Downloaded By: [German National Licence 2007] At: 14:39 11 March 2010 matio usin In-dept companie tigat researc distributio restriction provide sin mor stricted Bu multimedi tainmen mediu branches nolog on terprise cesse digitize Product INTRODU THOMAS I B M R acces base seem Therefore dualize to presente result is 199 develope nf Th Thi g e e t provid described 6 innovation g e e d e d s s rt al potentia e s n conten y s or Bertelsman options m to th di h to is d an . ar s d distribution Interne h s pape s t d e ha . d (BPI el Certainly in digita i e d e analysi stil 1997 s purposes of HESS fo CTIO mor completely , an be s Th a at n m z a Interne ne s discussed up-to-dat distributed th (Har r remai d th l of r at bee t . sm professiona presentatio th e wel w l ) . e e informatio mor a aim e Co l N s t . CD e BPI in vide digitally In medi use distribution s n Interne as medi s offer Firs ti i end l in n is n tha undertake s , t o e . an suite 1999 an additio ’ s . o wa stil s Professiona th Th an at activitie m on toda informatio t commo . a . , n e n sequences a s of As e s projec industr interactiv Conclusion th l . ie e fillin content , industr d an t missing th n Interne n ; Therefore l pa example e CD y n CD of digitall service mos th fo Hes n e well opportunit backgroun informatio of onl g an e r s . firs Pro n to n t s facilitate Technica n y t Internet of thi s d , to y content y Interne at , t n an l I . . ar depen t proces e 1999) y s y ca indivi . onlin in digita s Broa n medi enter Infor inves offer e othe d tech wor fro s , n way pro gap BP f en t th ar re – be it m e e d d d n d k e y e e a I - r - - t - s - - - - - s - . . , . l l ss rn t intervie troni Ad lin ric Amon structure technolog gagemen telsman are on exampl informatio Therefore tio nee in establishe tha informatio BP BACKGRO th itsel th Th tent) mat of an ten Interne cours h i e e e d on h Th g e n th e e a I e n t th d s resultin f t participant office , an of c Ves e transactiona in intervie services habit e e e fo at too is g an offic C Publishin e d cas t w Se r n an service al of German th t th home d d a t k a service Sabin fo d as , wa d y e r e grou (a s n n UND e chang place th e g bringin a r an publishe as of intervie in stud t leadin w rv , amon s participant an ha environment cas e technica publishe thi d e . structure thi s communicatio well e BPI p s d s project Becaus s y befor e . well-know applyin (developmen g y s i kne Hoc l s e show bee The a of study bein c g an g . is g Tea cas services) ) tim in w provide r es w d publisher targe as base n e h l in medi y e r g e m e of , th s th in d . s fro g wel of hav selecte th study infrastructure chie offere scop th e e d a specifi in wer of t , i m e n professiona professiona a Jul structur l e multimedi whol e , on stron ther r n customers fou f consump n as BPI fron e PC approve provisio th intervie t e of y . s d control d a service Dr c r e of Joche e BP a of in e 1998 g . infor partl as parts t (con Elec is is con Ber Th e I for en thi Ul en th no an an of w is d d n n e e y a - - s - - - s - - - - - l . : . . l differen organizatio selectio nitie searc thi 199 develope man man questio Th tur an dept ia ne distributio Th A management. network plannin researc St Administratio Germany th Degre School researc goettingen.de Dr A a of e medi e e w d s Gallen e informatio Thoma 6 companie Technica n n s h ai Interne h study Informatio service in to b m e an Professiona h , h a n n analysi g t hav in Germany s u d th interest grou d company of 1997 , , an base targe an n , Switzerland an Informatio e an n restriction s e ne Professiona s t d s d thi of severa d l Hes s d companie p n of to n w contro d offer ) s . bee busines Universit t s a n conten at is As fro ar s technolog t on packagin Ph medi pape of medi dat s Interne . t n . hea includ l Technolog e Goettinge l s m He (thess@uni- on D Information th a l identified ne products a s adoptin d th a r n s e a of in e t . l hold s flo r w proces of of is y ne e System companies Dr h of e an an t cas inter-fir Busines is g Universit of w ne w y th to topic automatio d d service th Hess s e y stil Darmstadt e w n a function g of whil a provisio channe e , discus outsourcin Informatio s : medi of Busines infrastruc RESE Master media s l s . result processe this o ’ opportu fro m s content s e missing Bertels Bertels s fo . c y a m s . ARCH Med usin r l fro of n n s , s thi ’ s re In fo s , of of of in m n g g t r ------s s r , .
