Newssift Technical Plumbing
March 23, 2009
Thanks to the readers who sent me information about the new “test version” of the Financial Times’s news service. I hope it revives the Financial Times as an online financial news source. I know that the FT has a solid brand and great potential.
Some of the information about vendors pointed back to TechCrunch; other readers just made statements which I will pass along for additional comment / correction. Here’s the line up:
- Endeca–the guided navigation company
- Nstein–content management (started life as a content processing company but changed and now reports record revenues)
- Lexalytics–the new entity formed with the merger / fusion of Lexalytics (sentiment analysis) and Infonic (information management)
- ReelTwo–search, data analysis, and “custom portals”.
My take on this use of multiple technologies:
First, the Financial Times’s beta makes clear that no single search and content processing system can meet the needs of a client like the Financial Times.
Second, the Financial Times implemented a try try try strategy before taking a clear sheet of paper and figuring out how to make its content more accessible to its target user group. I don’t think I can estimate the cost of the present system because it makes clear that earlier efforts at search failed. Those “sunk” and “opportunity” costs are wiped away, but a full accounting of the total cost of making FT information available to its users is more than today’s chief financial officer wants to put on his / her books for an ROI calculation. The same multi year investment in search plagues another European publishing company as well. The problem is not unique to the FT, and that’s important. The shift from traditional publishing business models and methods to Internet models is neither easy nor obvious.
The main FT.com splash page with a welcome screen that obscures the news I wanted to view.
Third, who is the intended user? The site offers a number of powerful functions. The folks who want these types of online operations may already have them available without charge from such places as http://finance.google.com, http://finance.yahoo.com, or (hold your breath) American Online here. As a side note, the AOL service (linked to via Google Finance) runs on the potent Relegence platform here.
The America Online splash page for business and financial information. Note: the information is not obscured by a pop up greeting. Remember. This is the deeply challenged America Online and it is handling business information with its own technology, not a collection of four discrete systems.
Fourth, I think the FT is late to the party. Maybe too late? The company has knuckled down to create Newssift, but the window of time for making big traffic gains has closed. Financial information and analytic tools are available to investors with online brokers such as Fidelity and TDWaterhouse. Business news is available from high traffic outfits like Yahoo News and lower profile services such as Newsflashr.
Fifth, one wonders if the price tag for integrating the various technologies has been tallied. What happens when one of the three or four vendors makes a change? I don’t have sufficient data to estimate these costs. Perhaps the costs are trivial? Somehow I doubt it.
In short, the FT is trying again. Like other companies shifting from dead tree business models to the crunchier online variety of business model, the timing is not optimal. I wish the FT and its vendors good luck and fair weather. My weather charts predict stormy seas ahead followed by a flood of red ink rushing from different points on the compass.
Stephen Arnold, March 23, 2009
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