We tend to look at change as a feature of modern life, but I was reminded last week that publishing has always been a magnet for new technology. I had the opportunity to visit the Morgan Library, a must-see for all who love books. Exhibits included papers belonging to Charles

A few years ago, I spoke of a promised land of interlocking APIs aggregating disparate yet authoritative sources of information, so that information services could provide up-to-the-minute data accuracy. If a corporate office were to move or an executive be promoted, those changes could be reflected far and wide and

Businesses based on selling data on a subscription basis are in a truly turbulent period right now. Competition from open source databases and low-cost API databases is starting to emerge and firms with killer workflow integration software are also hungrily eyeing B2B database publishers’ steady revenue streams. Adding to the

Data publishers love structure. Very granular fielded data allows their customers to locate very specific things — for example, all investment banks in Boston that invested in green energy start-ups — instantly. Fielded data allows quick apples-to-apples comparisons, lets you know more about your prospective customers, and makes data analysis

Last week’s outstanding DataContent conference featured presentations from dozens of companies that are defining the future of online information services. What was so amazing to me was the extent to which the trends identified in past conferences became reality a just few short years later. Here’s a quick look at

Driving usage for online subscription products or SaaS offerings makes the difference between long-term success and a slow, painful failure. Savvy publishers are therefore spending more and more time and money to ensure the kind of heavy usage that leads to strong renewal rates and a truly sustainable business. Usage

Every project manager has conducted a “post-mortem” after their big product has launched or their information service redesign has rolled out to their customers. Nits are picked, fingers may be pointed and, on occasion, heads can roll. In these days of pervasive predictive analytics, though, can we realistically prevent major

Most data publishers are familiar with Tableau‘s data visualization tool through Tableau Public. Few, however, realize that the software can be a robust platform for delivering their data to subscribers. Tableau-based information services are visually stunning and functionally robust. They act more like local applications than web-based services. A notable

Taking information at face value is a risky proposition, as Gary Hoover (formerly of Hoover’s and four other companies launched over the course of his career to date), pointed out last week in a Fundamentals of Business Research presentation, part of the University of Texas’s Information Institute‘s “Boiling The Ocean:

The 2013 DataContent conference just wrapped up yesterday and, once again, it offered outstanding insight into the innovation going on in our industry. Here are my favorite highlights from the show: RetailNext: Founded by some ex-Cisco engineers in 2007 these folks use heat sensors in retail shops to track traffic