Companies that have successfully made the transition from print to CD-ROM are now faced with the task of transforming both their products and their companies to take advantage of the interactive nature of the Web environment. Some organizations, such as Engineering Information, Inc. (Ei), have reinvented themselves by revamping their editorial processes, going from 150 employees down to 40, outsourcing many production functions and focusing on quality control, sales and marketing, customer service, planning.

Given its worldwide accessibility, timeliness, and interactive nature, the Web offers companies the opportunity to create an online community in a subject area or open entirely new markets. Assuming their data is available in digital form, it's possible to customize portions of files for specific segments of existing and emerging markets.

Increasingly primary and secondary publishers are not just converting their publications to the Web, but are offering a broad range of services that provide the user with a comprehensive Web site. Created 2 years ago, the Ei Village, is a good example, offering searchable databases, online answers to questions, employment opportunities, an alerting service, document delivery, Web site evaluations, connections with colleagues and experts in specific areas, discussion groups, and news and business information.

From Product to Service

Traditional publishers in the print environment offer products which are produced and sold with a basic level of customer service, usually focused on subscription renewal and delivery. These are tangible goods where performance is not an issue and how well an index works is dependent on the design of the product (page layout, size of type) and the training of the user.

In the electronic environment the product evolves into a service. Publishers like UMI and ISI that offer CD-ROMs have expanded their customer support departments to handle technical questions and to guide customers who expect the product to function effectively. When publications are offered over the Web, the product often ceases to exist locally and the customer relies on the publisher to offer a service that meets a different set of expectation in terms of accessibility and ease of use.

Customers have seen delivery of information evolve through several stages. The "just-in-case" collection of print materials (products) required that users go to a central location to search for and obtain information. The "just-in-time" document delivery (service) accompanied a remote database which was searchable from the user's location. The "just-for-you" customized service (push technology) profiles the user's need for information and delivers it directly to them.

Expanding Markets

Look at recent developments in the news and business arena with Pointcast delivering free news to the desktops of thousands of employees who were not included initially in the fee based services designed for the corporation by companies such NewsNet, NewsEdge, etc.

This points to tremendous untapped demand and raises the question: who will pay for what? Will companies provide for all of their users to have greater access to more information? Is this the avenue for Web based advertising? The success of the interactive edition of the Wall Street Journal confirms that a large number of consumers are willing to pay for customized information themselves.

Production, delivery and pricing of information in the print environment results in a cost structure which focuses company strategies on their primary users. Existing publishers (Elsevier, ISI, Academic) have been very successful in their primary markets and their products are considered essential by subscribers who renew each year.

The secondary or marginal user may respond to budget pressures by canceling their subscription or choosing an alternative approach, such as a table-of-contents service with document delivery (ie: Uncover). Access can be improved for marginal users by including them in group purchasing agreements as part of academic consortia or corporate global deals.

The transactional or peripheral user has yet to be clearly identified within organizations or as part of the consumer market. Publishers accustomed to selling to institutional users can evaluate their publications to identify information that would be of value to the occasional user who has a short term or immediate need for the data. Silverplatter is introducing Search by Search, their new pay-per-use service, which allows institutional users to search across databases and pay for both the search and the records viewed.

Two additional services are developing to provide the support necessary to reach the occasional user. Natural language searching is being refined so that the user can obtain pertinent results with the aid of tools that help focus their query without their being trained in Boolean searching. Companies offering services beyond the traditional subscription model can secure transactional metering and billing services from companies such as IMARK (formerly CD-MAX).

Impact on Sales

As institutional sales combine and grow larger, companies selling site license options for database access need sales representatives who can demonstrate electronic products and handle complex sales.

On the other end of the spectrum is a sales process that addresses the individual and how they use the system. Traditional direct marketing needs to be adapted to include ads in the online environment and promotion within the user community through print channels as well.

Web Trends

There is a definite trend to take advantage of the networking capabilities of the Web and offer community based services including publications, discussion groups, joblines, conference lists, etc. There are a growing number of these which can be evaluated on their purpose and comprehensive approach. The Ei Village serves the needs of the engineering community; Biomednet is focused on the life science community; Elsevier is planning community oriented discipline specific Websites.

PDF (Adobe Acrobat's Portable Document Format) has emerged as the de facto standard for presenting journals online. Viewed by some as an intermediate step, PDF will offer publishers (such as Academic Press and Springer) the ability to incorporate multimedia in future versions of their journals.

The consumer market on the Web will attract more sophisticated users as the children of boomers grow and become life long learners who may work from home. The success of Pointcast with institutional users and Amazon.com (the Web based bookstore) with consumers, demonstrates the popularity and perceived value of convenient services offered by new entrants in established markets. Traditional publishers may find it beneficial to look for new markets outside their core and marginal markets to serve transactional users who can contribute to their revenue.