Categories
Legal Research

Reed Elsevier Changes Business Models

New York TimesA Medical Publisher’s Unusual Prescription: Online Ads. Reed Elsevier, which publishes more than 400 medical and scientific journals, . . . introduced a Web portal, www.OncologySTAT.com, that gives doctors free access to the latest articles from 100 of its own pricey medical journals and [] plans to sell advertisements against the content.

As we all know, Reed Elsevier also happens to own Lexis-Nexis, a subscription-based legal research tool that many attorneys use. I think that these companies are starting to realize that more people are doing their own research online, and not necessarily through subscription-based websites. And, while they can squeeze a good handful of dollars from medical and legal professionals, they may be able to make even more money from these same professionals by opening up their resources to the general public.

Categories
legal marketing

Forget Link Trading. Just Put Up Free Case Law Online.

I receive e-mails to trade links all the time. Usually, these e-mails are from people I’ve never heard of telling me about websites that I’ve never visited before. I just assume that the names are all fake and are sent in bulk to e-mail addresses harvested from around the web. Today, Seth Godin blogged that he received such an e-mail from a well-known company. A very well-known one, especially if you are a lawyer or conduct a lot of legal research. This company is none other than Reed Elsevier, the parent company of LexisNexis. Just put all your case law online for free and everyone will be more than willing to link to you. Seriously. 🙂