Thomson Reuters: A Precarious Time
November 3, 2012
Last year a slightly off kilter outfit asked me to take a look at Thomson Reuters. At the time we did the work, Thomson Reuters was in the midst of reorganization, an on-again, off-again sale of its health and medial unit (fraud not content), and the pressure from some feisty competitors like BloombergBusinessweek. In my write up, I had used the phrase “eating Thomson Reuters’ lunch” but that was a bit too colorful for those paying the bill.
I read this morning (Saturday, November 3, 2012) the story “Thomson Reuters Battles Slow Sales.” You can find this story in the dead tree edition of the Wall Street Journal, page B4 with the interesting date, November 3-4, 2012. An online version may be available, but you can get the basics of the Thomson Reuters’ situation in this Reuters’ news story, “Thomson Reuters Operating Profit Down, Trading Pressured.” If you want the details with some management polish, check out “Thomson Reuters Management Discusses Q3 2012 Results – Earnings Call Transcript.”
The main idea is that Thomson Reuters is continuing to miss its financial targets. In our 2011 analysis, we identified a number of factors which signaled future difficulties for the company. Among these was the failure of the “synergies” asserted about the marriage of Thomson and Reuters. We also pointed out that Thomson Reuters has a number of communication challenges. Among these are explaining to customers what products and services do and how they differ from other Thomson Reuters’ products, getting messages about the company’s products and services for the financial community through to customers as outfits like BloombergBusinessweek continue to gain traction, and internally among the mind boggling number of units and divisions within the firm. I am not revealing the “good stuff” we identified, but there are some other challenges too.
My view is that with each passing month, Thomson Reuters is slipping. A year ago, drastic action was needed. Now, after one year since we finalized our report, the company’s troubles seem to be growing. What must the company do to make its stakeholders feel secure in their investment?
One answer is electronic products. The precarious situation for Thomson Reuters is that electronic products and services are not producing. Print services continue to be pressured. Now there may be no clear path to growth going forward. Westlaw’s nifty search system is not delivering the anticipated results either. Precarious indeed.
Stephen E Arnold, November 3, 2012
Arnold Google Column Moved to Citizentekk
October 29, 2012
My Google column was the idea of KMWorld, an Information Today publication. After a year and a half, Hugh McKellar suggested I shift to a broader palette of enterprise semantic topics. About a year and a half ago, I had a conversation with a manager at IMI Publishing in London. Since my heart attack, I have submitted columns and then had to endure long delays in the editorial and administrative processed. I have now moved my Google column to Beth Kindig, who has started an electronic publication http://www.citizentekk.com/. Starting in November 2012, you will find my Google column at this new Web address. I am in the process of revisiting the entire series of Google columns, updating some of the information, and adding new interpretations of Google’s enterprise activities. I am working with Ms. Kindig to make available a free copy of my monograph The New Landscape of Enterprise Search for her readers who want to receive my limited distribution newsletter Honk. Honk is explained at this link. I will run a short item about getting the free monograph from her site once I have that information.
Stephen E Arnold, October 29, 2012
Google and Publishers Settle Long Standing Lawsuit
October 23, 2012
The Mac Observer recently reported on a long standing lawsuit between Google and book publishers in the article, “Google Settles with American Publishers Over Scanned Books.”
According to the article, Google’s plan to scan all of the books in the world has been met with much objection from authors, publishers, and other groups. The issue being that Google has scanned more than 20 million books and made them searchable without gaining permission from anyone. However, publishers have now reached an agreement with the search giant which allows them to have some control over which books are being scanned.
The article states:
“‘We are pleased that this settlement addresses the issues that led to the litigation,’ Tom Allen, president and CEO of the publishers group, said in a statement. ‘It shows that digital services can provide innovative means to discover content while still respecting the rights of copyright-holders.’
The deal not only gives publishers the power to decide which books are included in the project, it also limits users to reading 20 percent of the digitized books online with an option to purchase the entire book on Google Play, the company’s online Android store.”
Our only question is this: after suing for nearly a decade, why settle now?
Jasmine Ashton, October 23, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Fraud Accounts for Majority of Scientific Study Retractions
October 22, 2012
A recent study regarding fraud in information released from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is puzzling. The study analyzed retracted papers from 1977 onward and the reasons for those retractions. The findings? Fraud, plagiarism, and duplication were the most common reasons for retractions.
The article “Fraud, Not Error, Accounts for Most Scientific Retractions” on The Curious Wavefunction blog tells us that about 67% of the 2047 retracted papers could be traced to misconduct.
The study informs us of the possible solutions to the troubling results:
“But sadly this culture is here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future. What can we do to curb its worst excesses? The paper points to encouraging solutions like the Office of Research Integrity and regular courses on ethics and data presentation. There are few counterparts to these measures in developing countries and this needs to be taken seriously by their governments. More importantly, researchers, journal editors and referees need to be taught both the value and the methodology of honest research from day one of their careers.”
We wonder how much of an impact ethics courses would have on researchers that are competing for grants, publicity, funding, and resources. Perhaps the answer is in search systems. Are “smart” systems able to detect willful manipulation of information? We think this could potentially be an area ripe for research and innovation.
Andrea Hayden, October 22, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Science Information Breaking Free From Traditional Publishing
October 21, 2012
A couple of Cambridge entrepreneurs are putting forth another effort to break science information free from traditional publishing’s grip. I recently read the article “A Plan to Open Up Science Journals” on The Boston Globe, which informs us of the project that is attempting to bring the iTunes single-purchase sales approach to often costly scientific journal research. The project is dubbed ReadCube Access and would break the trend of purchasing yearlong subscriptions, called site licenses, by instead offering individual articles for sale.
