This IDC study examines the obstacles and barriers that have prevented the long-established online services from capturing a larger number and broader range of users. It reviews the history and growth of the traditional online content industry and the factors that contributed to its success. The study concludes by making some recommendations on what content aggregators and their partners, often publishers, must do to create a continuing niche in the online content market, despite the growing strength of the World Wide Web. We also examine some newcomers: Web-based aggregators that are attempting to go beyond the corporate markets to provide online news, magazine, and research services to the broader consumer market.

"Content aggregators ? online search services ? were once the monarchs of the online world," said Susan Feldman, IDC's VP for content technologies. "They have lost their competitive edge to the World Wide Web, however. In order to regain it, they will have to appeal to the office worker, integrating their content and their services into the current Web-based and knowledge-work-based applications that have become standard."