Free business and industry information on the Web Paul Pedley
Published by Aslib-IMI This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” ISBN 0-203-40350-9 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-41048-3 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0 85142 460 0 (Print Edition) © Paul Pedley 2000 Except as otherwise permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publisher. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to Aslib at the address below. The author asserts his moral right to be identified as such in accordance with the terms of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Information Management International (IMI) is a trading name of Aslib. Aslib-IMI provides consultancy and information services, professional development training, conferences, specialist recruitment, Internet products, publishes journals (in hard copy and electronic formats), books and directories and provides outsourcing revises to the information community. Aslib-IMI, founded in 1924, is a world class corporate membership organi sation with over 2000 members in some 70 countries. Aslib actively pro motes best practice in the management of information resources. It lobbies on all aspects of the management of, and legislation concerning, informa tion at local, national and international levels. Further information is available from: Aslib-IMI Staple Hall Stone House Court London EC3A 7PB Tel: +44 (0) 20 7903 0000 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7903 0011 Email:
[email protected] WWW: http://www.aslib.com
Contents
1
2
List of abbreviations
vii
About the author
ix
Disclaimer
x
Introduction
1
Enterprise information portals
6
If all else fails…
6
Portals for business information
8
Information for managers of portals
8
Identifying the best portals
9
Portals
9
3
Basic company information
16
4
Company financials/investment research
21
Filing requirements
21
Searching for information about unincorporated organisations and non-limited businesses
22
Partnerships
22
Charities
23
Share-price feed for a web site
24
Company financials for registered companies
24
Regional information
29
General sources
29
England
31
Northern Ireland
35
5
iv
6
Scotland
35
Wales
36
Industry information
38
Trade associations
38
Library and information special interest groups
39
General industry resources
40
Multiple industries
41
Single industries
42
Accountancy
42
Advertising
42
Agriculture
43
Architecture
43
Automotive
44
Aviation and aerospace
44
Banking
45
Broadcasting and entertainment
45
Building and construction
45
Chemical industry
46
Electronics
47
Engineering
47
Environment
47
Fashion
48
Food and drink
48
Health
49
Housing
50
Insurance
51
Law
51
Mining
52
Oil and gas
53
v
Pharmaceutical industry
53
Plastics and rubber
53
Property
53
Publishing
54
Recruitment services
55
Telecommunications
55
7
Finance and investment
56
8
Information for UK exporters
65
9
Business news
68
Locating the web sites of newspapers or business magazines
73
10 Biographical information
76
11 Other business information
79
Miscellaneous sites
79
Business courses
84
Currency converters
84
Patents information
85
12 Personalising Web services
87
Technology for aggregating information
87
Personalising news services
88
Personalising search engines
89
Tracking web site changes
91
Broken links
92
13 Keeping up to date
94
Discussion lists
97
Training courses
98
Exhibitions
98
Further reading
99
vi
Alphabetical listing of organisations/providers
100
Subject index
108
Glossary
113
List of abbreviations
ACP AIM ASCII B2B BBC BUBL
CAROL CBI CCTA CEO CSV D&B DTI EU FAME FAQ FTP FTSE HTML IPO ISA ISSN ITN M&A MeSH
African Caribbean and Pacific Group of States alternative investment market American Standard Code for Information Interchange business to business British Broadcasting Corporation BUlletin Board for Libraries (as it was known in 1990 when it was founded; now known as the BUBL Information Service, or BUBL for short) Company Annual Reports On Line Confederation of British Industry Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency chief executive officer Comma Separated Value (file) Dun & Bradstreet Department of Trade and Industry European Union Financial Analysis Made Easy frequently asked question file transfer protocol Financial Times Stock Exchange HyperText Markup Language initial public offering individual savings account International Standard Serial Number Independent Television News Limited mergers and acquisitions Medical Subject Headings
viii
NHS NLM P&L PA PCT pdf PEP PHARE SIC SME TACIS UCI UPS URL USPTO VAT VL WWW
National Health Service National Library of Medicine profit and loss Press Association Patent Co-operation Treaty Portable Document Format (for Adobe Acrobat Reader software) personal equity plan Poland and Hungary: Action for the Restructuring of the Economy Standard Industrial Classification small and medium sized enterprise Technical Assistance to the Commonwealth of Independent States University of California, Irvine United Parcel Service of America Inc uniform resource locator US Patent and Trademark Office value added tax Virtual Library World Wide Web
About the author
Paul Pedley is Head of Research at the Economist Intelligence Unit. Prior to this Paul was Library and Information Services Manager at Theodore Goddard. Paul previously worked for the developers of Canary Wharf in London’s Docklands, and also in government libraries at the Department of Trade and Industry, the Office of Telecommunications (OFTEL) and the Property Services Agency. Paul is a Fellow of the Library Association, and is an active member of a number of professional groups. He is the current chairperson of the Industrial and Commercial Libraries Group of the Library Association, and he is a former chair of both the City Legal Information Group and the Property Information Group. He is also a special libraries representative on the Library Association Copyright Alliance. Paul is the author of two Aslib Know How guides—Copyright for Library and Information Service Professionals and Intranets and Push Technology: Creating an Information Sharing EnvironmentI— and has contributed to Aslib’s Handbook of Information Management and Copyright Made Easier. Paul maintains a website of over 1400 links at http:// www.paulpedley.com.
Disclaimer
Whilst the author has tried to ensure the accuracy of this publication, the publishers and the author cannot accept any liability for errors, omissions or mistakes. All the URLs listed in this book were checked during December 2000 and were working at that time. If you are unable to access a site; please check that you have entered the address exactly as shown since some of the URL’s are case sensitive.
