Online Syndication Still A Dream For Most

Content syndication is not a new concept. It has existed for years with the syndication of news, editorial columns and comic strips to a defined distribution list of media subscribers.

But the Web has changed the notion of content. Today, content includes anything from graphical images to calendars and it requires immediate delivery of timely information. Distribution is very complex, and because of cross-links via the Web, it's difficult to identify the range of supplier and customer relationships, and the different agreements between content providers and customers. With more potential points of distribution, it becomes more difficult to track content usage and allocate revenue appropriately.

For more than a year, the Web content vendors have promised that their products offer a way to manage content syndication over the Web. Kinecta, Vignette, Interwoven, and other vendors point to product benefits such as revenue tracking, instantaneous news feeds, automatic reformatting, precise content targeting, and elimination of custom code requirements. Yet, there's still alag between the availability of this technology and full deployment.

A case in point is media giant Reuters, which has been posting content over the Web since 1994 to more than 900 Web sites and portals worldwide, including Yahoo, Go Network, and America Online.

Nine months ago Reuters began using Kinecta's software to build what they call the Internet Delivery System (IDS). Tony Allday, director of development and product management at Reuters Media in London, says IDS takes Reuters news content, converts it into XML and links content strands where necessary, for example, associating a picture with a news story. The system then syndicates content across the Web to Reuters customers. All the customer needs is a simple piece of Java code, which they download from a Kinecta/Reuters site and install on their server.

"Once a connection has been established with our host, content will flow through to the customer site as we update it from our editorial systems," says Allday. "It makes our job simpler, no fixed line or costly satellite installations, and it's better for the customer because it's simpler to set up and the content is delivered as XML streams, giving them ultimate flexibility in the way they display Reuters content on their site.

Impressive as it is, this project is still in beta with the commercial rollout slated for later this month. Meanwhile, few companies are even close to deploying this technology. And while some of the vendors could point to companies that were getting started with content syndication tools, most of the examples were still in the early stages.

Reuters was one. Another is We Media Inc., a portal site for people with disabilities, which is using Interwoven's TeamSite, a content syndication tool that lets them deliver XML content to customers. Jonathan Randall, We Media's senior director of interactive development, says by removing the need for HTML coding and other custom coding, TeamSite cuts the process of pushing content out on to the Web by 30 percent.

"Since we use TeamSite mainly for storing XML content and version, we're pretty cutting edge in that regard," says Randall. "So we've been waiting on them to get out the newer and better tools to let us deliver targeted content better, and providing them with feedback. So in a nutshell, I'd put it at an early adoption stage."

Of course, Geoffrey Bock, a senior consultant at the Patricia Seybold Group, says content syndication over the Web will be driven by the quality of the content--not the raw technology. Sure, the syndication servers that Vignette and Kinecta produce are enabling technologies, but Bock says companies shouldn't pin their hopes on technology alone.

"What's going to be needed for syndication is compelling content that has a business purpose," says Bock. "We are beginning to see early examples where business visionaries are creating relationships with their distributors and channel partners and are able to reinforce that relationship by syndicating content and parts descriptions. But I would emphasize that the business process and business needs come first and syndication technologies second."

That doesn't mean these tools aren't needed. Take a look at Conde Nast, the New York publisher of magazines such as Vogue, Architectural Digest, Vanity Fair, and Glamour. Paul Kramer, Conde Nast's project manager, information systems and technology, says right now, the company relies on pre-press vendors and its permission department to generate reports manually, in tandem with its century-old historical archive. The company's foreign licensees, such as the German version of Vogue, have 30 days to purchase articles and photographs and clear rights.

The typical process works as follows: After the American version is sent to the printer, electronic files are sent to the company's foreign licensees who indicate what they would like to reuse. Foreign licensees fax back their interests to the permissions department in New York.

Initially, licensees receive low resolutions, with high-resolution images provided after licensees make their final selection. The New York office has also recently started to provide CDs with images of Quark files and will eventually offer PDF files stripped of advertising content. Says Kramer: "We are not using content syndication tools. Right now, we are in the stone age."

Moving forward, Kramer would like to see a metadata standard (see sidebar) that provides agreement on the basic data required for commerce, issues such as rights, content, contributors, and subject information. "It would be great if there were a standard for when we purchase from vendors or our own archives to have a standard metadata so that it would be compatible with our system," Kramer says.

