Nathan Gilliatt has an interesting model for using RSS to “aggregate and redistribute market intelligence,including analyst research subscriptions, inside the corporate firewall.” He calls it IDS, or Intelligence Delivery System. Analysts are just one source category.
What I like most about his IDS model is that it enables an organization to bring together diverse information in a stable repository and strip out the costs and chaos of things like internal portals, applications and multiple 3rd party content aggregators. To be sure, I’m a fan of these tools and services today. Whatever limitations they present, they provide capabilities that many organizations simply could not justify building for themselves.
Where I disagree with IDS is the emphasis on importing and RSS for herding analyst research content. Some of the most valuable analyst content is delivered in formats that are not RSS-friendly — such as graphics, spreadsheets, databases, video, and interactive tools. Increasingly, content will be delivered in mutiple languages and with role, industry, and regional context.
Robust search applications seem the more promising way forward, for analyst research consumers and analysts alike.
Hat tip to Vinnie Mirchandani for starting this discussion.
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January 18th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
We at Northern Light agree with you and have recently launched Analyst Direct (www.analystdirect.com). Analyst Direct allows you to simultaneously search all the reports from 18 top IT market research firms and includes cutting edge text analytics, the ability to store your logins to seamlessly access reports from analyst firm sites and a full saved search and alerting system (including RSS).
Try it out and let me know what you think!
~Sheri
January 18th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Sheri, That’s a sales pitch, but I’ll let it slide. Your company has done some interesting things in this space since divvying up Bitpipe with TechTarget — as I already noted in this thread.
Longer term, it will be interesting to watch services such as yours adapt to the now-emerging rich media, interactive and collaborative/RIA research delivery formats. Also, to the more international or role-based flavors of content delivery.
Today, there is a growing perception that IT decision makers are no longer interested in purchasing industry analyst reports by annual contract — or, are less interested than they used to be. Louise Garnett’s ongoing research indicates the opposite is true — the market is not on fire, but is not losing ground either. Given your role in the ecosystem, I’d be interested in your thoughts.
January 19th, 2008 at 6:32 am
I apologize if my comment was too pitchy. But I really am interested in your feedback on Analyst Direct. Thanks for your time and comments.
~Sheri