Chapter 1 Introduction
This book aims to provide readers with a listing of some of the most useful free business and industry information sources available on the Internet It does have a UK slant, looking at things both from the point of view of people doing business in the United Kingdom, and also from the perspective of UK exporters. The listing does not attempt to be comprehensive. Rather it covers sources of useful free business and industry information. The author has chosen the sites for their usefulness, rather than trying to provide a complete listing of all the sites that are available. Why a book about useful web sites? Well, according to a poll conducted by independent research firm MORI in June 2000, amongst a sample of 600 Internet users for search engine WebTop.com, only 18 per cent of those in Great Britain say that they find what they are looking for on the Web: Despite the time and effort British adults spend searching for information online, 4.6 million British adult Internet users do not often find what they are looking for on the Internet, with one in four only finding what they need on the Web ‘sometimes’. Only 18% of those surveyed claimed to always find what they need on the Web, meaning that 82% of the 14.7 million adult British Internet users cannot guarantee that they will find the information they need on the net. (‘4.6 million people can’t find what they need on the net’, WebTop press release, 19 July 2000, http:// www.webtop.com/search/vanilla/press190700.htm) The Internet is a very powerful research tool, and it is an essential resource for anyone wishing to undertake research on business and industry. But the Internet is also one of the biggest time-wasters ever invented, and what is so cunning about the Internet as a time-waster is that once you start to search for material, you can easily find yourself going off at a tangent and discovering all manner of interesting web sites by sheer serendipity, many of the sites bearing no relation to the subject that you originally set out to search for. Furthermore, you may look at your watch to find that you have just spent several hours searching the Internet without realising just how quickly the time was passing; you may even have
2
FREE BUSINESS AND INDUSTRY INFORMATION ON THE WEB
failed to find what you were looking for, which makes you want to have yet another go at searching on the Web later on. In order to avoid wasting time on the Internet, you need to know how to search most effectively. The Internet is so vast, and changing so quickly, that you cannot possibly hope to become familiar with all the resources that are available on the Web. People often talk about ‘searching the Web’ as if it were possible to undertake a single search that will find everything available on the Internet for their chosen topic. But this is very misleading. Internet content company BrightPlanet undertook a study documenting the ‘deep’ web (also known as ‘the invisible web’), which estimates that it is about 500 times larger than what the search engines already provide access to (‘BrightPlanet unveils the “deep” web: 500 times larger than the existing web’, 26 July 2000, http://www.brightplanet.com/ newsroom/deepweb.asp). BrightPlanet goes on to explain why the ‘deep web’ is inaccessible through the search engines: The reason the deep Web has been hidden in plain sight is today’s reliance on search engines for content discovery on the Web. Existing search engines catalog the surface Web using spiders or crawlers that follow links on static Web pages, akin to ripples spreading across a pond. The deep Web is made up of searchable databases, with results that are only served up dynamically in answer to a direct query. Though search engines may point to the doorways of these databases, they can not find or search the contents housed inside. Search engines can knock on the door but not get in. The BrightPlanet white paper is available on-line at http:// www.completeplanet.com/Tutorials/DeepWeb/index.asp. The point that I am trying to make here is that anyone searching the Web needs to be aware of the limitations of the search engines, and to take account of the fact that some of the most useful business and industry information may be inaccessible through the search engines. I am currently writing a book on ‘The invisible web’ which will be published as an Aslib know how guide in June 2001. Greg Notess’s web site (http://www.searchengineshowdown.com/stats/) is a good source for search engine statistics. In July 2000 the biggest search engines according to Greg Notess’s search engine statistics/database total size estimates were (in decreasing order of size): 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
iWon Google! AltaVista FAST Northern Light
http://www.iwon.com http://www.google.com http://www.altavista.com http://www.alltheweb.com http://www.northernlight.com
INTRODUCTION
3
Danny Sullivan’s Search Engine Watch (http:// www.searchenginewatch.com) is also a useful resource for information about search engines. In July 2000 there was an item on the site (‘Search engine sizes’, 7 July 2000, http:// searchenginewatch.com/reports/ sizes.html) in which the top five (in terms of millions of web pages indexed) were given as: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Google! WebTop.com AltaVista FAST Northern Light
http://www.google.com http://www.webtop.com http://www.altavista.com http://www.alltheweb.com http://www.northernlight.com
Searching the Web has been likened to trying to find a piece of information in a library of books where every single book has had its spine ripped apart and the contents of all the books are thrown into a disorderly pile. In order to make the Internet more manageable, I would recommend that you select one search engine and one business information web portal that you feel comfortable with, and that you then get to know those sources in as much detail as possible. That way, you don’t need to worry about thinking to yourself ‘now what was the website address for that really useful site that I came across last month…?’. Instead, all you need to know is the route within the search engine or the portal site which will lead you to the right hyperlink. For example, Yahoo has a useful set of links to stock exchanges. You don’t need to remember exactly what the URL for that listing is, so long as you know that entering the phrase ‘stock exchanges’ as a search term will retrieve results for search directories within Yahoo, as well as web sites containing the phrase, and that the search directory appears near the top of the search listing as: Business and Economy: Finance and Investment: Exchanges: Stock (http://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/ Stock Exchanges Finance_and_Investment/Exchanges/Stock_Exchanges/) Another example might be where you want to find the hyperlink to the web site of a Brazilian newspaper. Yahoo has a broad heading for regions, which is then broken down by countries: you can select the country you are after, and this leads you to a further set of links of which ‘news and media’ is one, and newspapers is a sub-heading within news and media: Regional: Countries: Brazil: News and Media: Newspapers http:// dir.yahoo.com/Regional/Countries/Brazil/ News_and_Media/Newspapers This kind of effective searching is only possible through regular use of a source, enabling the user to become familiar with the ways in which the site is structured.