"It's not that we are speaking different languages. We are not even communicating. We should start out with a standard before we get too far into this thing."

Many businesses prefer focusing on their core business rather than on technology issues. Such is the case of simple.com, inc. Headquartered in Santa Fe, N.M., simple.com is a content and e-commerce delivery portal that provides a so-called "windowed" environment for Web access.

"Every company has to decide what business they are in," says Tom Garay, vice president of operations at simple.com. "Our decision was that we are experts in providing a unique portal to do e-commerce and content delivery and therefore we wanted ease of use of information for our users."

For simple.com, the solution was to outsource content syndication to service provider iSyndicate, which provides news and entertainment content that simple.com can then offer its users. Content is billed on a monthly basis.

Apparently, this idea is catching on. Joel Maske, iSyndicate's CEO claims that the company represents more than 800 content providers, with more than 4,000 different products and distribution to 170,000 Web sites. The company provides news feeds from AP and Reuters, genre-specific publications such as rollingstone.com, and columns from individual contributors.

"Content syndication is changing," says Maske. "As millions of sites interact with customers, each one of those outlets requires the right information to be delivered to the consumer... for us, it makes us plan to invest in a platform that can scale up in a robust fashion."

Mike Maziarka, director at consultancy CAP Ventures, says content syndication will continue to grab the attention of managers with e-commerce or marketing-driven sites. While he sees tremendous potential for syndicating content at rank-and-file companies, he says most corporate environments are not yet equipped to introduce outside content. "Many organizations are still going through the process to get this under control," Maziarka says, which is why he says for the most part, traditional publishers will take the lead with content syndication over the Web.

Even with all the activity among publishers, it will still take some time for syndication to fully materialize. Jupiter Communications, for example, projects $1.5 billion for online licensing revenue by 2004, in contrast to $225 million in 1999 and $250 million in 2000.

Aram Sinnreich, an analyst at Jupiter, sees a shakeout among content providers and destination sites, with the survivors more profitable and with more disposable income for content.

"What's going to need to happen is that increase in bandwidth will create a higher bar...and number of viable content providers for destination sites will become more limited as the bar for creating content rises."

"As the business-to-business exchanges and e-markets and net-markets expand over the next 12 months, the business strategists are going to need to have syndicated content to supplement the transactions of the marketplace."

Paula Jacobs is a writer based in Framingham, Mass. Reach her at pjacobs@world.std.com.

Content Publishers Push For Metadata Standard

It's been a little over a year since the formal introduction of the Information & Content Exchange specification, a collaborative effort of more than 80 companies to define an XML syntax for content syndication across the Web.

ICE lets publishers determine the content sent to Web sites, set a schedule for transmissions, customize content selection for each site, and automatically reformat the content according to customer requirements, such as adding company logos and changing links. The ICE 1.0 specification was written by Adobe Systems, CNET, Microsoft, National Semiconductor, News Internet Services, Sun Microsystems, Tribune Media Services, and Vignette.

But the lack of a standard metadata vocabulary is hindering efforts to move forward with content syndication, say industry experts. The industry needs a standard because content that formerly remained with a single publisher now must be aggregated and syndicated so it can be reused.

Linda Burman, president of L.A. Burman Associates, a Toronto consulting company that's been active on the standards front, explains: "What's happening in publishing is the need of content providers to take content that was originally authored for print and use in different ways for multiple print and online vehicles."

This changing business model driven by the Web is driving the requirement for a standard metadata vocabulary. Previously, since publishers did not need to worry about sharing content with many suppliers, so manual processes were sufficient for indexing text and photos.

In today's Web environment, where anyone can be a publisher, this labor-intensive model no longer works. Instead, a wide variety of people need quick and automatic access to a variety of information. For example, a Web publisher on the other side of the globe identifies an author's quote and then wants to automatically access a permission database for reuse rights.

A standard metadata vocabulary could provide valuable information about publishing assets, such as the date a story was created and a photographer's name. To accelerate the standardization effort and create a standard metadata vocabulary, content providers and tool vendors have joined the Publishing Requirements for Industry Standard Metadata (PRISM) working group, which hopes to make a draft specification available in June. PRISM is also working with the International Press and Telegraph Group to develop an interoperable collaborative on metadata for content, such as magazines, catalogs, and books. PRISM's url: www.idealliance.org/prism.htm.