By Andrew Hughes

I work in content licensing for the UK's NLA media access (formerly called the Newspaper Licensing Agency), helping publishers manage content and rights more effectively. As well as licensing we develop new products and services from our eClips platform, so I need to keep up to speed with market developments in a range of areas, as well as publishing, copyright and IT developments. I am also involved in running an international group, the Press Database & Licensing Network, so an international perspective is important. Privately, boys' toys and culture predominate.

• Press Data: Not the cheapest daily press cuttings service, but I need fast updates on specialist news affecting my clients and industry. Press cuttings still cut it if you want to know, first thing, what has been reported in your industry or sector.
  
  
• The Media Guardian: For what's what in news media. Roy Greenslade's blog is always strong on what's moving. Monkey is fun. PaidContent and Press Gazette are also strong. There are a myriad of more specialist sites I also follow, but the Guardian gets the biggest stories.
  
  
• LinkedIn: Because you do business with people, not companies, and this is where they are. The profiles are what I want – I don’t pay much attention to the user groups, as they have too broad a focus and are obviously fed by commercially interested players. I do find elements of LinkedIn very irritating. How they circumvent my attempts to block updates is a mystery. I want to pull, not be pushed around. Twitter is also expert at this.
  
  
• NLA ClipShare: Our private-to-journalists news service, now heavily used by over 7,000 staff in the newspaper industry, and the basis for the free schools service we run at Newspapers for Schools and also the public Clipsearch site. Tomorrow's news today in full PDF. We are just completing a major search engine upgrade and planning a user interface overhaul.  
  
  
• Lasham Weather: And when the sun shines Lasham Weather tells me whether to get down to the airfield. It’s another mind-blowing example of how digital internet technology makes the world better, and smaller. I’m old enough to be amazed that I can look at the weather 55 miles away. The weather and meteorology sites for pilots and yachtsmen put professional grade data in the hands of the masses. That’s what the web is for - access to all.

Andrew Hughes is Commercial Director, NLA media access, which he joined in mid 2004. He was responsible for the business planning and operational implementation of the eClips database and now leads the team developing plans for its wider applications - including web licensing and content supply, international development, ClipShare and other services. Andrew is also President of the Press Database and Licensing Network (www.pdln.info).

Andrew was at OneSource Information Services from 1998 until 2004, which he joined from the Financial Times, where he was Commercial Director responsible for online services.

He is married with two daughters, a dog, and spends weekends playing with motorbikes, cars, a glider and other boys' toys.

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FreePint Features offers the latest commentary on trends, issues and opportunities in the information world, as well as examples of how organisations use FreePint resources to raise the value of information.

Selection of the latest FreePint Features articles:

• In-Person Communities of Practice Coming in January and February
  By Robin Neidorf on Wednesday, 4th December 2013
  The opportunity to discuss key challenges and issues in a confidential environment with peers across other industries offers great possibilities for thinking differently about working practices, technologies implemented and plans for the future. FreePint's Communities of Practice now offer those opportunities in-person as well as in teleconference. Four in-person sessions are running in January and February 2014, covering critical issues around the future of news delivery in your organisation, such as understanding and measuring return on investment in news, and how best to educate senior executives on content distribution and cloud storage of news resources.
  Posted in: FreePint News
  
  
• Silobreaker Premium: Encompassing Aggregation, Collaboration and Knowledge Management
  By Penny Crossland on Wednesday, 4th December 2013
  Penny Crossland looks at the latest release of Silobreaker Premium, the well-established open source intelligence tool. Like its competitors, over the past year it has developed enhanced workflow and collaboration features. New customisation and reporting functions have made this an excellent monitoring tool and a workflow tool for the enterprise. As well as providing around 300,000 news items a day, it also offers unique content in the form of fact sheets on companies and individuals.
  Posted in: Collaborative and social tools - Competitive intelligence - Media monitoring - News sources - Visualisation
  
  
• Integration and Improvement on the News Aggregation Menu
  By Andrew Grave on Tuesday, 3rd December 2013
  Series producer Andrew Grave looks at how the FreePint Topic Series: Beyond Aggregation helps professionals to keep up with changes in the news aggregation marketplace, whether it's an evolution due to product enhancements, changing user demands or updated supplier strategy. Interviews with leading vendors such as Comintelli and Factiva, combined with product reviews from NewsEdge to SinglePoint are complemented by practical advice. "How to" articles range from what to look for when shortlisting your news aggregation supplier to understanding how best to keep staff up-to-date with current awareness.
  Posted in: Media monitoring - News sources - FreePint News
  