4
FREE BUSINESS AND INDUSTRY INFORMATION ON THE WEB
The advantage of a search engine such as Yahoo is that it is structured in the form of a directory—someone has made a conscious decision to put that particular hyperlink under your chosen heading. The links are likely to be pertinent to the topic that you have searched on, rather than being ‘false hits’ which you might well get using a free-text search engine. Having said that, the search engine that I feel most at home with is AltaVista, and whilst it is a free-text search engine, I often make use of the functionality available to narrow down my search, rather than relying on a word or phrase search (unless the word or phrase is unusual and therefore likely to result in a very small number of hits). Clicking on the ‘help’ button within AltaVista leads to an extensive set of help pages which describes the functionality available on the search engine, including that for both the main search facility and the advanced search facility. Searching for a word or phrase can come up with quite different results, according to how you enter in the data. For example, in December 2000 a search for the phrase business information came up with 369,718 hits. AltaVista now treats the words business information as a phrase, even without the use of quotation marks, something which it previously did not do. One way of refining the search was to limit it by saying that the words must appear in the title, using the command title: “business information”, which reduced the results to 32,223; specifying that the URL must have the ‘.uk’ domain in it, using the search statement +url: uk +title: “business information”, gave 9,076 results. This example illustrates that simply entering a word or phrase as a search statement on a free-text search engine is a rather crude and imprecise method of tracking down information. To be effective the search needs to be carefully thought through, utilising the search engine’s functionality to refine and limit your search results to the most relevant data. Whilst it may be perfectly adequate to search on a word or phrase if the search term is unusual or uncommon, with words or phrases in regular use the number of hits is likely to be somewhat overwhelming. The example shows that searching for the same phrase resulted in 369,718 hits on one occasion, but came up with 9, 076 hits on another: the only difference was the use of qualifiers that determined where the words must appear, or whether the results were restricted by domain. A number of information professionals think that Google (http:// www.google.com) is the best search engine, largely because of the sheer number of web pages that it has indexed. Meanwhile, I think it is also worth mentioning Copernic (http://www.copernic.com) which lets us ers search across the major search engines simultaneously, and deduplicates the search results. Another search engine worth looking at is that produced by WebTop.com from Bright Station plc. I normally find that the results of my searches on WebTop.com are of a very high quality in terms of relevance. The search engine uses ActiviQ context-based programming, which analyses the concepts in each web document that it indexes and assigns appropriate business categories. WebTop.com announced in June 2000 that its search engine had indexed over half a billion documents on the Web, making it one of the four largest Internet search
INTRODUCTION
5
engines (see ‘WebTop.com Internet search engine announces key indexing milestone of half a billion web pages’, WebTop press release, 28 June 2000, http://www.webtop.com/ search/vanilla/press280600.htm). I find the software very convenient to use. For example, if I am working on a document in a wordprocessing package and decide that I would like to check up on a particular fact, or the correct URL for a web site, it is possible to quickly fire up WebTop.com; to highlight a word or phrase in the word-processed document and then to copy and paste it into the search statement field on the search engine software. (Starting up the WebTop.com software loads an image which appears over the top of whatever currently appears on your screen, and you can then drag the icon to the most convenient place on the screen.) There might be a suspicion that because some business and industry information on the Web is available free of charge it cannot be relied upon. This is understandable, and if you have such concerns then I would advise taking one or more of the following steps: • Think about who is providing the information. Is it a well-established, highly respected organisation such as Dun & Bradstreet or Companies House? • If you are unsure about whether the supplier is who it says it is, you can always use a service that identifies domain names and who they are registered to, such as checkdomain.com (http:// www.checkdomain.com). • Consider who links to that site. For example, you can do this on AltaVista by entering the statement link:www.xyz.co.uk, where www.xyz.co.uk is the domain name that you are looking for. This will then give you an idea of the kinds of organisations that are linking to that site, and if they are well thought of, then you may well feel that the site is therefore reliable. • Check whether the site complies with regulatory requirements. For example, a site might say that it ‘is operated by Company X Limited, which is regulated by the abc authority. That means we can legally offer you advice and opinions on investment opportuni ties’. If you are doubtful about the site, you could then check with the relevant regulatory authority that Company X really is regulated by it. Other considerations apart from the reliability of the data are the frequency of updating, the extent of the information provided, and ease of use. Even some well-regarded sites do need to be treated with caution. For example, if you are looking for the latest annual report on a company, you may well go to a site that acts as a portal providing links to the annual reports of a number of different companies, searchable by company name or by industry sector. But you do need to consider how recent the report is. I have found several instances of a company’s own web site providing more up-to-date annual reports than that for which a link is provided on a third-party web site. If in doubt, you could always check the Companies House site (http://www.companies-house.gov.uk) to see what is the latest annual report to have been filed.
