Outsell’s Chuck Richard chimed in today with some additional observations from the SIIA Summit: Nuts and bolts. As Marc Strohlein noted, there aren't a lot of new, Earth-shattering concepts or business models being bandied about this year. There are a lot of straightforward blocking and tackling discussions – "here’s how we are doing things" – and it’s mostly useful and productive stuff. In a nutshell, as Kelly Gay of KnowledgeStorm noted, all the good business models have been thought of. Now the trick is the timing of putting the right one in front of customers at the right time. "Google as the Devil" is no more. What is new is the event’s – and the traditional information industry’s – apparent new attitude toward Google (and by association, the rest of the open Internet as a force in the industry). No longer are businesses describing how they are protecting their turf from Google. Most are actively working with Google on some level, and more importantly, many are going way beyond that, working with other sites and channels that do not involve Google. Kelly Gay of KnowledgeStorm noted that her company has over 80 partner sites that generate leads and traffic. There is an upbeat tone to those discussions, as if everyone has figured out that the openness of the Internet is an advantage, not a threat. Beyond search. In the B2B sector, speakers focused on going beyond Google for lead generation. Google-type paid search is not where the new model stops. In B2B, publishers are going narrow and niche-y to find users looking for one particular type of product. It’s not like the consumer products world, where a Google ad by itself can constitute the strategy. These players are building a bigger funnel of sites and hooks leading people back to their content. An ad by any other name can smell sweeter: Advertising was the subject of much buzz, not just over the dollars flowing into online advertising (as evidenced by Google's earnings report), but their relative value. A number of speakers pointed out that right now online ads are hugely undervalued compared to print ads. People who respond to online ads are better qualified and response rates are much higher than for their print counterparts. Ted Leonsis offered one counterpoint, however: "100 percent ad-funded businesses are one bad quarter away from a subscription model." Content markets getting more efficient: Ted Leonsis also noted that most of the physical, geographical, and time barriers around information markets have been effectively erased in the past few years. Information markets are running efficiently. At the same time, the breadth and depth of the content available is increasing. Easier said than done department:Our own Marc Strohlein was part of a panel today that looked at the industry through the lens of customers and CIOs. The consensus is that the tools and the technologies are generally outrunning the ability of users and customers to keep up and deploy them. Customers need vendors with consultative, advisory services if their goods are to function properly. Bottom Line. Leonsis again, summing up what might be a keynote theme for the new models: Contrary to those who say "content wants to be free," the truth is that "content wants to generate ancillary revenue streams."
