Events:
¤ Information Industry Summit 2006 – Early Bird Registration Ends 12/16/05!
At the SIIA's fifth annual Information Industry Summit you will join 400 industry leaders to strategically discuss the economic, regulatory, social and technological impacts created when users take control. Presenters include the CEOs of Akamai, Audible, Fast Search & Transfer, Interpublic Media, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Morningstar and The Thomson Corporation. Early-bird registration ends December 16, 2005 so do not delay, register today and save $300!

¤ Brown Bag: Online Advertising Update - "The Sure Thing", 12/15
Jeff Cutler, Chief Revenue Officer for Answers.com, will moderate the next Brown Bag Lunch. Several industry experts will join Jeff to address several prevailing themes within Online Advertising, including behavioral, contextual and third-party programs. Further details on this session - including registration information - can be found here.

¤ 2006 Content Forum: Steering Committee Conference Call, 12/13
The 2006 Content Forum steering committee will launch on December 13, 2005 at 11:00 am (EST). The Forum will be held May 14 - 16, 2006 at the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco, CA. It is not too late to volunteer for this committee, members interested in participating should contact Brian McCloskey at 202.789.4482.

¤ Brown Bag: Successfully Implementing New Technology, 1/11
Barry Bealer, President of Really Strategies, Inc., will moderate the first Brown Bag Lunch in 2006. This session will highlight several companies that have successfully implemented new technology projects to streamline workflow, develop new products and get a leg up on the competition. Further detail on this session - including registration information - can be found here.

¤ SIIA Brown Bag On Demand Webcast\Podcast Replays
SIIA and ScribeStudio are pleased to announce that podcast and webcast archives of recent Brown Bags are available for download:

      • "Content Aggregation in a New Era" (November 17th) Webcast / Podcast
      • "The Future of Information Outsourcing" (October 19th) Webcast / Podcast
      • "Creating Strategic Partnerships that Work" (September 27) Webcast / Podcast
      • "Information User Behavior Changes" (July 28th) Webcast / Podcast

Access to this On Demand feature is limited to SIIA Members only. Login using the email address this message was sent to and the password "siia" (case sensitive).


News:
¤ News Analysis of Lead Generation
Companies that slash their clients’ marketing outlays by delivering qualified prospects at reasonable cost are blossoming across the net – and siphoning ad spending from traditional media as they grow. B2B or B2C, product or service, it makes little difference. The web seems crafted as the supreme lead generator.

DeSilva + Phillips, the new-media investment bank, has just issued the first substantial analysis of the lead-generation industry: “Lead Generation: Digital Media’s Killer App?” This white paper dissects the full spectrum of lead-gen business models, and notes that buyers are snapping up premier properties at an accelerating pace. The report is free to download (no registration required) from this link: http://mediabankers.com/reports/Lead%20Gen%20White%20Paper.pdf


Working Groups:
The Content Division’s working groups are a great way to get involved with the SIIA. They provide members a way to learn about current industry issues and afford a chance to work with peers at other companies. Membership in these groups is open to any employee from a member company. Please contact the chairs to find out more.

¤ Business Models Working Group
  Judy Hsieh, BusinessWeek Online (Chair)
The Business Models Working Group focuses on assessing and providing information on best practices for business models for electronic content. The goal is to track and report on how buyers and sellers of data are successfully managing distribution of digital content.

¤ Standards Working Group
  Ken Ficara, Wall Street Journal (Chair)
The Content Standards Working Group serves as a resource to SIIA members who are interested in adopting standards for content format and management, but who are confused by the plethora of choices and confusing claims. This group also brings a business focus to standards discussions, in the hope of influencing standards groups to concentrate on solving the problems that publishers and editors face.

¤ Content Anti-Piracy (CAP) Group
  Keith Kupferschmid, SIIA (Chair)
The CAP group is a collection of content providers who gather under the auspices of SIIA's Anti-Piracy group to address compliance, digital rights management, and data piracy issues.

¤ Online Fraud Prevention Working Group
  Pamela Springer, ECNext, Inc. (Chair)
The objective of this initiative is to review and identify areas of fraud that online publishers need to be aware of and concerned about and develop a short “best practices” guide on Personal Identity Information for online publishers. The guide is aimed at helping to improve internal practices around payment processing in order to mitigate the risk to publishers of fraudulent online purchases – both for themselves and their customers. The group will be kicking off in September 2005.


¤ Government Affairs/Public Policy
SIIA's Government Affairs program aggressively promotes and protects the interests of its member companies in legal and public policy debates by working with state, federal and international policymakers, organizing grassroots activism and participating in landmark legal decisions. SIIA is the leading voice on key issues affecting the software and digital content industry, particularly with regard to electronic commerce and the digital marketplace.

The following updates and commentaries have been posted in the past month:

¤ California Law on Faxes Goes into Effect January 1 (December 2)
¤ SIIA Testifies on Data Security and Breach Notification Legislation before House Financial Services Committee (November 9)
¤ SIIA Industry Coalition Letter in Support of Science/Math (STEM) Pell Grants (November 3)


Edited by Brian McCloskey, Program Manager, Content Division, SIIA

Comments are welcome!