[Content] in the

[Emerging] World of Digital Natives

Matthew HongVice President and General Manager - Open Web MarketsASIDIC Fall MeetingSeptember 11, 2006

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Background: About Thomson Gale

A leading provider of reference solutions,

electronic research and educational publishing for libraries, schools

and businesses.

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Business-to-Business-to-End User Business Model

Distinguishing Characteristics:

Human Sales Force

Enterprise Customer

Customer ≠ End User

Traditional utilization of this business model has caused some companies to have less than ideal knowledge of the behavior of

end users of their products and services.

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Open Web Business Model

Distinguishing Characteristics:

Internet Sales Channel

Direct to End User; No Enterprise Intermediary

Customer = End User

Movement to the Web and a more consumer business model necessitates a new/renewed focus on end user behavior.

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End User Segmentation: Digital Immigrants v. Digital Natives

Digital Immigrant: Individuals who were not born into the digital world, but have emigrated to it. Secondary speakers of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet.

Digital Native: Individuals who were born into the digital world. Native speakers of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet.

Generation Y, Millennials, MyPod Generation: Generation of individuals born from 1978/1982 to 2000. Current age range is 6 – 24/28, and current population in the U.S. is approximately 76 million.

Sources: Marc Prensky, Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants; Howe and Strauss, Generations: The History of America’s Future, 1584 to 2069

The world of Digital Natives is no longer emerging or non-core. It is both here and now and a significantly sized customer

segment.

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Differences in User Behavior

Digital Immigrants Digital Natives• Prefer to access information in a

linear manner from limited sources

• Prefer random-access, linked information from multiple sources

• Prefer singular information processing and tasking

• Prefer parallel information processing and multitasking

• Prefer processing text before images/graphics, audio and video

• Prefer processing images/graphics, audio and video before text

• Prefer to work independently • Prefer to interact and network simultaneously with many others

Source: Marc Prensky, Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants

The recent digital revolution has helped to create new and distinct

behavior among certain end user demographs.

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Traditional Value Chain for Information Offerings

Content Workflow Solutions

Tools

The components of the traditional value chain still apply; however the makeup

of each of the components is shifting.

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Content and Digital Natives

Source: Pew Internet and American Life Project

Content Creators

• 57% of online teens create content for the internet

o MySpace

o YouTube

o Flickr

• 62% of content viewed by online users under the age of 21 is generated by someone they know

Shift in content from authoritative to user-generated.

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Tools and Digital Natives

Personalization and Expression• My Yahoo!• RSS• Avatars

Storing• Purchase history and Search history (default)• Furl and Google Notebook

Tagging

• Yahoo! MyWeb, Flickr and del.icio.us Collaboration and Sharing

• Wikis• Instant Messaging• Virtual study groups

Shift in tools from search and directory functionality to personalization & expression,

storage, tagging and collaboration & sharing.

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Workflow and Digital Natives

Sources: Pew Internet and American Life Project, School Library Journal, TechCrunch, Dallas-Fort Worth Star-Telegram (June 26, 2006)

Internet as Primary Resource

• 71% of students reported using the Internet as the major source for their most recent school project

Internet as Workflow Solution

• Google, Wikipedia and Facebook are used heavily; traditional educational offerings are often ignored and excluded from the workflow:

o 73% of college students reported using the Internet for research more than the library

o About 85% of students in supported colleges have a profile on Facebook (60% log in daily, 85% log in at least once a week)

o Less than 20% of students reported using the installed Blackboard LMS

Traditional information offerings are failing to integrate themselves effectively into the current Internet-based workflow.

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Where does that leave us?

Summary and preliminary conclusions:

1. Move to Web creates need for better understanding of end user behavior

2. World of Digital Natives is already here and a new core market

3. Digital revolution has created new and distinct end user behavior

4. Components of traditional value chain still apply; the makeup of each component is changing

5. Growing disconnect between traditional information solutions and user behavior of Digital Natives:

Authoritative v. User-generated ContentWeb 2.0 ToolsInternet as the Workflow

6. Offer options or market segmented offerings based on different end user demographics and behavior

7. Continue to focus on, develop and utilize core competencies and differentiators