Thoughts on Factiva

Information World Review is a publication I had subscribed to for years but when the subscription lapsed I didn't renew.  No one called to change my mind and I hadn't really missed it.  But this month's issue, which I picked up at London Online, had a couple of interesting articles, most notably Factiva Sale Sets Reuters Free by Tracey Caldwell. [Sorry, no link available.]  In the article Chris Ahearn, President of Reuters Media division, candidly explains the sale of Reuters share of Factiva to Dow Jones.  "At the end of the day the strategic value that Dow Jones saw was greater than ours.  We exit as a corporate owner but continue as a commercial partner.  We are now open to pursue strategic ways of serving our market."  Ahearn appears to be saying what many had long thought - Factiva's stucture was getting in the way of other initiatives at Reuters (and probably Dow Jones too.)
Equally interesting comments in the article were made by Dean Henderson, CEO of CityWebWatch: "In my opinion, Reuters got out because of Factiva's struggle with the business model to go forward and generate revenue." 
My view is that there are numerous ways for Dow Jones to leverage Factiva's assets and for Factiva to leverage Dow Jones.  Despite the rapid commoditization of news being wrought by Google and the like, customers will continue to pay for aggregation, customer service and added value, as long as aggregators can invent value to add.  [Full disclosure:  Factiva is a partner of Alacra and I just returned from the annual Dow Jones Partners lunch at Tavern on the Green.]