No peace in the content market
Swisscontent's activities reveal new trends in the content business
Swisscontent's activities reveal new trends in the content businessBy Alessandro MonachesiThe horizontal portals have been built and supplied with news. But the hunt for vertical content is still in full swing. Swisscontent is trying to maneuver itself into a good starting position.
Looking back, the years 1999 and 2000 must seem like the golden age for content providers: portals and new website projects were springing up like mushrooms. And they all needed content. As a result, the web was soon teeming with online editorial offices and media companies eager to secure a slice of the cake.
Today, the time for big portal announcements is over. At best, long announced latecomers are still trying to get their place in the sun. But anyone who thinks that this means that the content market is now also quiet is mistaken: the last three months have brought new partnerships, customer wins and trends to light.
The statement that the Swiss portal landscape is built is only true to a limited extent. Comprehensive horizontal portals will hardly ever be built, but this does not apply to platforms dedicated to a specific topic: In the area of finance and business, for example, several projects have been announced. Moneycab.ch, a new financial portal, recently went online. Moneycab CEO Markus Gisler is bringing his own eighteen-strong editorial team with him. Postfinance's online presence and Swisslife's Redsafe financial portal, as well as other banking projects, are still awaited.
Financial information is still the main area of demand
However, the new vertical portals are not the only potential buyers of specialized content. Günther Nierlich, CEO of
T-Online Switzerland, is convinced that, alongside travel and hobbies, finance is the most sought-after content. T-Online would like to expand its content and make parts of it chargeable. The financial area is likely to be one of them.
Sunrise wants to expand the content of the portal with the help of the Basler Mediengruppe and its attractive titles (Basler Zeitung, Beobachter, Bilanz, TR7, Weltwoche). As Sunrise already has a broad range of news, it can be assumed that there is also great interest in vertical content.
The Swisscontent engine is running at full speed
The ever-growing need for vertical content comes at just the right time for content provider Swisscontent Corp. The latter founded the publishing company Yellowcontent Corp. with Swiss Post, which supplies the journalistic content for Yellowworld.
When Swiss Post admitted to the media in mid-May that the concept with a broad range of services and news had clearly failed to achieve the hoped-for profitability, insiders expected Yellowworld to focus more on Swiss Post's core competencies and sometimes make major cuts in the news area. "We won't be cutting the news", contradicts Oliver Flüeler, press spokesman for Swiss Post: "An attractive portal needs good horizontal content."
The direction of the announced streamlining measures has not yet been decided, but according to Flüeler, the cooperation with Swisscontent will not be affected. First and foremost, the planned vertical channels are to be streamlined.
Good news for Swisscontent, which has also been able to announce a whole series of new customers in recent months and thus significantly reduce the cluster risk: The e-board at Zurich main station at the end of March, the Orangeworld portal in mid-April and Redsafe at the end of April.
Swisscontent has agreed a cooperation in the opposite direction with Wirtschafts-Medien AG, publisher of Bilanz, and will in future accept content from Bilanz itself. According to Bendicht Luginbühl, CEO of Swisscontent, further cooperations with suppliers of business content are planned in addition to Bilanz. This is despite the fact that the company's own business editorial team has only recently been expanded. "We will also soon be supplying Postfinance with business content in particular," Luginbühl reveals.
The Bilanz deal demonstrates a new quality in the vertical content business: The content supplier is focusing on the lucrative areas of finance and business and is itself becoming a content recipient. The signs are changing, and probably not only at Swisscontent; an interesting development that shows that the content market will not be calm for a long time yet.
Looking back, the years 1999 and 2000 must seem like the golden age for content providers: portals and new website projects were springing up like mushrooms. And they all needed content. As a result, the web was soon teeming with online editorial offices and media companies eager to secure a slice of the cake.
Today, the time for big portal announcements is over. At best, long announced latecomers are still trying to get their place in the sun. But anyone who thinks that this means that the content market is now also quiet is mistaken: the last three months have brought new partnerships, customer wins and trends to light.
The statement that the Swiss portal landscape is built is only true to a limited extent. Comprehensive horizontal portals will hardly ever be built, but this does not apply to platforms dedicated to a specific topic: In the area of finance and business, for example, several projects have been announced. Moneycab.ch, a new financial portal, recently went online. Moneycab CEO Markus Gisler is bringing his own eighteen-strong editorial team with him. Postfinance's online presence and Swisslife's Redsafe financial portal, as well as other banking projects, are still awaited.
Financial information is still the main area of demand
However, the new vertical portals are not the only potential buyers of specialized content. Günther Nierlich, CEO of
T-Online Switzerland, is convinced that, alongside travel and hobbies, finance is the most sought-after content. T-Online would like to expand its content and make parts of it chargeable. The financial area is likely to be one of them.
Sunrise wants to expand the content of the portal with the help of the Basler Mediengruppe and its attractive titles (Basler Zeitung, Beobachter, Bilanz, TR7, Weltwoche). As Sunrise already has a broad range of news, it can be assumed that there is also great interest in vertical content.
The Swisscontent engine is running at full speed
The ever-growing need for vertical content comes at just the right time for content provider Swisscontent Corp. The latter founded the publishing company Yellowcontent Corp. with Swiss Post, which supplies the journalistic content for Yellowworld.
When Swiss Post admitted to the media in mid-May that the concept with a broad range of services and news had clearly failed to achieve the hoped-for profitability, insiders expected Yellowworld to focus more on Swiss Post's core competencies and sometimes make major cuts in the news area. "We won't be cutting the news", contradicts Oliver Flüeler, press spokesman for Swiss Post: "An attractive portal needs good horizontal content."
The direction of the announced streamlining measures has not yet been decided, but according to Flüeler, the cooperation with Swisscontent will not be affected. First and foremost, the planned vertical channels are to be streamlined.
Good news for Swisscontent, which has also been able to announce a whole series of new customers in recent months and thus significantly reduce the cluster risk: The e-board at Zurich main station at the end of March, the Orangeworld portal in mid-April and Redsafe at the end of April.
Swisscontent has agreed a cooperation in the opposite direction with Wirtschafts-Medien AG, publisher of Bilanz, and will in future accept content from Bilanz itself. According to Bendicht Luginbühl, CEO of Swisscontent, further cooperations with suppliers of business content are planned in addition to Bilanz. This is despite the fact that the company's own business editorial team has only recently been expanded. "We will also soon be supplying Postfinance with business content in particular," Luginbühl reveals.
The Bilanz deal demonstrates a new quality in the vertical content business: The content supplier is focusing on the lucrative areas of finance and business and is itself becoming a content recipient. The signs are changing, and probably not only at Swisscontent; an interesting development that shows that the content market will not be calm for a long time yet.
