Information Wants to be Good

I have been saying loudly for years now that ultimately there would be a flight to quality on the web, at least where data is concerned. My reasoning is pretty simple: data you can't depend on is somewhere between useless and dangerous.

A few weeks back, I wrote about a personal peeve of mine: the number of sites that include the island nation of Palau in their drop down lists of U.S. states. How did this happen? Lots of programmers grabbing the first list of states they could find free somewhere online to save the data entry hassle. This example is mildly humorous, but what if the list being propagated was instead missing a few key states? Then you'd have upset users and possibly even lost sales.

A recent article in Newsweek magazine picks up on this theme, suggesting a trend (which - surprise - some are already labeling Web 3.0) of expert, vetted, trusted data coming back into fashion. Call it a flight to quality.

The article takes particular aim at the poor quality of much of user-generated content being generated, but also notes that information overload is putting a new premium on the short answer as opposed to the full answer. Charlotte Beal, a strategist at research firm Iconoculture, points to growing consumer "choice fatigue" and "fear of bad advice." She also notes sagely that "People are beginning to recognize that the world is too dangerous a place for faulty information." This sentiment is doubly true for data.

It's a fascinating change in the online Zeitgeist if Web 2.0, which celebrated clever feats of programming prowess has suddenly given way to Web 3.0, a celebration of the human editor. It's also great news for those of us who still have a human editor or two on the payroll, and as importantly, trusted brands to certify the quality of their work.

Labels: information quality, Web 2.0, web 3.0

Open Search at Yahoo

Yahoo made, I think, a rather intriguing announcement last week that didn't get a lot of attention: it's going to move to "an open search approach." Simply stated, this means that site owners will be able to deliver to Yahoo exactly the information they want to appear in Yahoo search results. Best of all, Yahoo isn't even charging site owners for all this additional power and exposure in the belief this will radically increase the user experience it delivers.

Leaving aside all the nitty-gritty technical details, Yahoo will allow site owners to effectively pre-package information in an intelligent way for display in Yahoo search results. This could be interesting for a wide range of publishers, particularly advertising- based publishers, who would benefit through additional eyeballs on their ad-supported content. This could also offer intriguing opportunities to database publishers because this new approach will allow you to selectively pull data from your database - content that typically isn't indexed at all by search engines, and push it to Yahoo for direct integration into search results pages.

Let's also acknowledge the big "gotcha" in this program: users have to explicitly indicate that they want to see your deep data in their search results. You'll be able to put a button on your site that users can click to enable your deeper content in their Yahoo search results. Stated another way, users will have to already know about you and like your content before they'll be able to see your enhanced content embedded in their Yahoo search results. That means open search at Yahoo isn't about attracting new users to your content, but rather getting existing users to view your content more often.

The real excitement to me is that this is likely the beginning of a trend. The search business has really moved past the old battle of who has indexed the most pages to a new battleground of features and functionality. Yahoo may be onto something bigger than it realizes here. If it gets a good response to this new approach, it's got every incentive as the distant second player in the business to push the envelope. And that could lead to some breakthrough opportunities for those of us who would like a nice showcase for our deep and useful data.

Labels: yahoo

ICIS Acquires Heren Energy Ltd.

Commodity market information provider ICIS this week acquired Heren Energy Ltd. (ICIS is a unit of Reed Business Information UK). Heren Energy is a European gas, power and carbon market information provider.

The deal is expected ICIS to broaden its geographic scope of international energy markets. In addition, it should yield great global sales opportunities for Heren, which provides independent price assessments and indices to wholesale gas and power markets in Europe.

According to a statement announcing the deal, ICIS officials noted that the deal will enable ICIS to expand beyond petrochemicals into additional energy markets. ICIS expects to leverage the strong Heren brand name with its strengths in price reporting, online content delivery and web marketing to yield a more robust offering for the market.

As the energy market continues to garner much attention, this seems to be an ideal time for ICIS to increase its presence in this space. And, by selecting an established player such as Heren, ICIS (and Reed) will be able to make an immediate impact. Look for Heren to grow its name in the market even further, through momentum it will likely gain from the powerful resources Reed always brings to the table.

Labels: Heren Energy, ICIS, reed-elsevier

Acquisitions Further IHS' Impact in Energy, Environment Space

It's certainly been a busy week on the M&A front for IHS Inc. Along with its acquisition of Prime Publications, which gave IHS 50 percent ownership of maritime information provider Lloyd's Register-Fairplay, IHS this week announced acquisitions of Dolphin Software Inc. and Environmental Software Providers (ESP) for $43.5 million.

Dolphin Software develops and uses chemical data and formula information to help companies in their Total Chemical Management initiatives (which include sustainability, supply chain greening and social responsibility). Dolphin's software enables clients to record and track chemicals they use and store. ESP is an enterprise information solutions provider that helps companies manage their sustainability programs. The company's offerings include greenhouse gas management, air, water, and waste management, internal and regulatory compliance assurance incident management and management of emissions allowance and credit portfolios. ESP serves customers in 60 countries.

The benefits that these acquisitions are expected to yield should be similar to those expected from the acquisition of Prime (and the share of Lloyd's), which was announced on the same day that these deals were made public. IHS plans to use both Dolphin and ESP to bolster its offerings in the energy, product lifecycle, security and environmental segments.

These companies should certainly enable IHS to hit the ground running since they have well-established product lines and customers. With the strength of IHS's resources, these product lines and customer bases will undoubtedly grow over time.

Area such as the environment and energy are such growing areas these days. In addition, social responsibility initiatives have increased in importance in the corporate business world. Many companies are now putting additional resources into such programs. IHS is definitely now well-positioned to capitalize on that trend.

IHS Expands Maritime Offerings Through Joint Venture

Global information provider IHS Inc. this week announced its acquisition of Prime Publications Inc., which owns 50 percent of Lloyd's Register-Fairplay Limited. The deal makes IHS an equal joint venture partner in Lloyd's, a global maritime information provider. IHS paid about $75.5 million for Prime Publications.

Lloyd's maritime information includes coverage of world merchant fleet (tankers, cargo, carrier and passenger ships) through a variety of products and services. It provides information about ships, companies, ports, real-time vessel movements, as well as research and consultancy services for the shipping industry.

In a statement announcing the deal, IHS notes that the maritime information market is of interest to customers in all four of its business segments: energy, product lifecycle, security and environment. The company also believes that Lloyd's offerings with complement those provided by Jane's Information Group, which focuses on the security segment.

Lloyd's also maintains extensive databases for the maritime industry. The company also publishes magazines that cover international shipping, safety, security and port-related activities. It also organizes conference, exhibitions and seminars.

Acquiring Prime Publications to gain access to Lloyd's is a solid move by IHS. This one acquisition will positively impact all facets of IHS's business, since Lloyd's content is relevant to many of IHS's current customers. The company won't have to do much with these new properties, at least not initially. The Lloyd's product line is already rather complete, with publications, databases, research and consultancy services, as well as events in its stable. But look for IHS to use its resources to maintain the stability of Lloyd's offerings and perhaps grow them over time as it markets them to current IHS customers who may not yet be familiar with these products.