Types of E Publishing Content

chillibreeze writer — Preeti Sharma

1.0 Volume of Information

A UC Berkeley study highlighted that new stored information grew about 30% per annum between 1999 and 2002, the per capita recorded information was 800 MB (which would need 30 feet of books to store the same) and there was an increasing trend to store this new information in electronic or digital form.

The study highlighted on the growing popularity on the internet as the ‘first resort’ for information sourcing. The size of internet was estimated to be 532897 terabytes, consisting of surface web (fixed web pages) and deep web pages (the database driven websites that create web pages on demand).

Source: How much Information 2003, UC Berkeley 2003

2.0 Global Trends and User Behavior

USA:

• Internet User statistics reveals that the on an average an American spends 25 hours and 25 minutes at home and 74 hours and 26 minutes at work online, every month(AC Nielsen).
• Main uses of Internet: sending emails (52%), news and weather (49%), information search (29%), surfing (23%), research (19%), or instant messaging (14%) (Source: Pew Internet and American Life Project).
• 47% of respondents reported significant increase in their usage of online media for news and information (Washington Post, Nielsen/Net ratings and Scarborough, 2004).
• Consumers are spending more time on online content and communications sites ( Online Publishers Association (OPA) and Nielsen//NetRatings,2005)

Rest of the World:

• The global average time spent online by a user is 11 hours and 24 minutes per month
• The European market for online information was worth E3,070m (2004). Sales of European online scientific, technical and medical (STM) information share of total STM sales passed 50% for the first time last year (Online Publishers Association (OPA) and Nielsen//NetRatings, 2005).
• Worldwide entertainment and media industries will be worth $1.8 trillion (£990bn) by 2009. Asia is expected to continue as the fastest growing region, while China will have the highest growth rate of any country at 25.2% a year until 2009( Price Waterhouse Coopers)

3.0 Types of E publishing Content

The demand for e publishing content is driven by the surge in digital storage means and use of internet for information search, business and entertainment. E publishing content has four basic aspects- editorial, interactive, visual appeal and accessibility to the user and an infinite range of subjects to be addressed.

An OECD report (2005) points to the variety of subjects which topped e book sales across countries. In France it was literature, Germany and Japan read non fiction, in UK it was scientific and technical books, South Koreans focused reference books and Australians on educational books

The top e publishing content types are summarized below:

1.0 Scientific, Technical and Medical (STM)

The use of electronic journals, publications, archives and datasets have become popular across various disciplines for research. STM publishing includes scientific, technical, medical subjects as well as social sciences, humanities and arts.

A 2002 study by Morgan Stanley revealed that scientific publishing was one of the fastest growing media sectors. By 2003, seventy five percent of scholarly journals were available online (Cox and Cox) According to the EPS Market Monitor, the global market for STM publishing and information services grew by 7.0% from? $8.7 billion in 2003 to $9.3 billion in 2004

Reports indicate that 50%-80% researchers in biological, physical sciences, law and engineering use online sources. The customers include academic institutes, medical institutes, practitioners and corporates.

2.0 Legal, Tax and Regulatory (LTR)

Legal, Tax & Regulatory topics constitute the other subject for high value publishing content. According to Electronic Publishing Services Ltd (EPS), Asian markets will dominate intellectual legal and tax publishing, law firm advertising and marketing services.

EPS expects the sector’s compound annual growth rate through 2006 to increase to 4.5%, spurred by growth in international markets.

3.0 Education and Training

Creating educational aids for schools and colleges is another major segment for content creation. Instructional design focuses on high quality digital content to facilitate class room teaching. The categories range from pre kindergarten to senior high school and colleges.

A 2003 study EPS market study on revenues generated in education and training content publishing in America and Europe were estimated to be $ 23.9 billion.

Keeping in perspective the technological changes and the manner in which information is sourced and viewed, this sector has tremendous business potential in developing countries of Asia and Africa. Established international publishing giants are hoping to capitalize on growth in new markets like China and India.

4.0 Travel

User behavior is indicative that more and more people and access the net for travel information and online bookings. The travel portals and website have increasing e business transactions. Market research firms estimate that nearly one third of travel bookings were made online in USA during the last year. Travel providers are targeting the college students in the USA for online bookings. This trend is expected to further increase and also pick up globally.

On the Indian internet scene, five new online travel portals are soon to be launched and the travel business is expected to draw major venture capital investments. (Businessworld, Feb 2006)

Providing updated, relevant and interesting travel content to a global diverse audience is an emerging content segment. Consumer created content is becoming a practice in the travel world.

5.0 Finance and market research

Relevant and quick information is what business needs.

There is an increasing practice of selling reports, sections and data by web based companies to academic researchers, business organizations and news agencies. The reports are sourced from different specialty and general publishers on different industry sectors, country profiles, global markets, technologies, economic and financial sectors etc.

Firms like marketresearch.com, ecnext.com and mindbranch.com are selling customized information to users as well as personalized inputs on industry trends etc.

6.0 News

News and weather search is the most important topic searched on the internet. Newspaper web sites attracted 32% more users in 2004 over the previous year (World Association of Newspapers).

As newspapers and magazines go online, the quality of content and analysis will determine viewer ratings and success.

7.0 Entertainment & Sports

US online consumer spending on sports and entertainment sector has recorded phenomenal increase. The main components contributing were music, dating sites and game purchases. (EPS)

As internet and other forms of media move towards overlapping zones, the demand for entertainment and recreational content for different age groups, gender and community profiles is expected to increase substantially.

8.0 Health Care

According to the Journal of Medical Internet Research, ‘e-health is an emerging field in the intersection of medical informatics, public health and business, referring to health services and information delivered or enhanced through the Internet and related technologies’.
(http://www.jmir.org/2001/2/e20/)

The need for reliable, factual, easy to understand, medical jargon free information will be the focus for content providers. As health tourism becomes an important component of diversifying economies, medical and health service related content will be sought for.

10.0 Advertising

As internet companies try to reach out to new markets, the content for online advertising becomes a potential business area. For example, India has a $35 million online advertising market, of which search engine marketing constitutes about $6 million, expected to double by year end. (Businessworld, Feb 2006).

Other niche segments for content inputs includes online classifieds, jobs, retail, industry trading.