DarkCyber noted “Thomson Reuters acquires FC Business Intelligence.” FCBI, according the the firm’s Web site:
Founded round a kitchen table in 1990, originally with a focus on emerging markets, the company has grown organically in size and influence ever since.
We learned:
The business will be rebranded Reuters Events and will be operated as part of the Reuters News division of Thomson Reuters.
Thomson Reuters has not delivered hockey stick growth in the last three, five, eight years, has it?
Will conferences be the goose which puts golden eggs in the Thomson Reuters’ hen house?
What’s the motive force for a professional publishing outfit to get into conferences? DarkCyber hypothesizes that:
- Getting more cash from traditional professional publishing markets is getting more difficult; for example, few law firms have clients willing to pay the commercial online fees from the “good old days”
- Conferences, despite advances in technology, continue to give the Wall Street Journal and other organizations opportunities to meet and greet, generate revenue from booth rentals, and a way to hop on hot topics
- Respond to the painful fact that it is easier to make one’s own news instead of paying to just report the news, particularly if it comes from a high profile conference.
Will Thomson Reuters slice and dice the content outputs in as many ways as possible? Possibly.
Worth watching as Lord Thomson of Fleet probably is from his eye in the sky.
Stephen E Arnold, October 6, 2019