Copyright & 1999 Electronic Markets Volume 9 (4): 278–283. www.electronicmarkets.org Keywords: media company, Internet, Bertelsmann mation services, serving specific mar- details. Up to then, there had been tional services. Content services pro- ket areas. The activities concentrate no common project of that size with- vide information and entertainment in on building/environment, entertain- in BPI group. the classical way without communica- ment, health, transport and business/ The common platform was avail- tion. Communication services support science. Until the end of 1997, direct able in July 1996, resulting from prior synchronous and asynchronous com- marketing was also part of the BPI. detailed analysis of requirements, munications among groups and indi- Currently, there are about 50 profit identification of common components viduals like news groups and chat centres with approximately 2,000 em- as well as design and implementation. rooms. Transactional services offer ployees. Well-known labels are Ga- Based on this platform, Internet ser- tools for transactions like selling a bler, Vieweg, and Heinrich as well as vices were developed and introduced: book. A¨rzte Zeitung and Musik Woche. Building/environment in November For the purpose of this study it is BPI’s regional focus is Germany, but 1996, transport in February 1997, necessary to distinguish between dif- there are activities in nine other coun- direct marketing (which was still a ferent kinds of content services. Re- tries as well. In the fiscal year 1997/ part of BPI at that time) in August ferring to possible added value of the 98, BPI generated revenues of about 1997 and entertainment in October Internet services, content services can DEM 600 million, mainly from adver- 1997. During that whole time, the be described using the following cri- tisements. A major target of BPI is a Internet services of the business/ teria: target group, scope of offered significant growth of revenue and science area were extended continu- content, topicality, used media types profit. ously. Deliberately, the Internet ser- (text, picture, video etc.) and degree The professional information mar- vices did not employ a unified user of personalization (for example deliv- ket in Germany, like in other coun- interface. ery of information according to pre- tries, is strongly fragmented The project team consisted of the selected areas of interest via email or (Deutsche Fachpresse 1998). The central Electronic Publishing unit of so-called push services). whole industry generates revenues of BPI, the area units and debis, an Target group of ‘Baunetz’ about DEM 4,000 million, shared by external system service provider, (www.baunetz.de), the Internet ser- approximately 500 publishers. Small which was responsible for all technical vice of the building/environment players with an average of seven titles issues. For management purposes a area, are architects and other occupa- dominate the market, most of which steering committee was implemented tions within the building industry. have a monopoly within a small niche and chaired by the CEO of BPI. Baunetz provides related business and therefore operate successfully. The budget of the project was news, competitive and product infor- BPI is one of the few major players in about DEM 10 million. The capital mation as well as standards and reg- Germany with a revenue of DEM 500 investment appraisal according to Ber- ulations. Furthermore, it allows million in this area. telsmann group standards estimated a architects to supply information about return on equity (ROE) of more than themselves. The site is updated daily; 15%. Today the Internet services are dominant media types are text and THE PROJECT managed as independent profit cen- pictures. As far as personalization is tres. Their target is to reach break- concerned, the service offers a config- In 1995, BPI conducted a study even within the next two to three urable, email based service, for exam-
Downloaded By: [German National Licence 2007] At: 14:39 11 March 2010 about the importance and meaning of years. ple customers can order up-to-date Internet services. The study recom- information about business news or mended participation in Internet busi- invitations to bid. Also, there are ness. The project of implementing an THE INTERNET SERVICES email and chat rooms as communica- online service started in January 1996. tion services for Baunetzs’s customers. A major target of the project was to Internet services can be described However, there are no transactional 4
o generate new areas of activity, and in using three different perspectives: the services. In June 1998 Baunetz had N about 17,300 registered users and 9 some cases to react to the competitive products, the production and the In- . l formation Technology (IT) infrastruc- about 300,000 page views a day.