  
• Extract More Meaning with a Northern Light SinglePoint Strategic Research Portal
  By Sophie Alexander on Tuesday, 3rd December 2013
  A Northern Light SinglePoint strategic research portal can aggregate a company's entire market research, both internal and external, and can be customised to deliver timely and accurate information to specific user groups. Sophie Alexander finds SinglePoint an easy-to-use portal containing a wealth of useful and focused research content for market and competitive intelligence staff, sales teams, marketing and purchasing managers, executives and more.
  Posted in: Information purchasing - Competitive intelligence - Industry sources - News sources
  
  
• Sophisticated News Search from Nexis
  By Anne Lonergan on Wednesday, 27th November 2013
  The recently-introduced News Search option from Nexis® (known as Nexis.com in the US) allows even a novice searcher to create a sophisticated search whilst still maintaining the flexibility to satisfy a power user, finds researcher Anne Lonergan. Nexis is a comprehensive global business information research tool, providing access to thousands of sources via one interface, including business and financial news; company, biographical and industry intelligence; trade journal and market research materials; legal and regulatory records; and social media content.
  Posted in: Information purchasing - Financial sources - News sources - People sources - Regional sources - Social media sources
  
  
• FirstRain: a New Way to Consume News
  By Perrin Kerravala on Tuesday, 26th November 2013
  FirstRain is an analytics company based in Silicon Valley which delivers targeted intelligence on businesses, industries and executives. Following her recent Mini Review, Perrin Kerravala suggests that FirstRain can offer an alternative to the Big Three news content providers. A web and social content aggregator, the platform uses big data analytics to give users a window into the business web.
  Posted in: News sources - Social media sources
  
  
• Tracking Changing News Needs through FreePint
  By Robin Neidorf on Thursday, 21st November 2013
  As user requirements change and news aggregation vendors introduce product enhancements, Robin Neidorf asks: what is the real need for delivering news content into the organisation, now and into the future? Is it better to treat corporate users as one group or to separate them into those who're happy with "light, summary-type news" and those for whom "deep, multilingual, probably premium-priced" options are essential? FreePint's Community of Practice calls present an ideal arena in which to discuss such issues with peers across the industry.
  Posted in: FreePint News
  
  
• Beyond Aggregation: Vendors Continue to Innovate
  By Andrew Grave on Wednesday, 20th November 2013
  As the FreePint Topic Series: Beyond Aggregation continues, series producer Andrew Grave takes a look at the how some of the aggregators continue to innovate against the backdrop of the changes with Factiva and DJX. He looks at product developments in Eureka.cc, Meltwater Buzz and Newsdesk with new options now available for social media monitoring, collaboration and current awareness.
  Posted in: Media monitoring - News sources - FreePint News
  
  
• ... More ...

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Recent FreePint Subscription articles and reports:

• Mini Review: Silobreaker Premium
  By Penny Crossland on Wednesday, 4th December 2013
  Silobreaker Premium is much more than a content aggregator, finds Penny Crossland in her mini review of the online intelligence product. She concludes that its ability to store both external and internal content and to allow shared access and editing also makes this a knowledge management tool, which will appeal to information professionals working in a range of industry sectors. This Software as a Service (SaaS) tool has moved a long way beyond content aggregation for news, reports, blogs, audio, video and more - into the fields of competitive intelligence and risk analysis.
  Posted in: Competitive intelligence - Media monitoring - News sources - Social media sources - FreePint Reports: Product Reviews
  
  
• FreePint News Survey 2013: Focus on the Future
  By Robin Neidorf on Tuesday, 3rd December 2013
  Robin Neidorf considers the data from FreePint's Sixth Annual News Needs & Preferences Survey to better understand the future of news awareness and news aggregation. How will activities such as DIY news aggregation feature and what are the pitfalls and challenges associated with this, such as legal rights and policy? We also looked at how news is being integrated into intranets and which resources currently feature within intranets.
  Posted in: Information services management - Information purchasing - Media monitoring - News sources
  
  
• What on Earth is the Digital Workplace?
  By James Mullan on Tuesday, 3rd December 2013
  The digital workplace is a term you might have come across once or twice in recent years and you might well be thinking, what on earth is it? Whilst the term has been around for a number of years, there still seems to be a lot of misunderstanding around what a digital workplace is. Encompassing much more than just an intranet, James Mullan looks at how far digital workplaces and work practices have developed in the last few years.
  Posted in: Collaborative and social tools - Intranets
  
