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Volume 15, Number 6 • June 1998
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Viewpoint
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Daring to Compare Database Coverage
What if an independent panel oversaw a master table on vendors' content?
by Ulla de Stricker
Last February, Dow Jones Interactive released a study entitled
"Comparison of Dow Jones Interactive and NEXIS in Coverage of Top
Vertical Market Publications." Not only is it a thorough and
well-presented piece of work growing out of a desire to understand
customer preferences in terms of coverage, but I welcome it as proof
that the industry can, no matter what anyone says, develop comparisons
to help searchers choose from among the array of options presented to
them. I'll describe the Dow Jones study in a moment.
Working searchers are too busy serving clients to undertake the
rigorous and extremely time-consuming examination required to paint the
"true picture" of similarities and differences between vendors'
products. Vendors, on the other hand, have in the past pointed out that
comparisons were difficult because each used definitions specific to its
services and that, therefore, an apples-and-oranges situation would
result from attempts to collate vendor information in comparative
tables.
A Master Table and a Panel of Experts
The Dow Jones study reminded me of a vision I once had and had
almost forgotten, and it rekindles my belief that the vision can yet be
achieved. Here it is: What would happen if we had an independent panel
of experts overseeing the maintenance of a searchable and massageable
"master table" comparing coverage (and if things got truly
sophisticated, pricing) of key content from vendors, with vendors
sponsoring the work of the panel by paying fees geared to revenue as in
the Information Industry Association membership model? The panel would
continuously review the master table contents based on input from
industry experts and customers, and would redo the comparisons
frequently to assure reasonable freshness. Member vendors, of course,
could submit new information at any time for the panel's verification.
Once the model was in place for traditional published material, I see no
reason why electronic-only content and Web-site-specific material could
not be added.
Not only would users benefit; vendors too might find such a
master table a useful tool in creating marketing materials and in
setting priorities for product development. In other words, a searchable
and massageable master table could be used by users and vendors alike
for their own purposes. The stewardship of an independent panel made up
of respected industry authorities—compensated out of vendor membership
fees but not directly by one vendor or another—would get around any
doubts anyone might have that vendors can be objective and impartial
when it comes to comparing their coverage to that of other vendors.
The Dow Jones Study
Which brings me to the Dow Jones study. It does away once and
for all with the apples-and-oranges excuse for not creating useful
comparisons: Here's Dow Jones investing the time and effort to create a
tool for searchers so they can determine at a glance how Dow Jones and
NEXIS cover the 50 top publications in each of six vertical markets.
They're not just saying "we cover more key titles" or "we are more
current"; they're proving, detail by detail, exactly how the coverage
goes. The study speaks for itself. (See the sidebar on page 67 for a
closer look at how Dow Jones put the study together.)
A tool like this gives searchers an opportunity to perform an
"overlay" between their own habits and the factual tables, thus deriving
a basis for evaluating whether to change habits. A minor difference in
time lag for key titles may or may not be seen as critical enough to
outweigh a preference for one or the other service's interface; coverage
or non-coverage of other titles may tip the scales. One way or the
other, searchers are spared the expensive detective work.
If I worked in one of the six vertical markets dealt with in the
study, I don't think I could resist combing through the top-50 titles to
pick out the ones I considered especially important for my clients (in
effect creating a subset table) and then doing a bit of extra research
to extend the subset with titles of my own choosing. In no time I'd have
an e-mail off to customer service asking for an electronic version of
the table in question so I could massage it for my own purposes!
Some Further Suggestions
Dow Jones deserves a lot of credit for having undertaken the
work to produce the study. Of course, when a good thing comes along it
doesn't take long for the imagination to suggest ways it could be made
even better. In that spirit, and with the independent panel I mentioned
above in mind, I offer a couple of suggestions for enhancements I would
find useful if I were a) entering a new vertical industry, and/or b)
comparing information services:
- Fifty titles is a lot. It would be helpful to subdivide them
into logical groupings so that one could concentrate on the titles in
one's users' subspecialties. For example, in health care, there might be
a cluster of titles of primary interest to facility and service
managers, another for those concerned about regulatory matters, yet
another for those monitoring industry announcements, etc. There are
almost unlimited possibilities to create matrices cross-correlating a
person's professional responsibilities with, say, the top 10 titles he
or she should be reading, given the subject area. The Top 10 could be
followed with "Next 10," etc. You get the idea. Such cross-correlated
tables—arranged in a hierarchy with major user groups broken down into
more specialized groups—would allow an information professional to
prepare "instant alerts" based on the publications chosen for each type
of user (just to name one useful application). Of course, I would allow
for a "must-scan-no-matter-what" category applied to broader clusters of
user types.