o environment. In the first half of 1996 V
s two major decisions were met: First, ture. We now discuss these three The offerings of Transport Web t
e (www.transport-web.de) are targeted k to prefer the Internet to proprietary perspectives. r
a online providers, and second, to pro- at transport companies, forwarding M
c vide a joined solution of five parts of agents and commercial vehicle traders. i n
o BPI, which was backed up by a central Perspective 1: Products The service offers up-to-date news r t
c unit, in order to avoid isolated solu- and background reports, individually e l
E tions of single publishers. A joint The Internet services of BPI can be useable route planning, an overview solution was expected to reduce op- divided into three categories (see Ger- of roadwork and roadblocks, vehicle erational costs (about 25% less) and pott and Heil l997): content services, tests and reports, market overviews 279 to relieve single units from technical communication services and transac- and interactive freight and vehicle exchanges. Dealers can link to their of contents (eg in Management Inter- access to subscription of the print own web presentation. The content, national Review) or abstracts of cur- product. In contrast, the information which consists of text and pictures, is rent articles (eg in Zeitschrift Arbeit) services are not for free, a user has to updated frequently. There are no per- to full text contribution with archival be a subscriber of the print product in sonalization features or transactional and pre-print functionality (eg in order to access the corresponding services, but there is a non-moderated Wirtschaftsinformatik). Apart from a Internet service. Equally, access to discussion forum. As a customer ser- few exceptions (eg Wirtschaftsinfor- selected content has to be paid for (eg vice, Transport Web provides the ad- matik) the topicality of the contribu- in ‘Sales Profi’). ministration of advertisements and tions depends on the frequency of Table 1 summarizes the Internet subscriptions. In June 1998, there publication of the corresponding print services offered by BPI. In the fiscal were about 1,800 registered users and product. This suggests a perception of year 1997/8, revenues generated by approximately 110,000 page views a the Internet as an addition to print, the Internet business (without trans- day. not as an independent channel. The actional services) were about 0.5% of The entertainment area’s Internet dominating media type is text, supple- total revenues. No print product has service looks quite different. Ebiz mented with a few pictures, personali- been replaced by Internet services. (www.ebiz.de) offers news from the zation is not implemented. The entertainment industry, national and information services of the business/ international charts, dates of new re- science area provide a similar picture. Perspective 2: Production leases as well as a comprehensive film-, As an addition, email, and transac- video-, multimedia-, and address-data- tional services are offered (eg in ‘Pla- The production-cycle of Internet ser- base. The service is constantly brought tow’). Altogether, there were vices can be divided into three steps: up-to-date, text and pictures serve as 160,000 page views in December development of a framework (ie a the main media types. The service does 1997. rough structure of content), filling of not offer communication and transac- The price models of the five ser- this framework with information and tional services, personalization is not vices of BPI are different. Access to provision of services, that the custo- supported either. Baunetz is free, however, there is pay- mer accesses via the Internet. The The Internet services of the direct per-document pricing in some areas. following considerations concentrate marketing group (www.bedirect.de) As well, users have to register (with- on the third step, which is concerned are very specific. It concentrates on out fees). Likewise, most areas of with the provision of content. This access to the address database, which Transport Web are free. Selected ser- step can be described by three charac- contains more than 3.5 million ad- vices have to be paid for (mostly pay- teristics: scope of editorial work, kind dresses. Further content as well as per-document). In order to raise and scope of incoming contents y
communication and transactional ser- funds for Ebiz, subscription rates of (sources) and frequency of provision. n a p
vices have not been implemented. the print product have been raised Baunetz maintains its own editorial m o
The Internet services of business/ slightly. The enlarged subscription board, which produces exclusive con- C a i
science group (www.gabler-online.de) provides access to Ebiz. Prices for tent and prepares the layout. Further- d e
comprise three areas: professional ma- addresses from Bedirect are calculated more, contributions of the three M
gazines, information services as well as from the known pricing tables used in editorial offices of the corresponding a n i Downloaded By: [German National Licence 2007] At: 14:39 11 March 2010
