Self-Service Syndication with ICE
Building Informative Web Pages and Catalogs Automatically
By Dan R. Greening
Newspapers, product retailers, and Web portals face a common problem: How can they provide the most up-to-date content? They can invest in developing their own original content, as does Web Techniques magazine, or they can assemble material from several outside sources and rebrand it under their own name. The San Francisco Chronicle newspaper assembles its comic page by buying comic strips from King Features and Marvel. Wyle Electronics creates product-information Web pages by assembling data sheets from electronics manufacturers. Excite buys news from Reuters and UPI. Checkout.com buys movie, music, and game information from All Media Guide and offers it along with DVDs, CDs, and games in an online store, creating an "entertainment buying experience."
Providing the best possible information on products in a timely fashion is an important form of customer service. All other factors being equal, customers tend to shop with retailers that give the best presale product information. This is forcing online retailers to become information portals where consumers can go to find out more about products (and incidentally, buy those products).
But the retailers don't have the best information -- manufacturers do. They have the greatest incentive to create highly informative product collateral -- presale brochures, specifications, manuals, and rebate coupons -- to help customers buy and use a product. If manufacturers syndicate collateral on the Internet and let retailers subscribe to it, customers can obtain enormous detail on a product before and after the sale.