  
• Realising the Value of Knowledge on Major Projects
  By Sarah Dillingham on Tuesday, 3rd December 2013
  Analysis by knowledge management consultancy Knoco shows that the majority of projects under-resource KM compared to the value it delivers. Sarah Dillingham examines how knowledge managers could use such analysis to better allocate staff hours, how they can ensure that projects realise their full knowledge potential, and why the number of man hours applied doesn't necessarily correlate to value realised.
  Posted in: Information services management - Information strategy - Knowledge management
  
  
• Product Review of Northern Light SinglePoint: Executive Summary
  By Sophie Alexander on Monday, 2nd December 2013
  If you're looking to significantly speed up and enhance the process of analysing markets, tracking competitors, forecasting technologies or developing new products, then a Northern Light SinglePoint strategic research portal may be just what your company needs. Aggregating all of a company's internal and external market research via a single point of access, the portals are fully customisable. Using powerful text analytics to filter search results according to industry, they are also able to deliver more focused search results. Sophie Alexander's executive summary of SinglePoint highlights some of the product's best features and identifies how it offers a high return on investment.
  Posted in: Information purchasing - Competitive intelligence - Industry sources - News sources - FreePint Reports: Product Reviews
  
  
• The Knowledge Management Hype Cycle
  By Sarah Dillingham on Monday, 2nd December 2013
  There are so many varied knowledge management tools and practices that it's easy to get sceptical about "the next big thing". Wouldn't it be great to cut through the hype and get a measured sense of where KM trends are heading? By leveraging Gartner's Hype Cycle, Pumacy Technologies has done exactly that, looking at where practices such as blogs, cloud applications, knowledge flow analysis and storytelling sit in terms of maturity and acceptance.
  Posted in: Information services management - Information strategy - Knowledge management - Information purchasing
  
  
• How to Avoid Social Media Disaster
  By Tim Buckley Owen on Friday, 29th November 2013
  Following recent advice from FreePint's Sophie Alexander on how to prepare for the rise of social media in the workplace, Tim Buckley Owen looks at some recent applications including disaster planning and crowdfunding. Businesses are testing the water on social media and still have much to learn; a Maxus UK survey finds that business-to-business brands need to understand the busy working lives of the executives they are trying to target - and banker JP Morgan is discovering painfully that social media are designed for relationship management, not merely communication.
  Posted in: Collaborative and social tools - Information strategy - Social media sources
  
  
• FreePint Report: Product Review of Northern Light SinglePoint
  Published on Friday, 29th November 2013
  Sophie Alexander's review of Northern Light's SinglePoint strategic research portal introduces the solution and gives FreePint's view of this fully customisable portal which aggregates news from the web, secondary research and a client's own internal market research. She also examines the value offered along with examples of return on investment from client case studies. Clients include Hewlett-Packard and Verizon along with other Fortune 100 market leading companies.
  Posted in: Information purchasing - Competitive intelligence - Industry sources - News sources - FreePint Reports: Product Reviews
  
  
• Q&A with Comintelli: Combining KM and Competitive Intelligence
  By Sophie Alexander on Friday, 29th November 2013
  esper Martell of Comintelli tells Sophie Alexander how their products can improve a company's decision making process and what changes he sees for the future of news delivery to organisations. Comintelli's Knowledge XChanger™ provides solutions for knowledge management and competitive intelligence. The Enterprise Information Access Software can aggregate a variety of content, from external and internal sources from research companies, news agencies, websites and RSS feeds, to content from a client's network drive, email or SharePoint site.
  Posted in: Information purchasing - News sources - Social media sources
  
  
• Enterprise Information: Busting Some Myths
  By Sarah Dillingham on Friday, 29th November 2013
  The last 20 years have seen an extraordinary change in access to information and the development of the internet has revolutionised the way that enterprise users can access information sources and share content with one another. Sarah Dillingham addresses some common misunderstandings that arise when discussing enterprise information and provides some suggestions on how to tackle them. Myths include the belief that information is free, Google is an acceptable way to get business information, and that no user training is required.
  Posted in: Information services management - Information purchasing - Search - Training
  
