Trends in the Information Industry I – RSS is Widely Deployed

In November a large Alacra customer asked me to give a 45 minute presentation on the future of the information industry – trends and innovations over the next 2 to 3 years.  While in London for Online I gave the presentation to about 15 people – content specialists, knowledge managers, information consumers and purchasers.  I did some homework, I called/emailed a few people (Jed Laird had a piece that was a big help) and put together a PowerPoint slide deck.  Despite being given the broader “information industry” as the topic, I focused on what I know, and what I thought the client would be most interested in – trends in the business information industry.  I emphasized four major trends and wrapped them up in a Web 2.0 blanket.  The first trend was – wide acceptance of real-time and mobile access to information.

In our conversations with customers we’ve found that many are developing RSS and current awareness strategies that focus on the “mobile executive.”  How does important information (often client-related) get to bankers and consultants on the road?  Whereas a slice of the broader internet population uses RSS without necessarily knowing what RSS is, many financial institutions and professional service firms are aggressively investigating the integration of RSS services in their firm’s mobile devices – Blackberries, Treos and Wifi-enabled PCs, as well as much broader applications for the technology.  Alacra’s view is that 2006 will be for many organizations the year that this gets figured out and deployed either through the adoption of an enterprise-wide RSS toolset or more loosely on a set of standards and policies end-users within organizations must adhere to.  Organizations realize they need to take advantage of:

·     Information is available continuously, and many publishers have a continuous publishing cycle.

·     Nice-to-know information is increasingly becoming need-to-know information.

·     External information is increasingly being integrated into workflow and internal applications.

·     Mobile devices will improve dramatically in the next hardware cycle.

While many business information publishers offer mobile solutions,(Factiva, LexisNexis, Thomson Financial, Reuters,) customers are looking for more tailored solutions that we believe will become prevalent this year, especially if it’s called something other than RSS.  “I've said it before, I'll say it again- if RSS was called SpeedFeed every user would have to have it.”