Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Monday, February 09, 2004

Does your ejournal want to compete for ads?

If advertising is part of an ejournal's funding, whether the journal is OA or conventional, then it matters how well it stacks up against other ejournals as a site where advertisers want to spend their money. A new report from Bioinformatics analyzes the ejournal market in the life sciences with this in mind. The full report costs $2,900, but the executive summary is free to users willing to register. Quoting the press release: "The best place to advertise has always been where potential customers congregate, and life science executives are challenged to place their online ads at the sites that contain the best mix of content and features considered useful by scientists....Since many Web sites vastly differ in focus, quality, depth and functionality, the report suggests that suppliers be more discriminating when spending their online advertising budgets, otherwise they may be tarnished by associations with sites that disappoint, lead astray or misinform."