Content Matters

The InfoCommerce Group has chosen Alacra Compliance as winner of its Model of Excellence Award.  The annual Model of Excellence Awards recognize innovative companies which effectively combine world-class software with high quality data. 

Alacra Compliance was selected a winner in the “Mixed Models: Process Integration” category, which focuses on workflow-based applications which leverage content combined with software.

According to InfoCommerce CEO Russell Perkins, “Alacra Compliance is an innovative workflow application that helps financial institutions get their arms around rapidly changing regulatory requirements”.

Since its launch earlier this year, Alacra Compliance has been well-received by AML and Compliance officers, seeking ways to streamline their processes to comply with Anti-Money Laundering, Know-Your-Customer and Enhanced Due Diligence requirements.  Alacra Compliance enables federated searching across premium content, public records web sites and the Alacra Compliance Web, a vertical search engine, delivering a single set of results geared specifically towards research needed for Patriot Act, BSA and FSA compliance.

The Model of Excellence Award will be presented to Alacra at the annual InfoCommerce Conference, to be held October 10-12 in Philadelphia.

The Model of Excellence Profile provides greater details on the award and the underlying product.

As rumored, Apple made many announcements at today's event.
New iPods of all sizes and types (video, Nano, etc), a new iTunes and deals with Disney and Pixar (gee, what a surprise) to deliver movies via iTunes.
The first generation will be for downloading to video iPods (including a new 80GB model), but for 2007, the rumored wireless connectivity to a set top box (preliminarily named iTV) will be here.

This diagram shows how iTV will work.  Basically, a high-speed download to your Mac or PC, then a wireless transmission to a flattened Mac mini, attached to your TV.  Use the Mac Mini's little remote control and watch your movie.  And, iTV works in HDTV, not just the 640x480 you use on the video iPod.

There was a lot more introduced, including video games like PacMan for the iPod, new search interfaces and more.  For the full details take a look at Engadget, MacRumors and Gizmodo.

Apple is scheduled to announce today the launch of a new product in the area of movies.  Being Apple, there's a lot of hype and not much information in advance of the official announcement.
While it could be something simple, like the addition of movies to iTunes, rumors are flying that it could be something bigger.  While an updated iTunes is clearly part of the announcement (see the black screen below which shows up on the iTunes store this morning), one idea that is more intriguing would be a better way to play those movies through existing technology (i.e. televisions).   In essence, a video version of their AirTunes product, providing wireless delivery of movies from your PC to a receiver connected to your television.

For more rumors about the Apple announcement, take a look at the following blogs:

MacRumors has live "red-carpet" coverage via an Ajax interface

The Unofficial Apple Weblog
Frank Barnako's WebLog (Marketwatch)
No Sheep
PaidContent

The Apple announcement is taking much of the air out of an announcement coming from Redmond today, that of the beta label coming off of Microsoft Windows Live Search.  Windows Live Search will replace the floundering MSN Search, which barely appears on the search engine radar these days.
According to Microsoft, Windows Live Search will "allow for refined queries and presenting results on a new user-friendly interface".  Yawn.  Remember when new Microsoft announcements used to generate excitement?  The most interesting thing I can say about this one is that it could create some short-term revenue opportunies for SEO consultants, to tweak e-commerce sites a bit.

For more info, take a look at Search Engine Watch and CNET.

Update: BlogSEO is a little more excited than I am about Windows Live Search.

No business posts today.

Just a brief note to say that my thoughts are with friends and colleagues who lost friends or loved ones five years ago today.

To Primedia/K-III alumni, that headline might seem as unlikely as, say "Cubs Win World Series" or maybe "Bush Declares Tax Cuts Have Been Unfairly Regressive".  But, there it was, staring me in the face.

Alas, it turned out that the Primedia in the headline was South African broadcaster Primedia, Ltd, not the New York-based content publisher.  Well, good show for the broadcaster whose EBITDA rose 28% for the period.  And, bad news for those of us still looking for a comeback story for PRM.

Just goes to show you that you always have to read the content and can't trade on headlines.

Thompson Publishing Group ("TPG") has acquired health care newsletter provider American Health Consultants from the Thomson Corporation.

AHC provides more than 350 print and electronic products serving 135,000-plus users in the healthcare and biotech industry.  They also provide conferences for that same market.

TPG, which already has a strong presence in finance and human resources will look to AHC as a growth vehicle in the health care industry.

Tom O'Connor of Berkery Noyes advised Thomson in the sale.

Google has announced the launch of its long-awaited premium content service, Google News Archive Search.  Google News Archive, as the name suggests, provides access to an archive of premium news and research content provided by companies such as Factiva, LexisNexis, Alacra, Highbeam Research, the New York Times and others, as well as free (ad-supported) content from Time.com and the Guardian.

Google News Archive Search can be accessed directly at http://news.google.com/archivesearch/.  In addition, Google intends to include archived results along with some search results, but in my initial testing, it appears that feature may not have been launched yet.  In addition to news, Alacra is providing credit, investment and market research from Fitch, CreditSights, Moodys, Investext and others.

The business model is straightforward: content providers can either sell their content pay-per-view or deliver a page with advertising on it.  Google merely indexes the content, not taking any share of the revenue.  At this time, Google is not running ads alongside the news archive.

Google News Archive Search should open up new opportunities for premium content providers to reach new audiences.  Over time, as the content is integrated more closely with Google Search and Google News results, the opportunities should become even greater.

UPDATE:
Jarid Lukin, of Alacra, provides details on the various types of content Alacra has made available through Google News Archive.

Rafat has compiled more snippets and links about the launch.

Mitch Ratcliffe tries some obscure searches (e.g. the Boston Molasses Flood of 1919) with mixed results.

Nick Carr enthusiastically calls it "Arguably the single greatest research tool yet to appear on the web" while Steve Rubel, focusing on the free content wonders what the fuss is about and suggests that Topix.net is better. 

(Note: While I agree that the new Topix site is fantastic, what's unique about Google News Archive is its combination of free and premium content.  The name is a bit of a misnomer, as all types of dated content, such as credit and investment research and market research are also included).