6
FREE BUSINESS AND INDUSTRY INFORMATION ON THE WEB
Another issue is the extent of the information provided, both in terms of the level of detail, and the question of how comprehensive the coverage is. Practical considerations of ten determine whether a web site is successful. How good is the navigation—is it easy to move around the site from one section to another? Is there a site map? Is there a facility to undertake a search of the site and, if so, does it provide adequate functionality to let you do an effective, refined search? Then there is the question of whether you are required to register for the site. The registration procedure may be free of charge, but it can be offputting if you have to register for access to lots of sites and then have to remember lots of different passwords. Even if you try to use the same username and password for each site that you register with, this often proves to be impossible because the service may well automatically provide you with a username or membership number without letting you choose one, or the user name that you normally select is too long or too short for that particular service. Some business information sites do charge for the more extensive value-added information, whilst giving free access to basic data. Where there is a mix of free and priced information on a site, you have to consider whether the amount of free data that is provided is useful, or whether there are other sites that provide more extensive material free of charge. Enterprise information portals EIPs enable workplace users to access external information from the Web with a company’s proprietary intranet content and combine the search results into a single interface. Martin White says that ‘the problems of integrating external news services, market and company information and product catalogues from suppliers with internal financial and procure ment information have been so horrendous that most companies have turned a blind eye to the opportunities’ (‘Enterprise information portals: an information perspective’, Martin White, January 2000, http:// www.intranetfocus.com/Portals/Portals_Paper/ portals_paper.html). I think that enterprise information portals are going to become increasingly important, and that people using the Web in the workplace to support their business decisions will use EIPs in order to effectively combine internal and external information. If all else fails… If you cannot find the business and industry information that you require, then there are a couple of services available via the Web that I would recommend. They are: 1
Site: Ask a Librarian
INTRODUCTION
7
URL: http://www.earl.org.uk/ask/index.html Provider: Earl: the consortium for public library networking Description: In its marketing this site uses the tagline ‘bringing the resources of UK public libraries to your home desktop’. The service lets people mail it with factual questions, and aims to send an answer within two working days. Before using the service, it is best to check the site’s questions and answers section from previous enquiries to see if your question has already been answered. There is also a listing of other on-line enquiry services on the Web (http:// www.earl.org.uk/ask/other.html). 2
Site: Information Outpost URL: http://www.informationoutpost.com/ Provider: Information Outpost LLC Description: This service lets people tell it what they are looking for, and says that it will find the best related sites for them free of charge. It aims to respond within 24 hours, and requests that users provide as much background data as possible—i.e. that users of the service explain any jargon or abbreviations used in their request.
Chapter 2 Portals for business information
Portals are designed to be one-stop shops for all your information needs. For a listing of UK business information sources, that compiled by Sheila Webber is probably the best known (see entry 9, below). The site is well established, having been maintained since 1994, and has been built up into an extensive listing covering company directories; company profiles and financial information; statistical, economic and export data; market research; and news sources. Karen Blakeman also provides a listing of business information sources (entry 8, below). Both of these sites have been awarded the seal of approval of Argus Clearinghouse (http:// www.clearinghouse.net). It is certainly worth exploring the Argus Clearinghouse web site further. The site bills itself as The Internet’s premier research library: a selective collection of topical guides’. There is a heading for ‘business and employment’, which in turn has a number of subheadings, such as ‘banking and investment’, ‘business’, ‘economics’, ‘finance and credit’ and‘industry’. Many of the other business information portals are either slanted to North American material, or else they cover international listings, without any particular emphasis on the UK. Information for managers of portals 3
Site: aboutportals.com: your portal authority for enterprise information portals URL: http://www.aboutportals.com Provider: aboutportals.com Description: This site has been developed to meet the needs of managers and executives responsible for portal initiatives. The site includes news about portals, links to relevant journals, product reviews, case studies and portal implementations. 4
Site: Traffick: the portals portal URL: http://www.traffick.com
FREE BUSINESS AND INDUSTRY INFORMATION ON THE WEB 9
Provider: Traffick.com Description: Traffick is a guide to portals, and it includes a directory (http:// www.traffick.com/dir/default.asp) of ‘annotated links to the [Web’s] best tools, sites and services related to portals, search engines, e-mail and browsing’. There are email newsletters available such as Traffick Weekly Newsletter, which helps users to keep on top of key Internet trends. Identifying the best portals There are a number of ‘portals of portals’. For example, GTI Start (http:// www.gtistart.com) has selected what it considers to be the best sites and arranged these by subject; the Resource Discovery Network (http:// www.rdn.ac.uk) is a co-operative network of subject gateways; and the Argus Clearinghouse mentioned above (http://www.clearinghouse.net) is a selective collection of topical guides. Over the past few years Free Pint has provided useful articles on the best web sites for particular topics. The site underwent a number of changes and enhancements during 2000, and one of the most useful of these is the introduction of the Free Pint portal (http://www.freepintco.uk/portal). The portal feature makes it much easier to navigate the archive of material which has appeared on the site. It draws together links to useful portal sites which can be searched by industry sector, or by region/country. Portals 5
Site: Biz/ed URL: http://www.bized.ac.uk Provider: University of Bristol Description: Biz/ed is billed as a ‘unique business and economics service for students, teachers and lecturers’. The Internet catalogue is a searchable listing of over 1,500 Internet resources which have been selected and described by subject experts. As an example, I searched for the words ‘electronic commerce’, which produced a list of web sites. I could then click on an icon to connect directly to the resource. Alternatively, selecting the name of a resource from the list leads to a description. Navigating around the Internet catalogue is made easier because it shows where the listing fits into the hierarchical structure. So the electronic commerce example shows that the parent section is ‘trade and commerce’ and that related sections are ‘banks and banking’, ‘business—general’ and ‘money’. 6
Site: Bizwise.co.uk: business advice online
10 PORTALS FOR BUSINESS INFORMATION
URL: http://www.bizwise.co.uk Provider: Bizwise Limited Description: This is a business advice and services portal site designed for directors and owners of small to medium UK businesses. It draws together a number of independent sources of information on key business matters. 7
Site: Business.com URL: http://www.business.com Provider: Business.com Inc. Description: Business.com is a portal to business web sites. These have been identified as being useful resources for business by research analysts at Business.com, who have then organised them into headings and sub-categories. 8
Site: Business Information on the Internet (compiled by Karen Blakeman) URL: http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/index.htm Provider: RBA Information Services Description: Karen Blakeman’s site is a useful portal for business information on the Web. There are links to sites covering stock market data and company financials, company and telephone directories, statistics and market research, news sources, search engines and country-specific information. There are also broad headings such as ‘miscellaneous’ Zand ‘general’ which cover sites for discussion lists, business information portals, exchange rates, interest rates, industry classification codes, street maps, telephone directories, post codes and rail timetables. A search engine is provided to enable users to quickly search the site for a specific information source on the RBA web site, and the site seems to be very up to date. 9
Site: Business Information Sources on the Internet URL: http://www.dis.strath.ac.uk/business/index.html Provider: Sheila Webber (formerly of the Department of Information Science, University of Strathclyde, Sheila now works at Sheffield University Department of Information Studies). Description: This well-established site is an excellent starting point for anyone wishing to find business information on the Internet. The site contains listings of sources for company directories; company profiles and financial data; trade directories; country information; statistical, economic and export data; commercial market research companies; news sources; and discussion lists.