- An annotation for each publication would also be helpful to a
newcomer. It could show the general nature (feature articles plus
whatever, brief news stories, etc.), type (scholarly journal, magazine,
newspaper, newsletter), typical size in terms of items, delivery (paper
subscription, e-mail subscription, Web site availability), and frequency
(so that I know whether I'm dealing with 70 meaty articles or 3,700
brief news notes per year). Ideally, I'd love to see a "personality
characterization" and "prestige gauge on a scale of 1-10" for the
publication giving me an understanding of its role, esteem, etc. (Here
are a couple of made-up examples: "Look for first mentions of hot new
developments here—8.5." "This publication is more likely to go into
thoughtful depth somewhat after the first news flurry has died
down—9.5." "This is a good place to catch up on recent weeks' activity
for senior managers needing a bird's-eye view—7.") The characterization
could also be formatted as a table with standard checkoff
categories—mostly news, mix of news and commentary, mostly commentary,
etc.—with room for special notes.
By the way, for those with "real libraries," such an annotated
list would also be a useful piece of ammunition come journal-selection
and budget-justification time, but that's another story: What titles
should one keep getting in paper? What titles can be had electronically,
on license or ad hoc? What if subscription and site-license costs were
attached, too?
- If I were an information professional needing to comparison
shop, a derivative chart in two parts would be useful. It would tell me:
- 1) Of the Top 50, here are the full-text titles in common: First the "All vendors equal" titles (with details), then the "Vendor X fastest online" titles (with details), then the "Vendor Y fastest" (with
details), etc.
- 2) Here are the full-text titles unique to Vendor X, with lag; here are the titles unique to Vendor Y, with lag; etc.
And the chart would repeat for any titles that are not full text.
- Finally, a really nifty tool would allow me to plug
in—point-and-click of course—my chosen publications (from any vertical
segment) and get a custom version of the two-part derivative charts!
That way, I could instantly see my coverage/speed trade-off. Such a tool
would take effort to build, but I believe that online vendors' internal
content inventories could be converted to a common format for the
purpose.
Nice Work If We Can Get It
It is always inspiring to see good and useful work. Dow Jones
Interactive deserves to be acknowledged for having transformed user
research into a practical tool for busy searchers, and for paving the
way toward more of the same in demonstrating that with painstaking work,
apple-apple comparisons are possible. Now, will the rest of the vendor
community step up?
A Quick Look at the Dow Jones Study
In an introduction, the research methodology is clearly
explained. That is a major point not only because it removes any
possible ambiguity about how the results were obtained, but because it
hands the rest of the vendor community a "recipe" to follow.
For each of six major vertical markets—Financial Services,
Health Care, Computer Hardware & Software, Telecommunications, Energy,
and Media & Entertainment—a list of the "top 50" industry news
publications was prepared through interviews with Dow Jones customers
and prospective customers, market researchers, product managers,
association leaders, industry and Wall Street Journal reporters, and
investor and media relations managers. In other words, Dow Jones
Interactive now had an inventory of what users considered to be the key
publications in each discipline.
Then, Dow Jones Interactive and NEXIS coverage of each of those
top-50 titles was examined, resulting in tables showing the nature of
coverage (full text, selected full text, abstracts, or no coverage, as
the case might be) and the "lag" between publication and appearance on
each service. The tables shed fascinating light on product policies,
updating mechanics, etc! To illustrate, the beginning and selected
entries from the Financial Services table look like this:
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TOP FINANCIAL SERVICES PUBLICATIONS
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DOW JONES INTERACTIVE
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NEXIS
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ABA Banking Journal
Simmons-Boardman Publishing
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F (1 to 3 weeks)
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F (within 16 days of month following publication date)
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AM Bestwire (Best's Insurance News)
AM Best
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F (same day)
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F (same day)
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American Banker
Thomson Financial Services
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F (8 a.m. or earlier, same day)
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F (same day)
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Moneyline Trancripts
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Not available
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F (within 1 hour of broadcast)
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The Wall Street Journal Europe
Dow Jones & Co.
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F (same day, 2 a.m.)
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A (4 to 8 weeks—PROMT)
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In addition, a statistical summary table shows at a glance the
relative position of the two services with respect to time lag. The
Financial Services summary table looks like this:
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SOURCES
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DOW JONES INTERACTIVE
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NEXIS
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Total Sources
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48
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45
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Full Text Sources
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48
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37
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Selected Full Text Sources
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0
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1
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Abstracted Sources
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0
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7
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Total Not Available (fromTop 50)
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2
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5
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Same Day or Earlier Sources
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22
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8
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Sources with Same or Better Lag Time
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40
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20
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Sources with Better Lag
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24
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4
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Accompanying commentary highlights the names of publications not
held in common and points out differences, for example, in terms of
wires covered and the like. (In the case of Financial Services, separate
coverage checklists are presented for newsletters published by American
Banker, Institutional Investor, Investment Dealers Digest, and
Securities Data Publishing.)
—U. de S.
Where to Find the Study
Those interested in reading the Dow Jones study "Comparison of
Dow Jones Interactive and NEXIS in Coverage of Top Vertical Market
Publications" can find it on the Web at http://ip.dowjones.com under the
Dow Jones InfoPro Alliance section. Once there, look under the
subsection called Resource Documents.
Ulla de Stricker is an industry consultant based in Washington,
DC, and Toronto whose practice focuses on strategic planning for
information products and services. She can be reached at
uds@xe.net.
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