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Euromoney Sells Off Systematics Database

Euromoney, an international and events publisher, last week continued the sell-off of a collection of properties with the sale of Metal Bulletin's Systematics database to its management. Systematics contained data on the farm machinery and construction market and was acquired only last October when Euromoney bought Metal Bulletin.

The sale represents one of several conducted by Euromoney this year (Atalink was sold in March and EIC was sold in April) and completes Euromoney's goal of selling non-core Metal Bulletin business, according to a company statement. The company plans to focus its attention instead on the finance, metals, commodities and energy markets.

Euromoney's statement didn't mention the extent of that focus on these markets. But perhaps some acquisitions after this string of sales make sense. At the same time, the sale by Euromoney shouldn't diminish the value of the Systematics database, which posted gross assets of 117,000 pounds at the time of the sale. Hopefully, it will be a better fit in its new home and will continue to provide value to its new owners and customers.

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Too Cool

Real estate is a huge market, so it's no wonder that it's a hotbed of activity and innovation for data publishers. It all started with the Realtor.com site operated by what is now Move Inc. in a venture with the National Association of Realtors.

With nearly 1 million listings updated virtually in real-time, a good user interface, non-gratuitous use of maps and video, useful calculators and other tools, multiple revenue streams, there was a wealth of useful information there, well organized and easily accessible. We gave it our Model of Excellence award in 2004.

Two years later, Zillow burst on the scene. It was a sure-fire combination of clever data aggregation coupled with the guilty pleasure of being able to get a sense of the value of your home (or your neighbors or friends) with just a few clicks. Zillow became an overnight phenomenon, and with an aggressive schedule of new features being rolled out, seemed to be barring the doors to competition. We gave Zillow a Model of Excellence award in 2006.

I was surprised then that, with these two tours de force, Trulia.com burst on the scene quickly thereafter, taking elements from both Realtor.com and Zillow and combining both sale listings and property valuation data in one place. The user interface tries to help users visualize listings by representing them as flags on an area map, a refreshing concept in many ways, but one that gets annoying when lots of properties are for sale in one area and the flags start overlapping each other.

Have we seen it all in real estate? Apparently not. Now HotPads.com has launched. Call it a Trulia for home and apartment rentals. It relies even more heavily on maps for its user interface, and has out-done Trulia with even more extensive neighborhood reference information.

Does HotPads.com now represent the state of the art in real estate data offerings? Ironically not, and therein lies a lesson. The clear trend in real estate (as in other markets) is to load in more content, add more features, give away more for free, and outdo the competition with Web 2.0 cleverness. HotPads wants you to navigate visually through a map that is so dynamic and flexible it is beyond frustrating. HotPads displays buckets of data on every city, obscuring the listings that are its ostensible reason for being. Indeed, only after you realize that the little building icons on the maps represent rental information can you even get close to apartment listings, and even then, you never actually get a list. Apparently you are expected to click on building icons one at a time for detail data. In short, it's a mess that didn't need to be a mess.

The lesson: Successful data publishing means quick, easy access to accurate and relevant information. Deep data is good, but larding up your database with marginally useful content (and then presenting it first) doesn't help the mission. Nor do snappy Web 2.0 interfaces that offer more confusion than clarity. In short, HotPads could do a lot more for its users by doing a lot less. Cool is not a business model.

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GlobalSpec's New PartFinder Meets a Variety of Needs

GlobalSpec last week released PartFinder, a part number search product designed to help its users (manufacturing, industrial, technical and engineering professionals) quickly and easily find the parts they need.

PartFinder was also designed to help distributors and suppliers of the parts by raising their profile among buyers. Product results obtained by GlobalSpec users can link directly to a distributor's website--a shopping cart, inventory pages, datasheets, CAD files or a contact information page on the GlobalSpec site. Distributors can also make updates through PartFinder so that search results only yield in-stock items.

GlobalSpec notes how PartFinder is a complementary service to its SpecSearch offering that enables users to search catalogs by specification. PartFinder can assist those users in re-ordering parts, placing new orders, ordering replacement parts or finding a second source for their desired parts. Users can search for parts through a variety of criteria, such as part number, manufacturer name, distributor name or description. Access is free.

The majority of respondents to a GlobalSpec survey noted a preference for purchasing products online, so the company responded by giving those individuals exactly what they wanted. It's not surprising that such technologically savvy folks are such avid online shoppers, but if GlobalSpec wanted to keep them engaged with the site beyond GlobalSpec's content and other search-related offerings, adding the functionality that PartFinder brings was a necessary move. What's also impressive about PartFinder is that it also addresses the needs of another important customer base for GlobalSpec, product distributors and suppliers. They will also benefit from the extra exposure to potential customers that PartFinder promises. With PartFinder, GlobalSpec and every segment of its customer base should be well served to get exactly what they need.

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