RE: UKNM: Content swaps

[Geoff Inns]

Alex


Content is the one asset that ISPs/Portals find very expensive to create -

or create well. MSN was a notable failure of creating content.  The

knowledge and expertise required to create good content is a specialist

industry itself, and is the reason behind the big access/content mergers

that have dominated the headlines this year.


You have several options:


  Syndicate it yourself - for example, charge �200/thousand words (NUJ

minimum rates) - after all, you can ensure continuity and quality can't you?

  Use a third party syndicator - I have worked with I-Syndicate and

Screaming Media and can recommend them both (negotiate those terms though).

They'll do all the hard selling for you, for a commission.  They will also

spread it around lots and lots of sites for you, UK and overseas, reselling

a resource that you only pay once for producing.

  Do not agree to any exclusive terms with access providers / sites.  By all

means, the odd column/article may be exclusive to an appropriately huge

partner, but nothing more.

  Do not agree to receiving payment according to traffic - they either want

it or they don't, and customer acquisition is their problem, and retention -

well, that's why they want your content.

  Don't do content swaps - if it's good, let partners link to the full story

on your site via a headline, or let them buy the content. Don't do halfway

deals, you won't benefit.


Of course, once you start licensing it you have to give assurances of its

regularity....



Geoff Inns

Business Development Director

Questico UK Ltd

07977 565313 / 020 7688 7515

2nd Floor River House

143-145 Farringdon Road

London EC1R 3AB

www.questico.co.uk



-----Original Message-----

From:

ownerchinwag [dot] com

 [

ownerchinwag [dot] com]On">mailto:ownerchinwag [dot] com]On

 Behalf Of Alex

Bainbridge

Sent: Friday, November 03, 2000 04:22

To:

uk-netmarketingchinwag [dot] com

Subject: UKNM: Content swaps



Hi all,


Can someone give me some help re content swaps - and how these should be

structured.


We are a small adventure travel / backpacking tour operator - but have lots

of good knowledge about travel - some of which we are slowly putting onto

our website for our customers and for general use. This is content that

normally "dot coms" would die to get hold of - and pay good money for (I

presume) - but we are doing all the articles ourselves whenever we feel we

can write one...


Anyway, in the last few weeks we have been approached by a number of large

sites all asking about our content. What do we say exactly? They all seem to

be under the impression that we will just give it away! Should we be

grateful for these approaches? Should we give all our content away and then

give noone a good reason to visit our site???


(We have already had one of our competitors praised for information in a

magazine review for their content - actually it is our content on their

site - and this was next to a review of our site that didn't mention our

content at all!!!!)


Anyone else seen this before? At the moment I am considering article swaps

for links back - but I know that each article is "worth" XXX for a

journalist to write - and we are not getting that benefit back from the link

back....


Thanks in advance


Alex


http://network.first48.com



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Do you know where the new economy is heading? Become a part of it.

   For all the best jobs in E-Commerce, IT, and New media,

  come to RevolutionVisit at London Olympia 2, 24/25 November.


     See http://www.revolutionvisit.com/1 to find out more.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  To unsubscribe or change your list settings go to

http://www.chinwag.com/uk-netmarketing or

helpchinwag [dot] com