FREE BUSINESS AND INDUSTRY INFORMATION ON THE WEB 11
Each link has a brief description, and in some instances these include helpful search tips. There are notes about whether the information is free or priced, and whether registration is required. The site has a useful list of electronic bulletins and current awareness and push services, and a number of helpful suggestions for how to keep up to date with new web sites. There is a search engine enabling users of the site to quickly find the URL of a specific source, and there is a set of search tips to help users make the most effective use of the search facility. 10
Site: CRUISE: CRanfield University Internet Site Explorer URL: http://www.cranfield.ac.uk/cils/library/subjects/busmenu.htm Provider: Cranfield University Library Service Description: CRUISE lists business and management links covering areas such as accountancy and finance, annual reports, company information, management consultants, project management and strategy. 11
Site: EARLweb: business intelligence URL: http://www.earl.org.uk/earlweb/busns.html Provider: EARL: the consortium for public library networking Description: This portal has business information links covering news, associations, personal finance, business directories, education and training, UK business resources, UK regulation and tax, consumer information, business in Europe, world markets and the global economy. 12
Site: Financial Data and Resource Locators URL: http://www.ntu.edu.sg/library/biz/financial.htm Provider: Nanyang Technological University Library Description: This Singapore-based site contains a range of links to items covering international finance, banking and stock exchanges. Whilst the listing is primarily of sites covering Singapore or Asia, there are a large number of links to international sources. 13
Site: FinancialFind.com URL: http://www.financialfind.com Provider: GoInvest.com Description: FinancialFind.com is a financial-only search engine which provides a directory of financial information and web sites on the Internet. The opening page has links to top financial stories and technology news.
12 PORTALS FOR BUSINESS INFORMATION
14
Site: Free Pint Portal URL: http://www.freepint.co.uk/portal Provider: Free Pint Limited Description: Free Pint provides a regular newsletter which is emailed to around 33,000 people. In response to feedback requesting an easy way to access the large archive of content, the Free Pint portal classifies all its content by industry, including all articles, tipples and news feeds. For each industry listed the following items have been linked (where available): articles that have appeared in Free Pint newsletter, a link to the relevant news category in Free Pint News, a handful of the most useful and reliable link sites/portals for the industry, a selection of leading publications for that industry and daily tipples from the Free Pint bar. 15
Site: GTI Start URL: http://www.GTIStart.com Provider: GTI Ltd Description: GTI Start promotes itself as the world’s first ‘startal’. Startals list only the best sites on the Internet, rather than attempting to off er complete coverage. There is a section for finance, covering news, market views, stocks and shares, banking and loans. 16
Site: International Business Resources on the WWW URL: http://www.ciber.bus.msu.edu/busres.htm Provider: Michigan State University Center for International Business Education and Research Description: The site has international coverage, and within each heading the resources are arranged in order of country under headings such as ‘news/ periodicals’ or ‘company directories and yellow pages’. 17
Site: The Internet Public Library: business & economics reference URL: http://ipl.ub.lu.se/ref/RR/static/bus0000.html Provider: University of Michigan School of Information Description: Covers the areas of commerce and industry, production, distribution and consumption of goods and services, and the management of economic systems. 18
Site: Internet Resources and Links for Business Information URL: http://www.philb.com/bizlink1.htm
FREE BUSINESS AND INDUSTRY INFORMATION ON THE WEB 13
Provider: Phil Bradley Description: Phil Bradley’s site contains links to company and business information sources, including web portals, stock market and company financial data, and company information. The site also contains links to more specific subject areas, such as actuarial science organisations, insurance resources and medical information on the Internet. The links provided also include some general items, such as a list of Internet search engines, telephone directories, and politics and government information. Under the heading for ‘search engines’ Phil Bradley writes: ‘the internet changes so fast that keeping your bookmarks current is like painting the Forth Bridge, a never ending task, so that it seems to me to be more sensible to use the resources somebody else has produced’. 19
