Re: NYTimes: Reed Elsevier's Online Ads

[Sandy Thatcher <sgt3@psu.edu>]

One has to give credit to Elsevier for creative thinking: this is 
a stroke of genius! As for how it will generalize, I have my 
doubts. Pharmaceutical companies spend huge amounts on 
advertising. Imagine how one would support publishing, say, our 
"Journal of Speculative Philosophy" on this model.

Sandy Thatcher
Penn State Press

> Looks like Elsevier has been bitten by the Google bug, i.e., the 
> big bucks are in online advertising.
>
> It looks like they are betting that the losses in subscription 
> revenue will be exceeded by the gains in online advertising 
> revenue: Elsevier "is taking a risk that its readers will drop 
> their paid subscriptions and switch allegiance to the new Web 
> site".
>
> Reminds me a little bit of the NY Times Select free offers to 
> folks with ".edu" e-mail addresses.
>
> I wonder if there will be lots of copycats if this Elsevier 
> endeavor is successful??
>
> If it eventually turns out that publishers can do well with 
> online advertising revenues and don't need to rely on 
> subscriptions, what does that mean for libraries? There's a good 
> side ("extra" money because of dropping library subscription 
> costs). There's also a bad side (people thinking they need 
> libraries even less because they can get even more for free 
> online).
>
> Bernie Sloan
>
>
> Ann Okerson <aokerson@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Of possible interest and a model to watch. What happens to
> liblirary subscriptions? Will we need them? For whom, at what
> price, etc? Ann Okerson
>
> _______________________________
>
>
> September 10, 2007
> A Medical Publisher's Unusual Prescription: Online Ads
> By MILT FREUDENHEIM
>
> By some measures, the medical publishing world has met the advent
> of the Internet with a shrug, sticking to its time-honored
> revenue model of charging high subscription fees for specialized
> journals that often attract few, if any, advertisements.
>
> But now Reed Elsevier, which publishes more than 400 medical and
> scientific journals, is trying an experiment that stands this
> model on its head. Over the weekend it introduced a Web portal,
> www.OncologySTAT.com, that gives doctors free access to the
> latest articles from 100 of its own pricey medical journals and
> that plans to sell advertisements against the content.
>
> The new site asks oncologists to register their personal
> information. In exchange, it gives them immediate access to the
> latest cancer-related articles from Elsevier journals like The
> Lancet and Surgical Oncology. Prices for journals can run from
> hundreds to thousands of dollars a year.
>
> Elsevier hopes to sign up 150,000 professional users within the
> next 12 months and to attract advertising and sponsorships,
> especially from pharmaceutical companies with cancer drugs to
> sell. The publisher also hopes to cash in on the site's list of
> registered professionals, which it can sell to advertisers.
>
> Mainstream publishers have wrestled for years with the question
> of how to charge for online content in a way that neither
> alienates potential readers nor cannibalizes their print
> properties. So far, few definitive answers have emerged. Reed
> Elsevier, which is based in London, is taking a risk that its
> readers will drop their paid subscriptions and switch allegiance
> to the new Web site, which will offer searches and full texts of
> the same content from the moment of publication.
>
> "It's a calculated risk, a bold step into the unknown," said Dan
> Penny, a senior analyst in London at Outsell, a market research
> firm.
>
> [SNIP]
>
> Copyright 2007 The New York Times