Product evaluation - apples vs. pears?
Jinfo Blog

18th December 2009

By Anne Jordan

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Information managers are having to make hard choices between different products – identifying content overlaps and reducing the number of resources to the core 'must have's'. But products are rarely, if ever, true comparisons, so how can we make these decisions when it's like comparing apples and pears? In September, VIP's 'Economic Impact Research' (http://web.vivavip.com/go/shop/report/1489) reported that only 17% of respondents had an increase in their 2009 budget for content and information products, compared to 2008. Twenty-eight percent reported a flat budget whilst the majority – 55% – faced a decrease. Our research showed that information managers are using a wide range of strategies to cope with this. Many VIP readers are evaluating their resources in different content categories, and will be facing the same difficulties I experienced in reviewing Factiva.com and Nexis in November's annual news review (http://web.vivavip.com/go/shop/report/1530). There may be source overlaps, but there are also many uniques on each product. The search capabilities and interfaces allow similar interrogation of the databases, but each offers different nuances that could give the edge, depending on the researcher's specific goals. But let's not forget the vendors. When no two products are exactly alike, they may feel that comparisons are misleading. The annual VIP news review concentrates on one content silo – news. Taking this feature-specific view helps readers hone in on specifics, but it means the broader attributes of each Big 3 vendor - traditionally Lexis Nexis, Factiva, and Dialog - cannot realistically be covered For its part, Dialog's strategy is to support innovation in an integrated way and whilst NewsRoom is an important part of that, the vendor felt that by focusing on one content category, a comparative news review would not be truly reflective of Dialog's capabilities. It was for this reason that the 'Big Three' therefore became the 'Big Two'. We hope to take a deeper look at Dialog/Newsroom in 2010. VIP product reviewers need to be thoughtful and creative in order to produce equitable comparative reviews and help our readers make difficult choices, whilst being fair to the vendors who provide the premium tools we need for our work. In September VIP Magazine published a comparative review of three syndicated loan databases and in January Penny Crossland takes a look at three relationship databases; we're also working on lining up vendors for a comparison of small business credit resources, and for Russian company data sources. Are there other specific categories we should be looking at? Send your requests for product reviews to Nancy Davis Kho, industry liaison, at nancy.daviskho@freepint.com. We would also like to hear if you have been facing difficult comparisons. Are you comparing apples with pears? Post comments on the VIP LiveWire at http://web.vivavip.com/forum/LiveWire/.

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