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By Robin Neidorf

Abstract

With the recent publication of our review of Factiva.com, the number of in-depth reports on news products published in 2012 comes to six. Director of Research Robin Neidorf reflects on the continuing importance of this competitive and dynamic content category and asks for suggestions for improving FreePint's coverage of this category in 2013.

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For the past few days I've been immersed in a comparative analysis of the reviews of news products FreePint published in 2012. You can read the first of the resulting articles starting here.

With the recent publication of our review of Factiva.com, the number of reports on news products for 2012 is six, or one-quarter of the in-depth reviews published throughout the year. This is a competitive content category, and I feel like we could easily cover even more resources and products that provide news coverage.

At the same time, we continue to look at news in other ways: Every month, contributing editor Anne Jordan gathers information from major aggregators about changes in their source lists -- check out the recent coverage of Factiva, Nexis and EBSCO. And later this week, you can expect to see the analysis of our annual news needs and preferences survey appear in the Information Strategy section of FreePint.

As I always do this time of year when reviewing the latest survey results and conducting the comparative analysis, I think about why we dedicate so many pixels to news content. Certainly the competitiveness of the vendors in this market is a factor: They're each working hard to differentiate themselves, which means interesting innovations and new ways of approaching the market.

The ongoing shifts in the economics of news publishing and distribution also have an impact on the breadth and depth of coverage. Some news is moving behind paywalls; some is being opened up for free access; some is ceasing publication altogether. And with every new platform introduced into the content ecosystem, the number of sources increases... and the very definition of "news" is expanded.

News feeds business actions and business decisions. News is part of every knowledge worker's job. My hope is that FreePint's coverage of news products and services gives you the insight you need to better support this fundamental element of your content portfolio. 

How can we do so more effectively? Email me at robin.neidorf@freepint.com to let me know what you'd like in reviews and coverage for 2013.

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