Digital Hot List: Companies to Watch

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FROM THE FRONTLINES :: STEVE SMITH

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By Steve Smith, Digital Media Editor for min, min's b2b and min's Digital Media Report

Digital start-ups are not that hard to come by, but companies with genuinely interesting models or pedigrees are, especially players that effect the business information space. Here is our short list of digital projects you might want to watch, partner with, or buy. We will be eyeing them, too, in the next year.

Leverage Software

There are more online community vendors out there than there seem to be successful communities. But Leverage stands out for its early partners and its robust platform. It is already powering social networking platforms for Nielsen and InfoWorld, among others. Combining Facebook with MySpace, LinkedIn with TypePad, the software is very flexible in letting publishers configure community to emphasize different aspects, networking, communications, user-generated content, etc. Ingram Micro is one of their most recent new clients.

JobFox

This interesting twist on job classifieds is run by Robert McGovern, former CEO of CAREERBUILDER.COM and so deserves some notice. Moreover, it is novel. JobFox is sort of a self serve digital headhunting service. Rather than firms posting job listings, you are the product posting your resumés and even creating personal Web pages that help market you as a brand. It has the qualities of a dating site, in that it lets you take personality and job quizzes in order to filter applicable companies and jobs. The most interesting part of JobFox is that it plays into the free agent model of employment. As people move freely from company to company, they become their own brands that require marketing. This could be the natural evolution of the social networks already emerging on many B2B publisher sites. In some cases, the social networks are barely disguised job hunt spaces, and with a little nudge they could follow JobFox's lead and become career advancement portals for professionals.

Movoxx and 4Info

Movoxx is a mobile marketing company that creates an ad network out of SMS messaging. The company aggregates alerts from consumer media companies as well as financial providers (like Chase) and inserts relevant text ads. The upshot for publishers is that it gives them a way to monetize an otherwise incremental cost (usually 2 to 5 cents per SMS message). Another company, 4Info is also in this space with an established network of consumer publishers (NBC, Gannett) that give it reach of about 50 million to attract advertisers. Neither company is focused yet on the B2B space, but they are exploring a model that could be relevant here. If business publishers can find a way to monetize mobile extensions, even nominally, then it can give them one more way to stay in touch with their readership. An ad-funded alert system could be on answer.

ONCOLOGYSTAT.COM

Elsevier's new portal in the medical space is a true game changing model. The publisher of high-priced medical journals is putting much of this premium content online and free to registered medical professionals. The project will be ad-supported (mainly by pharmaceuticals) and make accessible content that is already in journals that many institutions already pay dearly for. Why do this? According to Elsevier, the content is accessible only through searches, so the user does not experience it in the same issue format. It is aimed at doctors who are not affiliated with institutional subscribers. Elsevier sees this as a new way to monetize content, expand audiences and also market new journal titles. This is a brave departure from traditional academic content models. ONCOLOGYSTAT.COM is gambling you can give away even high-value premium content if it gives you enough reach for a lucrative and inventory-hungry ad segment.

Attributor

Dubbing itself a content monitoring service, Attributor launches in a matter of days, helmed by former Yahoo! and Moreover executives. Attributor plans to track for publishers where their content shows up elsewhere online, whether it is being linked by a blog or just copied at another site, who is monetizing your work instead of you, and who may be helping you distribute it. The idea is to find out how your content circulates online, to identify potential partners and to better understand how viral your content may be. For B2B companies this sort of service could be especially valuable in finding new and unanticipated niches and communities of interest around your expertise. Understanding how media flows across this new eco-system may be the key that unlocks future models, partners, and distribution channels. Reuters and AP are pre-launch partners.

Insight24

Insight24 is an offshoot of Webcasting powerhouse On24. It represents an interesting opportunity to redistribute the multimedia that business publishers are creating online. This portal for audio and video Webcasts claims over 5,000 pieces of rich media content that it syndicates to partners for redistribution. Any B2B publisher can submit content to the system and share in the revenue of any leads the re-distribution produces. With newly signed partner, PCWorld, Insight24 is starting to solve its chief challenge, giving this information reach.

ExpandedBooks

This rich media service for the book trade is a highly verticalized video production house focused solely on creating assets and programs that promote book authors. It has an excellent pedigree in Todd Stephens, executive producer and former producer of the NBC series "Friends." The idea is to leverage digital video and online distribution to help the book trade reach its niche audiences with more elaborate and personal media like author interviews, book dramatizations, etc. By taking advantage of the low cost barrier of online media, the project demonstrates how higher production values and viral marketing strategies are penetrating every aspect of trade publishing.

Zipidee

Just as eBay helped everyone become a retailer, Zipidee is trying to let anyone become a seller of their own content. This open marketplace for media lets users upload, protect, promote, and sell anything from a ringtone to a full-bore research report. As a potential model for business publishing, it lets consultants, small business service units and ambitious individuals sell their research reports, white papers, professional training. The business content area is already filling with a curious mix of entrepreneurial advice, professional how-to guides and misfits ("Create a Halloween Haunted House"?). The idea, however is worth watching, because it lets consultants and other small business service providers become publishers with a potential reach.

Newser

This unique collaboration between media maven Michael Wolff and information service Highbeam Research is significant because it represents Web news aggregation with a brain. Unlike the automated approach of the standard portal, Newser pulls content from a range of sites, including B2Bs. The difference here is a human staff that polishes the stories up in a cool Web 2.0 interface and a real editorial hand. The editors pick stories that are hot or important and distill the information into concise paragraphs that pop up when you mouse over the grid of stories. When more and more news looks and feels like RSS feeds, this is a refreshing reminder that aggregation can be artful and highly informative. The model could well be used by business publishers who are far-sighted enough to see themselves as a portal to all of their segment's business information rather than a garden wall that contains their own brand.