Site: InvestorMap.com URL: http://investormap.com Provider: InvestorMap.com Description: Has descriptions of over 3,000 financial links sorted into over 130 categories. There is also a daily markets page of news and analysis, and an InvestorMap.com newsletter. 20
Site: My First Billion .com URL: http://www.myfirstbillion.eom/i/portals.html Provider: Christian F.Masse Description: Describes itself as an IT—business vortal listing the best sites on the Internet in the fields of finance, entrepeneurialism and information technology. Includes links to sites for or financial markets, IPOs, business news and so on. 21
Site: The Resource Discovery Network URL: http://www.rdn.ac.uk Provider: RDNC, which is run jointly by staff from UKOLN—the UK Office for Library and Information Networking (University of Bath)—and King’s College London Description: The Resource Discovery Network (RDN) is a portal of portals. It is a co-operative network of subject gateways providing access to descriptions of Internet resources selected for their quality and accuracy by subject specialists throughout the UK academic community. The heading for ‘business’ leads you to the Social Science Information Gateway (entry 23, below), but there are other
14 PORTALS FOR BUSINESS INFORMATION
headings such as ‘engineering’, ‘health’, ‘law’, ‘life sciences’ and ‘social sciences’. 22
Site: Sheffield Hallam University Learning Centre gateway: starting point for subject information URL: http://www.shu.ac.uk/services/lc/subjects Provider: Sheffield Hallam University Description: This site provides subject guides to Internet resources and covers headings such as business and management, company information, construction, civil engineering and architecture, electrical and electronic engineering, and statistics. 23
Site: Social Science Information Gateway: Business URL: http://www.sosig.ac.uk/business/ Provider: SOSIG Description: Contains listings for topics such as business news, mailing lists/ discussion groups and resources guides. 24
Site: Special Libraries Association: B&F Web URL: http://www.slabf.org/busres.html Provider: Special Libraries Association, Business and Finance Division Description: This site from the SLA’s Business and Finance Division provides listings of business resources under a number of different headings such as small business, accounting and taxation, or investments. Each category is maintained by volunteers. 25
Site: StreetEYE: All Seeing EYE investment meta-search engine URL: http://www.streeteye.com/cgi-bin/allseeingeye.cgi Provider: StreetEYE LLC Description: Users of StreetEYE can search by ticker symbol, company name or text string. It is also possible to personalise All Seeing EYE. The service links to a wide range of financial sites, and where free registration or paid subscription is required to these, this is indicated. 26
Site: VerticalNet URL: http://www.verticalnet.com Provider: Vert Tech LLC
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Description: VerticalNet is a portal designed to facilitate B2B e-commerce across diverse industries. The site acts as a portal to a range of industry-specific sites which each have targeted communities. In order to meet the needs of companies wishing to trade electronically, the site is designed to meet their business information needs. 27
Site: World Wide Web Subject Catalogue: business URL: http://www.uky.edu/Subject/business.html Provider: University of Kentucky Description: Good set of links to business information sources, which includes a range of resources covering a number of regions and countries of the world. There is a brief explanation to most of the links, although not all of the sources are available free of charge. 28
Site: WSJ.com Web Watch: the best sites for business URL: http://webwatch.wsj.com/ Provider: Dow Jones & Company Inc. Description: The Wall Street Journal Web watch is an index of published site reviews. It covers key reasons to use the site, cost information (many of the sites are free of charge) and a description of the site. The site is arranged into channels: ‘strictly business’, ‘money matters’, ‘technology focus’ and ‘travel and transportation’, and there are also headings for ‘watching the Web’ and ‘the Web @ work’. 29
Site: WWW Virtual Library URL: http://vlib.org/Overview.html Provider: WWW Virtual Library Description: ‘The VL is the oldest catalog of the web, started by Tim BernersLee, the creator of html and the web itself. Unlike commercial catalogs, it is run by a loose confederation of volunteers, who compile pages of key links for particular areas in which they are expert; even though it isn’t the biggest index of the web, the VL pages are widely recognised as being amongst the highestquality guides to particular sections of the web’ (http://vlib.org/AboutVL.html). The virtual library for business and economics (http://vlib.org/ BusinessEconomics.html) covers topics such as electronic commerce, finance, economics and transportation. There are also virtual libraries for topics such as engineering (http://vlib.org/Engineering.html), agriculture (http://vlib.org/ Agriculture.html) and law (http://vlib.org/ Law.html).