product catalogues and an order ser- print. print products are scanned and even- s e c vice for books. Six professional maga- Today, professional magazines can tually revised and transferred into the i v r
zines can be accessed via the Internet. be accessed via the Internet without Internet services. The Internet service e S
Their scope varies from a simple table cost. There are plans to link Internet is updated on a daily basis and is not t e n r e t n I f
Table 1. Summary of BPI’s Internet services o n o i t
Service Content Communication and transactional Pricing a z i l a
Baunetz Industry news, competitive and email and chat as communication Pay-per-document (for premium e R product information services services), otherwise free s
Transport Web News and information, route Discussion forum Pay-per-document (for premium s e
planning, exchange services), otherwise free H s
Ebiz News, charts and databases – Subscription of print product a m
Bedirect Address database – Same as conventional service o h Gabler Online Professional magazines (partly full Discussion forums (sometimes), Magazines currently for free, T text), information services and transactional services for books information services linked to product catalogues subscription 280 linked to the publishing frequency of includes functions for mail services, a consensus has not been reached. the print products. Likewise, Trans- discussion groups and Internet shop- Based on the case study outlined port Web maintains its own editorial ping. The software was developed by above, these suggestions can be board. However, the editors do not debis, part of the DaimlerChrysler further enhanced. In particular, create new content, but choose and group. Smaller maintenance tasks are production-oriented problems have revise interesting parts from the con- provided by BPI, on the other hand, not been addressed. tributions published in print. Ebiz debis is responsible for comprehensive From the service provider’s point does without generating exclusive in- and extensive adjustments. of view, it seems convenient to orien- formation for the Internet. In this The five services outlined above are tate towards the degree of digitiza- case, the editors are responsible for hosted on two Sun Ultra servers by tion. In Ebiz’s case, the print product converting the print contents and mediaWays, a joint venture of Bertels- still constitutes the core product. The transferring them to the online ser- mann AG and DaimlerChrysler AG. Internet service only supplements the vices. Therefore, updates are linked to MediaWays also provides a technical print product, from which the con- the publishing dates of the corre- hotline, while the webmastering is tent is mainly reused. The updating sponding print products. This concept done by debis together with the web- frequency depends on the publishing is adopted by the business/science masters of the individual Online ser- dates of the print product. In conclu- area to an even greater extent. Like- vices. sion, access to the Internet services is wise, only very little dedicated content IT support of the production pro- provided for subscribers of the print is created for the Internet services in cess is characterized by separated data product only. To fund the Internet this area. Bedirect accesses its central for print and Internet, and by re- activities of Ebiz, subscription rates database, from which the print pro- stricted functionality of the used soft- have been raised insignificantly. Ga- ducts are generated as well. No special ware. Usually, print-oriented content bler and Bedirect have been posi- treatment is necessary in this case. is created with a standard DTP tool tioned similar to this. To evaluate the Apart from a specific production, a (QuarkXPress). To reuse the content investment in such an Internet service dedicated sales department has been within the Online Services, it has to the benefits to the core products set up for Baunetz, Transport Web be converted to HTML by third party should be considered. Key figures and Ebiz. There are 33 employees in extensions (eg HexWeb) or by exter- could be new subscribers or improve- the Internet specific areas for produc- nal service providers. The resulting ments in the circulation. tion and sales. HTML code is then revised in a In contrast, Baunetz has been de- HTML editor and transmitted to the signed as an individual, independent server via ftp, where finally the neces- service. The content for Baunetz is Perspective 3: IT Infrastructure sary linking is done. created exclusively, respectively se- lected from three print publications, The Internet services are mostly based with daily updates. Access to Baunetz on Javascript and Netscape Enterprise CONCLUSIONS is partly free and partly based on pay- Server 3.0, including Livewire. A per-view, but it is not linked to sub- database-oriented approach has been A suitable classification of business scriptions of the corresponding print chosen, ie that some of the HTML models can help to organize the dis- products. Independent services like
