The ‘clipping’ wars
This week I signed up for the new online clipping add-on from BurrellesLuce called iMonitor. I have been struggling with clipping services for years — it’s a necessary evil. But recently I noticed the vast majority of my clips were coming in from online sources anyway and I was being charged per clip for these with my standard service from BL.
iMonitor is supposed to be a much more powerful tool than Google Alerts and the upside is I can search for as many keywords as I want for as many clients as I want and the clips come directly into my BL content portal where I can create clip books and such. I’m cautiously optimistic about this service because it was only a $99 per month add-on and I’ll easily save more than that in per clip charges because I turned off Internet clips through the standard service.
My total bill now with BL is $426 per month plus any print clip charges. That’s a lot of coin. I don’t think I can drop traditional clipping though because it’s still great to have nicely clipped print PDFs for my clients to post on their web sites and such. Anyone out there have a better solution, or at least one that is working for them? I’ve looked at Meltwater, and thought seriously about going strictly with google Alerts and chasing my own print clips — but I’m really too busy for that. Plus iMonitor claims it covers seven times more sources than Google Alerts. Guess I just need to bite the bullet on the cost…
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Comments
November 13th, 2008 at 9:37 am
Has anyone used Cision Point’s clipping service? We’ve been considering it. I’d love to hear any feedback that others have.
November 13th, 2008 at 10:24 am
go to http://www.newschart.com
still in beta but will be the next wave for sourcing clips. go play with it. Yes.they are a client…..
November 13th, 2008 at 10:37 am
Please keep us posted on the success and accuracy of imonitor. I have the feeling that my Google Alerts is missing the bullseye.
November 13th, 2008 at 11:22 am
Check with Dom Pare
http://www.linkedin.com/profile?goback=.con&viewProfile=&key=3456800&jsstate=.conbro_0_*51_false_*2_2160
of DNA13. He’s an expert on all this.
http://www.dna13.com/
November 13th, 2008 at 11:56 am
Check out Custom Scoop for online clips.
November 13th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
It might be helpful to mention our dna13 monitoing solution, dnaMonitor.
Given Len’s post above here are some key points around how we at dna13 approach clipping / monitoring:
- dnaMonitor monitors Print, Internet, Blog, and Broadcast – pick an choose what you need.
- No per clip fees. No search term, keyword, or competitive comparison limitations.
- Ad-hoc searches you control directly for realtime results, as well as historical searches
- Built in Clip Book generation and Reporting (included by default)
- Content agnostic: We can even integrate other providers like BurrellesLuce.
Since we are the new kid on the block I sould also note that dna13 is 9 years old and our solutions are very mature, and quite flexible. Should anyone wish to learn more please do feel free to send me an email.
I hope this information is helpful!
November 13th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
I too subscribed to imonitor. I did it for one month for $50. I didn’t think it was worth the cost for me to do it for my U.S. Dept. of Agriculture work that is limited to Arizona, but I thought there may be great value for the USDA headquarters to get this. I want to see if it’s good enough to suggest to them.
Here’s what I know. I went to Google news and typed “Natural Resources Conservation Service” (the USDA agency I work for) and got 147 results for the last 30 days. I did the same thing in imonitor and got 565 results.
I have not had a chance to look at the clips and determine where the additional 318 clips are from, but you can bet I will.
November 13th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
And I love the photo. Hilarious!!!!!
November 13th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Throwing my hat in the ring here as a provider…I’m from CustomScoop, and we don’t have per clip charges. Our system is very flexible, and we do search a wide range of sources including a bunch that are not captured by Google alerts. We offer a 2-week free trial of any of our service levels from standard up through the team edition.
On a side note, I hear it’s getting nice out there…my parents live in the Phoenix area, and I used to live in Fountain Hills.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on the system if you do decide to give the free trial a whirl.
Jen
November 13th, 2008 at 10:17 pm
I’ve been starting look around too and Meltwater does seem to pull in more than Google but it’s pretty pricy. Hope everyone chimes in on what works/doesn’t work for them.
November 17th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
fyi, I appreciate the phone calls for clipping services that I have received since posting my comment but I am not interested in investing $ at this point. Thank you!
November 19th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
Yes Rachel, I have to laugh because I too have recieved calls about subscribing to clipping services from this blog. I guess that’s a compliment to the Valley PR Blog. But I don’t want to be solicited either.
Valley PR Blog » Blog Archive » The Clipping Wars: Part Deux Says:
December 1st, 2008 at 9:57 am
[...] couple of week’s ago I blogged about my frustration with clipping services. Well, I did something about it. Shortly after writing that post I looked at a bunch of services [...]