The article tells us more about the implementation of the product:
“So far, the two entrepreneurs, who are founders of a Cambridge company called Labtiva, have sold the ReadCube Access idea to the industry giant Nature Publishing Group and to the University of Utah’s library system, which started implementing it this fall.
Researchers at the University of Utah can get access to individual journal articles in one of Nature’s 80 or so subscription-based publications, many of which Utah cannot afford to buy.”
This effort to change the way scientific research is published could help libraries lower costs over time. Researchers would also benefit from this method, because ultimately their tedious searchers would result in the source document appearing, not a subscription or purchase form.
Andrea Hayden, October 21, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Another Book for the Big Data Crowd
October 19, 2012
My goodness. I am delighted that I am not a real journalist or a real publisher. We continue to learn about discounted or free books. The most recent book information came to us via David Barber (Happy Quack, to you, sir). The book is Bayesian Reasoning and Machine Learning. If you are a big data fan, Bayes, the wily cleric, has become one of the go to tools for many big data and analytics outfits. When systems learn, the deft Bayes’s methods are in play. I would like to explain the interesting consequences of such methods, but for now, you can get the discount at this link. The free version is available at http://web4.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/D.Barber/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Brml.Online
Stephen E Arnold, Beyond Search, a word pair now used by Microsoft, CNet, and Set Grimes. Well, well, well. Oops. That is a Markov chain trigger.
Citizen Tekk Taps ArnoldIT
October 15, 2012
Short honk: Citizen Tekk, a curated information service, is now featuring articles from Beyond Search and some original content from Stephen E Arnold. You can locate the Arnold articles at http://www.citizentekk.com/author/stephen-e-arnold/. The articles will cover analytics, online and search. Mr. Arnold writes columns for Information Today, Online Searcher, and KMWorld. If you are interested in content produced by Stephen E Arnold or the ArnoldIT team, write seaky2000 at yahoo dot com.
Stuart Schram, October 15, 2012
Newspaper Advertising Revenue Shows Sharp Decline
October 2, 2012
It is well known that numerous big newspaper corporations have gone bust in the past decade. However, according to an article from Business Insider, “And Now Let Us Gasp In Astonishment At What Just Happened To The Newspaper Business,” the related decline in newspaper advertising over the same time period makes it surprising that all newspaper organizations have not flopped as well.
The article tells us:
“Below, via Mark J. Perry and Bill Gross, is a chart we’ve run before. It shows inflation-adjusted newspaper advertising revenue over the past 60 years.
Thanks to the precipitous decline in the last ~7 years, the industry is now back to where we it was in 1950. And it’s only slightly better off when you factor in online revenue.
Journalism professor Jay Rosen of NYU observes that the peak year was the one in which blogging software first appeared.”
The chart, which we have included, shows a very obvious and quick drop in the last decade.
This shocking decline in newspaper revenue is concerning for the print industry and shows the switch to blogging and other online sources of news and information. Advertisers and journalists would be wise to learn how to monetize this area before all newspapers are extinct.
Andrea Hayden, October 02, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
The Blame Game: Civility and the Lousy Economy
September 24, 2012
I read “Frustrated with Poor Mobile Sales, Publishers Blame Ad Agencies.” The main idea is that mobile devices have become the go-to source of information for may people. The article puts the content consumption shift in perspective:
Mobile makes up a fifth of reader traffic for 87 percent of publishers, but only 29 percent of them are seeing the same proportion of revenue come from mobile, according to respondents to a census issued by the UK’s Association of Online Publishers (AOP).
The article includes charts and graphs which point out some of the reasons for the revenue challenge. For example, device fragmentation and expertise are two important factors.
Let’s step back.
There are a number of shifts going on simultaneously. Analysts have to pick one and then try to quantify it or put the shift into perspective. But no one factor is going to fix a problem with revenue shortfall.
Publishers are finding themselves caught like personal computer makers in a situation which is different from the business environment of five years ago. Change is an organization comes slowly. Humans want to learn how to perform a task or tasks smoothly and efficiently. In the last five years, the tension between organizations having systems which keep on ticking while they take a licking have been stressed.
How many people today want to read or can afford a book like this one?
In publishing, the loss of the traditional role as the makers of information has been altered. The publishers have been experimenting, innovating, and developing new products. At the same time, others have been changing, often more quickly and without the friction of cannibalizing revenues from the Old Faithfuls in the product line up. Maybe high value information is for the elite? Money for online content may go to those with the lowest common denominator for value?
Bloggers and Journalists Not as Different As They Appear
September 24, 2012
The Joshua Topolsky Blog recently published a response to criticism from several bloggers regarding The Verge’s coverage of Apple copycats, called ”Integrity and Bullies With Blogs.”
Topolsky, the editor-in-chief of The Verge, calls out several bloggers who have written slanderous “conspiracy theories” accusing The Verge of covering products which resemble or outright boost the industrial design of an Apple product and then purposefully withholding mention of this fact for some kind of gain. He argues that the publication he works for in no way alters or softens stories in order to win favor with a particular company and then goes on site several examples.
Topolsky writes:
“We are not in the business of helping out companies — we’re in the business of writing and reporting news for our readers. And that’s it, plain and simple. The idea that we would attempt to get into the good graces of a company by giving them favorable coverage is simply laughable. If you heard the crazy, angry calls I get from PR people over the coverage we do, you would know this. We have literally been shut out of access to certain companies over our harsh coverage — to suggest we kowtow to them is not only stupid, it’s simply wrong.”
Real journalists are not bullies. Examples of appropriate behavior include: Rupert Murdoch and wiretapping, William Randolph Hearst and the creation of yellow journalism, and Jayson Blair, the life coach who wrote some interesting stories which appeared in the New York Times as news. Now it is up to bloggers to work to make clear where the truth resides.
Jasmine Ashton, September 24, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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