ABA Legal Technology Resource Center Helping Lawyers Solve the Technology Puzzle

Online News Aggregators:
Moreover.com and iSyndicate.com

Comparison Chart of Moreover.com and iSyndicate.com

Your law firm web site undoubtedly suffers from the same general malaise as most other sites on the Web--a lack of fresh and compelling content. And though you know that a continuous stream of fresh content is all you need to attract traffic to your site, and that traffic builds loyalty and revenue--you haven’t a billable hour to spare to create new content. So where do you turn once you’ve exhausted your supply of ready-made firm materials?

Try adding an automated headline news service to your home page. Moreover.com and iSyndicate.com are two prominent players in a new breed of Web publishers known as content aggregators. Instead of generating their own content or licensing third party content, content aggregators harvest news headlines from a multitude of online publishers for placement on their own customer web sites. So visitors who click on a headline link on your firm’s site will be whisked away to the full text of the article located on the publisher’s site.

Although there are other fee-based content aggregators worth considering for legal moguls with high volume sites and deep pockets (www.comtex.com, www.wavo.com, www.newsedge.com, www.screamingmedia.com), Moreover.com and iSyndicate.com are a good starting point for the average law firm because they offer free headline news services. Both aggregators allow you to choose from hundreds of pre-selected categories and even automate the delivery and updating of headlines. The set-up process is reasonably painless even for those with minimal knowledge of Web technologies such as HTML or JavaScript.

So what’s the catch? Neither publisher offers a full range of content or full customization options to non-paying customers. Moreover.com offers more than 330 categories; iSyndicate.com offers over 150. Both offer legal news categories, such as "IP/Patents" or "Business Wire: Legal/Law." The downside is that you may find yourself using the same generalized, widely available headlines as your competitors. And finding content that is specialized enough to be directly relevant to your clients (or other online audience) is largely dependent on your practice area.

While the free services may well supply your site with the targeted and timely content it needs, law firms which require a wider range of content, increased customization options or enhanced customer service, will find themselves taking a giant virtual leap from "free" to "fee." Monthly fees for premium services start at $1500 per month at Moreover.com, and $1000 per month at iSyndicate.com. As described in the Comparison Chart, iSyndicate.com does offer an additional low-cost alternative. While the premium services undoubtedly allow you to filter and fine tune the newsfeeds to meet the needs of even the most specialized audience, most of us will be left dabbling in the free services. The only real downside to using the free services is that visitors will be forced to leave your site to read the full stories. But with all that sticky new content back at your home page, they’ll boomerang back in no time...