Chapter 3 Basic company information
There are quite a few web sites that provide basic information on UK companies. If you are looking for details of a company’s registered office, then the best site to use would be the Companies House web site (http:// www.companieshouse.gov.uk). But this is searchable only by company name, whereas you may wish to search for potential suppliers of a product or service, and to do so by limiting the search to a specific postcode area—something for which the Ask Alex site (http://askalex.co.uk) would be a good starting point. Another consideration with company databases is their comprehensiveness. In the case of Companies House coverage is complete for all UK registered companies, and the site also gives details of changes of name. In the case of Ask Alex, the site is used by a number of partners such as Dun & Bradstreet, and the directory covers almost 2 million UK businesses. The Electronic Telegraph (http:// www.telegraph.co.uk, see entry 199) has a link to a UK business finder (http:// www.infospace.com/uk.telegr/). 30
Site: Ask Alex URL: http://askalex.co.uk Provider: Miami International Ltd Description: The ASKALEX directory contains information on over 1.8 million UK businesses, and it can be searched by name, product or service either nationally or in combination with a town, country or postcode area. Results show company name, town, phone number, details of a company’s specialities, and a location map. ASKALEX is a shared directory which is used through a number of branded entry points, portals and partner sites such as Dun & Bradstreet, the Department of Trade and Industry, and Virginbiz.net. 31
Site: BUBL Information Service URL: http://bubl.ac.uk
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Provider: BUBL Information Service (run by Strathclyde University Andersonian Library) Description: The BUBL web site contains a section entitled ‘BUBL UK’ (http://bubl.ac.uk/uk/), which is a directory of UK organisations and institutions. There are listings for companies, banks and building socie ties, and chambers of commerce. The company listing is particularly useful, with hyperlinks to the web sites of the top 100 UK registered companies (from the Forbes International 500 rankings). Other listings include links for educational establishments, central and local government, media, charities, churches, hospitals, libraries, museums, police, sports authorities, travel and transport. BUBL is a national information service for the higher education community, funded by JISC, the Joint Information Systems Committee of the Higher Education Funding Councils of England, Scotland and Wales, and the Department of Education for Northern Ireland. 32
Site: BusinessZONE URL: http://www.businesszone.co.uk Provider: Sift plc (Business Zone); ICC Information Ltd (Company Information Zone) Description: The site contains top business news, and in the Company Information Zone it gives access to the statutory information held at Companies House. It is free to search, but detailed reports are priced. Searches can be done by company name or company registration number, and the search can include dissolved companies, previous names and non-limited businesses. There is also a facility to search for company directors, and this includes company secretaries. N.b. if someone is both the secretary and a director of the company, this shows up as two directorships. Tax Facts covers information on tax and its effect on businesses. 33
Site: Companies House URL: http://www.companies-house.gov.uk Provider: Companies House Description: The Companies House web site provides basic company information free of charge on all companies registered in the UK. Details include company name and registered office, company registration number, date of incorporation, country of origin, company type and the nature of the company’s business. Where appropriate the company details will also include previous names, branch details and overseas company information. The status of a company is shown, such as ‘active’ or ‘dissolved’, and where appropriate the basic company information includes insolvency details. There is also a link to the
18 BASIC COMPANY INFORMATION
register of disqualified directors, the period of the disqualification and the reason. One thing to bear in mind when searching for a company’s details is that the address shown is that of the registered office, which may not be the same as the trading address. The service is only available Monday to Saturday, 7 a.m. to 12 midnight UK time. 34
Site: COUNTYWeb URL: http://www.countryweb.com Provider: COUNTYWeb.com plc Description: Describing itself as the UK interactive business directory network, COUNTYWeb allows you to search the top 1000 companies both nationally and within each county. Details given include company activity, address, phone number, sales and number of employees. The listings can be sorted either by sales, number of employees or alphabetically. The site also provides both national and business news headlines, useful links for trade connections for companies wishing to import/export goods, live currency rates and a currency converter. 35
Site: Europages: The European Business Directory URL: http://www.europages.com Provider: Euredit Description: Europages on the Internet covers 500,000 companies in 30 European countries, searchable by company name, product or service. Entries include company address, telephone, fax and email, and details on the company’s products. The database can be searched in six different languages—English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Dutch. 36
Site: KempsGold URL: http://www.kempsgold.co.uk Provider: Kemps Publishing Ltd in association with Dun & Bradstreet Description: KempsGold is a database of companies searchable by industry sector, geographic location, company or keyword. I did a sample search by the sector for ‘clothing, footwear, fabrics and textiles’. This led to a set of subheadings from which I chose one for ‘buttons’. The individual company records have details of company name, address and phone number. There is then a link to D&B’s database, giving additional information on year started and year incorporated. It is possible to order D&B priced reports on companies, such as the
FREE BUSINESS AND INDUSTRY INFORMATION ON THE WEB 19
D&B Confidence Report, which gives information on the condition and performance of a business. 37
Site: PhoneNetUK URL: http://www.bt.com/phonenetuk Provider: British Telecommunications plc Description: PhoneNetUK is an information service that holds telephone number information for both people and businesses. In order to undertake a search you need to enter the name of the business or person you are looking for and the area in which they reside. The database is not a postal address service. 38
Site: Scoot URL: http://www.scoot.co.uk Provider: Scoot (UK) Limited Description: Scoot can be searched by business type, company name or by product. The system is easy to use, and if you select a business type you may be given a list of options in order to try to narrow down the search. Searching for architects in E1 came up with 25 results, and for each company retrieved you are given name, address, phone number and a location map. The service includes a people finder, which searches through listings of over 17 million residential addresses and phone numbers. 39
Site: ThomWeb URL: http://www.infospace.com/uk.thomw/ Provider: Thomson Directories Description: ThomWeb contains details of 2 million businesses. The Business Finder allows you to search for a company by business name or business type, and also by town or postcode, or you can browse under one of 10 main business categories. There is also a People Finder giving phone numbers and addresses using data provided by 192.com. 40
Site: Websense: company locator URL: http://www.websense.com/locator.cfm Provider: Websense Inc. Description: The Websense company locator helps you to search for a company’s web or FTP site. It uses the InterNIC list of registered domain names as its underlying database, which means that it is primarily US sites that are listed.
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41
Site: Yell (electronic yellow pages) URL: http://www.yell.co.uk Provider: British Telecommunications plc Description: Yellow Pages Search contains details of over 1.6 million UK companies. It is possible to search either by business type or by company name, in combination with location (town/district or postcode). Entries include company name, address, phone number and a location map. For other sites containing basic company information see the listings by Sheila Webber (http://www.dis.strath.ac.uk/business/ directoriesUK.html) and Karen Blakeman (http://www.rba.co.uk/ sources/directs.htm).
