BtoB Media Business - October 2012 - (Page 5)

“The hardest thing to do is to build content-subscription businesses.” Elisabeth DeMarse, chairman-CEO, TheStreet Page 15 Elsevier pushes subscription-based services BY MATTHEW SCHWARTZ Medical and scientific publisher Elsevier was a particularly active player on the media M&A front in August and September. The Amsterdam-based media company, a subsidiary of Reed Elsevier, announced two divestitures and a pair of acquisitions: In August, Elsevier acquired Atira, a research management software company. Atira complements Elsevier’s SciVal, a research and information website. Last month, Elsevier bought ExitCare, which provides patient education and discharge instruction to clinicians for delivery to patients. Also in September, Elsevier sold the International Medical News Group (IMNG) to healthcare media company Quadrant HealthCom, owned by M.E. Zukerman & Co. And in the most recently announced divestiture, it sold the Elsevier Public Safety Group (EPS), which includes FireRescue and Law Officer, to PennWell Corp. Financial terms of the four deals were not disclosed. The divestitures reflect Elsevier’s efforts to reduce its stake in traditional trade publications and sharpen its focus on peer-reviewed science journals, according to Christopher Capot, director-corporate relations at Elsevier. “The advertising and pharma promotional-dependent revenue model of IMNG and EPS, which are really trade publications, did not fit with our long-term health science business strategy,” Capot said, noting Elsevier produces more than 400 peerreviewed publications. “We will continue to focus on advertising and pharma promotion in peer-reviewed journals.” ExitCare, which serves more than 2,000 healthcare organizations throughout the U.S., will be folded into Elsevier’s portfolio of clinical decision support (CDS) content and tools. “A gap for us had been in that patient-education space, which is a very critical part of patient flow through a hospital, for example,” said Sonika Mathur, VP-strategy and business development for the CDS group. “The rationale behind the acquisition is that it really helps us provide a more comprehensive suite of solutions that can satisfy almost the entire work flow for a clinician.” Mike Parker, managing director of media investment bank AdMedia Partners, said Elsevier’s various deals were in keeping with the company’s strategy to shed media products with exposure to print-advertising cycles and build out its subscription business. Former Reed Elsevier CEO Sir Crispin Davis “said a few years ago that he wanted to get into database management and more digital [media], and that’s what the company is doing,” Parker said. “It appears to be working, in terms of divesting ad-driven products and putting money into more reliable revenue streams.” ThomasNet relaunches with enhanced product search BY MARIE GRIFFIN In early September, when Thomas Publishing Co. relaunched ThomasNet.com, it included, for the first time, a part search capability. This new tool uses state-of-the-art semantic technology to make parametric search more efficient. ThomasNet has evolved from a print directory into an online supplier-discovery platform. Company listings include detailed product information, such as individual part specifications and 2-D and 3-D CAD (computer-aided design) drawings. While users could find specific component parts previously, the new Product Search tool has been built from the ground up to make it incrementally easier for users to find these products. With supplier search, still a major aspect of ThomasNet, users can evaluate and compare suppliers of various types of products, such as gaskets or adhesives, and drill down to find an individual part. Product Search not only enables users to find products based on multiple simultane- ous specifications (parametric search), it also uses cutting-edge semantic technology— known as intelligent search—to make the search process faster. “We have taken a big leap forward with Product Search,” said ThomasNet.com VP Tom Greco. “We’ve aggregated over 100 million parts from over 30,000 suppliers. We used our staff of engineers to create a classification taxonomy that defines the attributes that are important to engineers and procurement professionals with each product. Then, with semantic search, we add the layer of being able to understand the user’s intent and the contextualmeaning. It’s not simply word matching.” From a user’s perspective, semantic search eliminates steps by showing how a search was interpreted in the search results by boxes identified as “Refinements Added to Your Results.” If, for example, the search engine interpreted a query for a motor as one for a direct-current motor, that is indicated. If there is an ambiguous term that could be interpreted in more than one way, the engine will ask users to choose the parameter they meant. Users can add parameters until they reach a string of specifications that yields the exact part they need. The new ThomasNet platform also includes improvements to its supplier directory. For example, it is now easier to find local suppliers, suppliers with certifications from various standard-setting organizations or suppliers that meet diversity requirements, such as women-owned enterprises. “We make it our business to understand the challenges our users face when sourcing products, and the new ThomasNet.com is designed to address them,” Greco said. Two other key features that were added with the website relaunch are an online job board and ThomasNet Daily Deals, which provides users with promotional prices on a number of business and office products through a partnership with RapidBuyr. The underlying business model of ThomasNet did not change. It is free to engineers, procurement professionals and purchasing agents. Manufacturers and distributors support the service through advertising, paying to include downloadable CAD drawings or by taking advantage of a number of fee-based services. mediabusinessonline.com | October 2012 | Media Business | 5 http://www.ThomasNet.com http://www.ThomasNet.com http://www.ThomasNet.com http://www.mediabusinessonline.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of BtoB Media Business - October 2012

BtoB Media Business - October 2012
Table of Contents
Upfront
Cover Story
Special Report
Sales & Marketing
M&A
Production
People
Benchmarks
Endnote

BtoB Media Business - October 2012