Downloaded By: [German National Licence 2007] At: 14:39 11 March 2010 pages are generated dynamically at cussion about the business opportu- Baunetz should be profitable on their run time. Therefore, information can nities of the Internet for media own. Transport Web is in an in-be- be published without knowledge of companies. There are a few sugges- tween position. Content is not exclu- Java or HTML. tions in the literature (see for example sive, but taken from print publications Using this system, each area can Carveth et al. 1998; Haegel and Arm- and appropriately modified. Likewise, create its content according to its strong 1997; Shapiro and Varian parts of the service have to be paid 4
o specific requirements. The system also 1999; Zerdick et al. 1999), but as yet for. Table 2 summarizes the charac- N 9 . l Table 2. Idealistic Internet services categorized by the degree of digitization o V s t
e Characteristic Internet as a supplement to print Internet as an independent service k r a
M Source of content Taken from print with appropriate modifications Exclusively created, supplemented by converting c i content from various print sources n o
r Updating frequency Linked to print publications Event-driven or based on an individual updating t c
e frequency l E Pricing Free for subscribers of the print-product Customers have to pay for certain parts of the service, no connection to print subscription Way of evaluating Benefits to the print product Profitable investment on its own 281 teristics of the two contrasting strate- 1997; Eimeren et al. 1998; Fink tent production. Content Manage- gies. 1996). No BPI print product has ment Systems (based on XML or For each of the two approaches been replaced by Internet services so not) offer the opportunity to reuse certain forms of production are espe- far. content in different media at the cially well suited. In case of a supple- Technically, there are a number of same time or at different times. ment to print, a major goal is to link opportunities for content personaliza- Also it is possible to reuse and the production of the Internet ser- tion (see Resnick and Varian 1997). recombine parts of content. BPI is vices close to the print publication, eg On the other side BPI has not working on this subject. by doing without dedicated Internet adopted these mechanisms. The high editors and using media independent degree of individualization in the These topics seem to be attractive content storage. In contrast, a dedi- print market for professional informa- areas of interest for future research. cated editorial board should be main- tion could be the reason. Therefore tained when the Internet service is the discussion about the opportunities perceived as being independent of the for personalization should be more References print product. Usage of media inde- differentiated. It seems there is a limit Bakos, J.Y. and Brynjolfsson, E. (1999) pendent storage of contents depends up to where a user can define his ‘Aggregation and Disaggregation of on the scope of reused information. information needs. Information Goods: Implications for As an alternative, Internet services Further, there are hints that point Bundling, Site Licensing, and can be categorized from the custo- towards five topics that, as yet, have Mircopayment Systems’, in: Hurley, mers’ point of view. From this per- not been addressed: D., Kahin, B. and Varian, H. (eds), spective, which information/ Internet Publishing and Beyond: The entertainment needs are addressed is · The core competencies of a pub- Economics of Digital Information crucial. Bedirect and Gabler concen- lisher – in a narrow sense – are and Intellectual Economy, trate on single, narrowly defined pur- selection and packaging of content. Cambridge: MIT Press. poses. In contrast, Baunetz provides The question is if information sys- Bruck, P.A. and Selhofer, H. (1997) information not about special needs tems can replace manual work in ‘The Ignored User’, but rather presents broad content for these fields. Lycos, PointCast, and Communications & Strategies, 2, a dedicated group of target custo- others show a way to automate 277–302. mers. Transport Web and Ebiz (with both. BPI chooses a different way. Carveth, R., Owers, J. and Alexander, qualifications) can be classified simi- In-depth research is still missing. A. (1998) ‘The Economics of Online larly. · Outsourcing of Information Tech- Media’, in: Alexander, A., Owers, J. In addition, the case study provides nology functions has been discussed and Carveth, R. Media Economics, y
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in general, but not in respect to the a p
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product) and new models (like pay- mann group are still working on ‘Wettbewerbsstrategien von Online- a e per-document). Only a little part of this issue. Diensteanbietern’, Die R
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