  
• Social Media vs Collaborative Technologies
  By James Mullan on Friday, 29th November 2013
  How do you define social media as opposed to collaborative or social technologies? James Mullan dissects research conducted by All Things IC and Simply-Communicate into internal communications professionals' use of social media within organisations. The list of what's considered social media makes interesting reading, including tools such as Instant Messaging and SMS. Senior level support and "blocking" were also discussed.
  Posted in: Collaborative and social tools
  
  
• Shortlisting Your News Aggregation Suppliers
  By Andrew Grave on Wednesday, 27th November 2013
  As news touches every part of an organisation, a wide variety of needs must be understood and then met. Andrew Grave outlines the suggested criteria to use when shortlisting news aggregation providers, such as IT infrastructure compatibility, training & support, advanced search capabilities and delivery formats. Separating software needs from content requirements is an important first step, he advises.
  Posted in: Information purchasing - Media monitoring - News sources
  
  
• Q&A with Northern Light: a SinglePoint for a Company's Strategic Research Needs
  By Sophie Alexander on Wednesday, 27th November 2013
  Sophie Alexander interviews David Seuss, CEO of Northern Light, to find out more about the company's strategic research portals, business research content and search technology solutions. She finds out more about how their technology delivers high quality results that are targeted to the specific needs and interests of each user, offering primary research, secondary licensed sources, and business news all in a single portal. Northern Light is the company behind strategic research portal SinglePoint.
  Posted in: Competitive intelligence - Industry sources - News sources - Search
  
  
• FreePint News Survey 2013. Results: Use of Non-Cost Resources
  By Robin Neidorf on Wednesday, 27th November 2013
  What place do "free" resources such as blogs and web-based versions of print media have in organisations' news portfolios? Robin Neidorf examines the data from FreePint's Sixth Annual News Needs & Preferences Survey to decipher the results around premium vs non-cost resources, looking into whether organisations have policies on use of free web resources, which types of free resources are most commonly used and what value paid-for resources offers over non-cost options.
  Posted in: Information purchasing - News sources - Social media sources - Subscription management
  
  
• FreePint Report: Product Review of Nexis
  Published on Tuesday, 26th November 2013
  Nexis® is a comprehensive global business information research tool, providing access to thousands of sources all via one interface. Its key strengths are breadth of content; ease of use; authoritative, licensed content; strong archive; advanced search and alerting functionality; and training and support. In this review Anne Lonergan introduces the tool, known as Nexis in Europe and Nexis.com in the US, and gives feedback on the value the product offers its users who range from professional researchers to marketing specialists.
  Posted in: Information purchasing - Financial sources - News sources - People sources - Regional sources - FreePint Reports: Product Reviews
  
  
• Breach Fatigue or Plain Ol' FUD - the Human Factor is Still a Big Security Risk
  By Tim Buckley Owen on Tuesday, 26th November 2013
  Fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) may be leading enterprises to rely too much on technology for security protection and to ignore proper risk management, says Gartner. War games like the recent London investment bankers' simulated cyber attack may be helpful in encouraging greater information sharing on the possible threats. But as recent reports from Thomson Reuters, the Economist Intelligence Unit and FICO show, focusing on lax board practices, outsourced business partners or employee education about password protection and social engineering scams are a vital part of the mix.
  Posted in: Collaborative and social tools - Information strategy - Training
  
  
• Q&A with Acquire Media: Giving Companies a "NewsEdge"
  By Sophie Alexander on Monday, 25th November 2013
  Sophie Alexander interviewed Larry Rafsky of Acquire Media to find out more about the real-time multimedia news specialists; their technologies such as taxonomy-based filtering; and NewsEdge, their flagship product. The interview covered areas such as how Acquire Media delivers value to its users, how the news analytic and reaction cycle now demands ever-quicker results, and the changes they expect to see in the way news is delivered to organisations in the future.
  Posted in: Company sources - Media monitoring
  
  
• Taking Information Out of Email Silos & Into Activity Streams
  By James Mullan on Monday, 25th November 2013
  Managing email and reducing the amount of time we spend reading and answering emails is a challenge facing almost all organisations. We're also spending more and more time on social media sites, leading to a feeling of "information overload". James Mullan considers whether activity streams, already used in social media such as Facebook and LinkedIn, can transfer to an enterprise setting to help us become more productive.
  Posted in: Collaborative and social tools - Knowledge management - Intranets
  
