A great deal of my time is spent searching for content at the different analyst house's websites. I am always very happy then when someone tries to make my life easier and that is exactly what the folks at All-The-Analysts.com have tried to do.
A couple of weeks ago Malcolm Ramsey (CEO) called me to explain what the new version can offer. Firstly, they have followed Forrester's example and have added a tool to allow users to give feedback on individual reports.
However, the major change seems to be a clever little tracking tool that will allow people to understand the trends of what people are choosing to read. Malcolm was keen to point out that this will not say who is reading what but rather what are the most popular search and click-through topics.
This functionality though comes at a price. Even though I think this kind of intelligence is great (I want to know what is important to my clients and prospects) it comes at a steep cost. The final pricing has not been confirmed but it could be in the region of $500 - $1,000 per report. These reports will initially report the previous quarters trends - personally I would prefer it if it could be quicker akin to an alert type report and if it could be customised by sector. Nevertheless, Forrester have reported their version of this initiative to be quite successful so there is no reason to suggest that there isn't demand for this.
Perhaps the most positive things about this is that it is easy to use and is free.
Similar to AnalystDirect, it covers all the major analyst houses and has long been the default search choice of many. However, the main factor for me is whether this is reliable or not. I have run a little test to see how it compares to Analyst Direct and a custom Google search. The results were quite surprising...
Search term: Twitter | Search term: Starbucks | Search term: DRM | |
Manual | 100% | 100% | 100% |
Custom Google | 72% | 97% | 22% |
All-the-analysts | 21% | 7% | 4% |
Analyst Direct | 50% | 43% | 35% |
At first glance it looks as though the results are extremely poor. However, all-the-analysts does apply some clever filtering that removes events, teleconferences and webinars as well as surplus notes that a custom Google search would not filter. For example, using Google for a simple search of Starbucks would bring back driving directions to their San Mateo office which all-the-analysts does not include (even though they both use Google).
When I started writing this post, I was hoping that I would that I conclude with a glowing recommendation about all-the-analysts. However, I truly feel that at present it is not up to the job. I have shared these results with Malcolm who has provided some feedback as to why (see above) but I am still concerned. In the example below you can clearly see how the different approaches compare.
Even though a manual search is far more time consuming, at least I know it is reliable - even if I have to filter out surplus results such as events. All-the-analysts does give you a flavour for what is being discussed, but if there is no trust in the results then I am worried about using it.
Whereas Analyst Direct gives a very good summary of reports and has relationships with the major analyst houses, their service comes at quite a high price. The sentiment function makes this better still but for many people I have spoken to, the cost makes it still quite prohibitive and their reporting functions needs to be improved. On the other side, all-the-analysts is easy to use and is free which will mean that for many people it will continue to be the search tool of choice.
Until things change, I will continue to use all-the-analysts to give me an idea about what is being written but I doubt I will use it exclusively.
Useful links: Tekrati custom Google search for all websites, and for all analyst blogs
Technobabble 2.0 - a blog that rants and raves about social media, analyst relations and technology. Highlighting where people have got it right and wrong. Written by Jonny Bentwood - Head of AR and Strategy at Edelman in the UK. Link to original post