21 September 2010 COPYRIGHT © 1999-2010 SHORE COMMUNICATIONS INC. 1

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3. PREFACE TO 2010 EDITION

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Company 2001- 2002- 1H03-

The New York -1 5 2

6. ATTRIBUTES OF AGGREGATION VALUE

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7. THE TRADITIONAL AGGREGATION MODEL : THE FACTORY

8. THE NEW AGGREGATION MODEL : THE NETWORK

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Individuals Individuals Individuals

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9. ATTRIBUTES OF AGGREGATION: TRADITIONAL VS. NEW

CONTENT AGGREGATION VALUE ATTRIBUTES

Attribute Attribute Traditional New

Commercial  Licensing and  Agreements for  Agreements for

Collection  Making content  Collection into central  Content oftentimes

Normalization  Presenting content in a  Oftentimes requires  Content generally

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CONTENT AGGREGATION VALUE ATTRIBUTES

Attribute Attribute Traditional New

Value-Add  Deriving additional  Centrally designed  Oftentimes user-driven

Indexing  Generating information  Indexes generally  Indexes generally

 Additional content  Indexing may include

Storage  Retaining content for  Content stored in  Content storage

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CONTENT AGGREGATION VALUE ATTRIBUTES

Attribute Attribute Traditional New

Access  Managing permissions  Database login “choke  Multiple access models:

Distribution  Making content  Physical and electronic  Electronic media with

10. THE IMPACT ON TRADITIONAL AGGREGATORS

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11. HOW VENDORS APPLY THE AGGREGATION MODEL

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CONTENT AGGREGATION MODEL COMPARISONS

Attribute LexisNexis Google Verity Weed

Commercial  Central attribute;  Mostly between  May integrate  Central attribute;

Normalization  Collected content  Formats under  Formats under  Enables

Value-Add  Derived content  Derived content  Derived content  Distributors and

Indexing  Indexes primarily  Indexes all  Indexes client  Indexing

Storage  Primarily central  Only indexing  Only indexing  Primarily on

Retrieval  Primarily via  Primarily via  Primarily via  Via client

Access  Database login or  Responsibility of  Oftentimes  Rights

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12. SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MODELS IN THE NEW AGGREGATION

NEW AGGREGATION BUSINESS MODELS

Model Key Key Key Examples

Open  Public and  Source-Neutral;  Reliant on others to  Google

Engines content and

relevance and to a wide range  Endeca

Content  Collaborative  Enabling most  Sometimes difficult  KaZaa

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NEW AGGREGATION BUSINESS MODELS