  
• Mini Review: FirstRain
  By Perrin Kerravala on Friday, 22nd November 2013
  Perrin Kerravala reviews the latest developments from FirstRain, an analytics company based in Silicon Valley which delivers targeted intelligence on businesses, industries and executives. New licensing options include Customer Insights and Market Insights. Forthcoming improvements, including Mandarin and Portuguese language developments are also discussed along with custom options such as an executive dashboard.
  Posted in: News sources - Social media sources - FreePint Reports: Product Reviews
  
  
• Product Review of Nexis: Executive Summary
  By Anne Lonergan on Friday, 22nd November 2013
  Nexis is a comprehensive global business information research tool, providing access to thousands of sources all via one interface, reports Anne Lonergan in her executive summary. Its key strengths are breadth of content; ease of use; authoritative, licensed content; strong archive; advanced search and alerting functionality; and training and support.
  Posted in: Information purchasing - Financial sources - News sources - People sources - Regional sources - FreePint Reports: Product Reviews
  
  
• Cost Conscious SharePoint Training
  By Sarah Dillingham on Friday, 22nd November 2013
  When introducing SharePoint to your organisation for the first time, or upgrading, it's essential to train users and then to offer ongoing user support. Sarah Dillingham introduces some cost-effective options, from using pre-existing training materials from Microsoft to choosing selected materials or packages from specialist trainers or even creating your own materials from scratch using software such as Camtasia and Lectora.
  Posted in: Information purchasing - Intranets - Training
  
  
• Stirring the Cookie Mix: Google and Data Protection
  By Sophie Alexander on Friday, 22nd November 2013
  With the European Parliament recently passing a vote on the future of privacy and data protection rules in Europe, this article examines some of the shortcomings of the proposed rules such as their ability to be bypassed by national security and the various transatlantic agreements between the UK and US. It also looks at the implications of Google's latest data protection concessions in the form of its new data processing agreement for European users of Analytics and speculation over its anonymous online identifier system called AdID.
  Posted in: Information strategy - Regulatory compliance
  
  
• FreePint News Survey 2013. Results: Key News Suppliers and Satisfaction
  By Robin Neidorf on Friday, 22nd November 2013
  Which are the preferred premium aggregator products used for news awareness, which are secondary or supplemental and how satisfied are information managers with the service and functionality they receive? Continuing her analysis of data garnered in FreePint's Sixth Annual News Needs & Preferences Survey, Robin Neidorf reports on these issues and also examines which products are held in particular high regard for functions such as ease of search and overall value-for-money. We also asked respondents what they would change about their preferred product, with comments ranging from "improve functionality around group alerts" to "more foreign language content".
  Posted in: Information purchasing - News sources - Subscription management
  
  
• Product Review of Northern Light SinglePoint: Introduction, Value and FreePint's View
  By Sophie Alexander on Thursday, 21st November 2013
  The first part of Sophie Alexander's review of Northern Light's SinglePoint strategic research portal introduces the solution and gives FreePint's view of this fully customisable portal which aggregates news from the web, secondary research and a client's own internal market research. She also examines the value offered along with examples of return on investment from client case studies. Clients include Hewlett-Packard and Verizon along with other Fortune 100 market leading companies.
  Posted in: Information purchasing - Competitive intelligence - Industry sources - News sources
  
  
• Cookies Headed for Waste Bin as Europe Gets Tougher on Privacy?
  By Tim Buckley Owen on Thursday, 21st November 2013
  The testing by FICO of its new Proximity Location Service may be good for fighting fraud but also raises privacy implications. However, new findings by Forbes Insights indicate that customers are less worried by privacy than sellers imagine, but still highlight the serious consequences for businesses of privacy missteps. Meanwhile Britain's Information Commissioner has warned companies such as Google and Microsoft that the more effective replacements for cookies on which they are reported to be working will not escape regulation. And as the European Parliament votes for a complete overhaul of data protection rules, there are signs in the wake of the American spying scandal that Germany may insist on new privacy standards as part of the current European Union and United States trade talks.
  Posted in: Information strategy - Regulatory compliance
  
  
• Managing Intranets the Wikipedia Way!
  By James Mullan on Wednesday, 20th November 2013
  It would seem it's the month for websites and blogs to publish useful content on how to manage intranets and the latest article James Mullan highlights is no exception. He looks at some of the techniques that have been used on one of the world's most edited websites - Wikipedia - and how they could be used when managing intranets.
  Posted in: Collaborative and social tools - Intranets
  
  
• ... More ...

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