Radical Changes in the News Universe?
Jinfo Blog

By Chris Porter

Abstract

The "News, and Other Commodities" Topic Series highlights a sense of shake-up in what had seemed a static market for news, Chris Porter comments. Find out why in his blog item which also highlights recent and upcoming content in the series.

Item

As we move on forward with the FreePint Topic Series "News, and Other Commodities", I am much struck by what has changed, and what has stayed the same, in the information industry.

Regular followers of the series will have noticed in Robin Neidorf's early look at the findings of FreePint's flagship annual News Needs and Preferences survey, that a significant proportion of those surveyed had changed their news provider in the last three years.

• The sense of shake-up in what had long seemed a very static universe is reflected in a recent overview piece by regular FreePint contributor Sophie Alexander, "Market Landscape - Media Monitoring". Sophie's overview highlights the fact that a couple of long-standing providers have undergone changes in ownership during this time of turbulence.

• FreePint reviews of the products of other media monitoring vendors, helpfully linked to in Sophie's overview article, chronicle a number of shifts in coverage and positioning - and a recent interview under the intriguing title "Avention, OneSource, iSell - What's New, or What's Familiar?" gave another illustration of the way that providers have been repositioning themselves in the news aggregation landscape in recent times.

• Another strong theme of the series is company information. My fellow co-producer Shimrit Janes has drawn attention to FreePint's recent survey results on private company information, which concludes with some sobering comments from buyers about their satisfaction (or not) with available vendor offerings, with particular reference to North American company data.

• Ways to manage the potential mismatch between buyer desires and vendor realities are neatly described in a recent Subscription article by Catherine Pask, "How to Develop Strong Relationships Between Buyers and Suppliers".

We've also recently published an article on researching China. Still to come in the series are more product reviews, plus thematic pieces on economic data and commodity information, among other things. And the Community of Practice session held at the start of December, "The End of an Era for News Databases?", certainly intrigues...

Register for Regular Series Updates

If you haven't already registered for the FreePint Topic Series "News, and Other Commodities", register now to receive free updates and a PDF report containing selected Subscription articles upon registration, as well as a copy of the index report at the end. 

Blogs and articles published since the last series update: 

• How to Create a Successful Newsletter
• Market Landscape of Aggregation Platforms
• Insider Knowledge - Researching China
• Information Sources for Industry Developments
• Market Landscape - Media Monitoring
• Curating Commodity Information

Articles and reviews coming soon in the series:

• Finding and Using Macroeconomic Data
• Q&A with Isentia
• Has Video News Come of Age? 
• Market Landscape - Company Information 
• Product Review of Findout
• Product Review of First Research
• Results from the annual News Needs and Preferences survey
• Thematic Index Report

Webinars 

• DIY Content Aggregation: Benefits & Costs of Managing Your Own Platform, 23rd November - recording available to FreePint Subscribers
• Needs Analysis for Commodity Content, 10th December

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