Content syndication as platform of content exchange

Content Syndication als Plattform des Content Exchange

Printer-friendly

E-mail this article to a friend

Your Comment

With the content syndication there is a new, forward-looking business approach within the context of content management, at which contents existing offline or online in the web are sold to third parties, who want to enhance their own web presentation. In this context, a content management system offers the basis for such a content exchange.

During the last months the online brokerage of web content has developed into a significant market. An online broker sells his own content and the content of somebody else to customer websites, which have only little (or no) own content and want to complete their offer. Thus, the broker builds the interface between the creators of the contents and the customer websites.

The marketing chain reaches from the creator of the contents over online publishers, brokers and possibly a web agency to the customer website. Of course, it is conceivable that individual functions are performed by one company. For example, Bertelsmann covers the whole process chain of content brokerage, because contents are self-created and published, however, also a syndication to third parties, which are company external and company internal, can be carried out.

To fulfil the content brokerage a technological platform has to be provided, which allows a customer-specific syndication. This platform receives content (substances and metadata) by the suppliers and stores them in a database. After that new utilization channels can be applied by designing content packages or generating products "on demand" in a personalized form. In addition to this, also rights of use can be negotiated through such a platform. The central aim, however, is the growing business of online syndication, at which contents existing online and also offline in the web are marketed to third parties.

It seems to be clear that a consistent and sound CM is a prerequisite for a successful content syndication. Only if substances and metadata are stored and administrated in a media-neutral way, the combination with new products and the operation of new utilization channels is possible in a fast and efficient way.

Outlook

Content management has become an important key word in the area of information technology. Meanwhile a great number of suppliers can be found on the market, which is therefore very confusing. Often there is no clear distinction between backend and web-content management systems, but an all-round service is already promised through small web CM products. If further channels like print-on-demand, music-on-demand, PDA's, WAP-telephones are added and the re-utilization of content becomes a central aspect for the optimisation of the CM core process, existing web-CMS come up against limiting factors. A lot of systems, also in the backend field, have emerged from already existing applications and still reflect the technology and sector focus of their origin. Currently there is no standard product which completely fulfils all requirements of a content management system.

Against this background it is indispensable to find out the today's but also the medium-term requirements before introducing a content management system. Within this context, also future developments like the convergence of web- and backend- CMS, the increasing importance of metadata standards or XML as data exchange and memory format are to be considered. Afterwards a selection of a system can be made. Possibly functionalities of several systems are to be combined with each other. In any case an essential customizing demand has to be assumed.

However, content management not only opens up an optimisation potential for the CM core process, but also facilitates new businesses. An outstanding example is the syndication of content to third parties, whose foundation is ideally a CM-platform, with which content of all media types can be administrated and combined to new product packages.

It can be seen that a lot of companies have been using the increase in efficiency, which results from content management, only to a small extent until now. As soon as standard technologies have established on the market, which not only cover the whole content life cycle, but which are also integrated in the surrounding systems, a disproportionately large growth of the market for content management systems can be assumed.

03/2004, Dr. Sabine Baumann

Dr. Sabine Baumann is the manager of the Content Management Centre (CMSS) of the arvato systems GmbH in Gütersloh.

Comments on this article

Write your comment on this article...

Subscribe to the newsletter

	Never miss a story and stay informed with our newsletter.
	Your email:
	RSS-Feed: All current newsOur News on your website

More articles on this topic

		ECM Market to Reach $9B in Software and Services New Enterprise Content Management Tools Evaluation Report says that the ECM market will reach $2.3B in software and $7B in services by 2007, representing a compound annual growth rate of 15%...
		Content migration at the relaunch of a portal Migration is the concept planning as well as the actual implementation of entering existing contents from a portal in a content management system (CMS), which has to be newly established...
		NewsML - The new content syndication format The syndicators are dieing off. The bankruptcies have swept 4Content, Tanto, Contonomy, Kontorvisions and 1-Syndicate from the market. Do companies and portals now have to fear for their content for websites, internets and intranets?...
		Ten good reasons for usability This contribution gives you ten good reasons for usability, which provide you with arguments for discussions. With these arguments you can stand your ground against the project manager. We consider this contribution a little everyday life support...
		How much is your content worth? Traditionally the value of a company is shown through material procedures of evaluation in the balance sheet. However, more and more companies tend to make also immaterial values a component of their balance sheet...

Articles on other topics

		Open Source Software and Source Code Analysis: A natural match Sleepless nights: Six years ago this week, I first came to understand the words “graduate student.” Over the span of five days, I spent a total of two hours sleeping - the rest of my time was hacking, eating, injecting caffeine into my bloodstream ...
		IT controls – the secret of high performing organisations As securitymanager.net discovered when it met with Tripwire’s Paul Gostick, configuration audit and control is more than just a good idea; it’s a business imperative for any organisation that wants to fulfil its business objectives successfully ...
		Compliance – less burden, more benefits Regulatory compliance has become the boardroom issue of the decade. Executives are paying closer attention because compliance affects all aspects of business operations. And while compliance traditionally focussed on legal aspects of managing policies ...