Kara Visits Reuters' Tom Glocer
With the deal for News Corp. to buy Dow Jones (owner of this site) for $5 billion struck late yesterday, it’s a sure thing that Reuters Group CEO Tom Glocer is probably happy he has his merger with Thomson Corp. almost done, especially as the race to provide digital news of all kinds–especially financial–just got kicked up a notch or two.
Indeed, the future of the digital news business is entering a new phase with the two deals. Reuters agreed to be acquired earlier this year by Thomson for a little over $17 billion.
So I went to see Glocer in London to talk to him about what the merger means and also what new trends will be key. Glocer turned out to be a closet geek, a blogger and an unusually wide-ranging thinker on digital topics (especially for an ex-lawyer!).
In the video, he discussed trends like social networking, the continued importance of brands online and the future of Thomson-Reuters, which he said he hoped would become the “media company of the 21st century.”
Here’s the video, along with a short tour of Reuters’ HQ in the Canary Wharf section of London:
The combination of the second and third largest makers and distributors of financial information, news and other data (Bloomberg is No. 1) makes it a key player in the space. Besides news and photos, the company is a critical one in supplying banks, brokerage firms and investment firms with data, prices and other tools.
Being first and fastest with the right technical tools is going to be key for Glocer and Thomson-Reuters going forward, as it faces strong rivals and an ever-more demanding customer base, both in the free and premium online markets.