Chapter 4 Company financials/investment research
As recently as 1995/96 the Internet largely carried North American material and there was very little if any UK company information of any note on the net. Nowadays that has changed completely, so much so that the Internet has become the first port of call for many individual investors looking for company financial information and other types of investment research. Traditionally, business information has been considered to be premium data, which has been available only at high cost. For individual investors this would be a particular problem, since they could not justify purchasing copies of directories or buying on-line reports. Now, though, this has all changed: investors are now able to find on the World Wide Web annual reports, chairman’s statements, share prices, broker comment and the latest company news free of charge. In a number of instances the free information is used to whet the appetites of users in the hope that they will buy some of the premium data which is only available for a fee. There is so much business information on the Internet that finding company information is more a question of how to find reliable, up-to-date, authoritative material than a question of whether such information is on the net. It is really a matter of knowing where to look. Every year a survey of the use of information in UK business libraries appears in Business Information Review. The Business Information Resources Survey was started in 1991, and the tenth survey appeared in Business Information Review 17 (1) (March 2000), pp. 5–21. One of the questions in the survey was ‘Which company financial database site, if any, do you access most frequently via the web?’. Whilst the responses included fee-based services such as OneSource Business Browser, FAME, or Amadeus (Bureau van Dijk), the two most popular sites were UK Equities Direct (http://www.hemscott.com/ EQUITIES/index.htm) and CAROL (http://www.carol.co.uk), both of which are excellent free sources of company financial data. Filing Requirements When looking for company financials on foreign companies it is important to bear in mind the level of detail that companies are required by law to file since this
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can vary considerably from one country to another. It is well worth having a look at the Disclosure-Investor site which has a number of guides to filing requirements. 42
Site: Disclosure-Investor.com URL: http://www.Disclosure-Investor.com Provider: Primark Description: This site has information about corporate reporting practices in the USA and worldwide. Details covered include forms of business enterprise, disclosure practices and requirements, company registration and filing location, filing requirements and filing dates. Searching for information about unincorporated organisations and non-limited businesses 43
Site: Company Information Zone URL: http://www.accountingweb.co.uk/icc/index.html Provider: ICC Information Ltd Description: Unincorporated businesses can be searched via the AccountingWeb site. When using the database you can search by company name or its unincorporated business number. Partnerships Law firms or accountancy firms are normally partnerships. These are covered by doing an unincorporated business search on ICC’s database (entry 43), but you can get additional information from other sources. Hemscott.NET (http:// www.hemscott.com/EQUITIES/index.htm) allows you to search the corporate advisers section by the name of the firm of solicitors, financial advisers, auditors and so on, and for each organisation the address and phone number are given, plus a listing of its quoted clients. Law firms For law firms the Legal 500 and Legal Business (see http:// www.legalease.co.uk) are good sources of information. As far as web sites are concerned, it’s worth looking at the following. 44
Site: The International Centre for Commercial Law URL: http:/ / www.icclaw.com Provider: Legalease
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23
Description: The site has access to the Legal 500 information, and also fees and profits tables from Legal Business magazine. 45
Site: solicitors-online.com URL: http://www.solicitors-online.com Provider: Law Society of England and Wales Description: This site is designed for anyone looking for legal help. Up-dated daily and taken directly from Law Society records, solicitors-online.com enables users to search by firm or individual, by specialist field, and/or by location. Accountancy firms For accountancy firms it is worth checking out the following. 46
Site: Accountancy Age.com Top 50 URL: http://www.accountancyage.com/top50 Provider: VNU Business Publishing Limited UK Description: The Top 50 table contains hyperlinks to the web sites of the accountancy firms, as well as details of fee income, fees per partner, percentage growth and number of partners. 47
Site: The Official ICAEW Directory of Firms URL: http://www.icaewfirms.co.uk Provider: Waterlow Specialist Information Publishing Ltd Description: This is the official database of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, covering over 25,000 chartered accountant firms worldwide. It is searchable by location and by areas of specialisation, and by industry or market. Charities 48
Site: Charity Commission URL: http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk Provider: Charity Commission for England and Wales Description: The Register of Charities contains details of registered charities in England and Wales. This means that such charities • have most of their assets held in England and/or Wales
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• have all or a majority of their trustees normally resident in England and/or Wales, or • are, if set up as a company, incorporated in England or Wales. As long as the above apply, it is not necessary for the charity’s work to be carried out in England or Wales. There are also some types of charity that are not required to register (see Charity Commission leaflet CC21, ‘Starting and registering a charity’, http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/ cc21.htm). The register of charities is available at http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/cinprs/ first.asp. Once an organisation has been entered onto the Register of Charities, the Charity Commission monitors its activities by means of the annual returns and accounts which trustees of charities with a gross annual income or total expenditure over £10,000 are required to submit. All charities (except those which are not allowed to register) are subject to the supervisory and investigative powers of the Charity Commission. Share-price feed for a web site It is possible to get a share-price feed onto your own web site. For example, Yahoo! lets you link from your own site to a specific stock’s share price. To do this, go to http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/linktoy/finance.html, enter the ticker symbol for the FTSE 100 (UKX.L) company that you are interested in, and the service will make a button and generate the appropriate html code to be incorporated into your web page. Company financials for registered companies 49
Site: The Annual Reports Library URL: http://www.zpub.com/sf/arl Provider: zpub.com Description: Founded in 1983, the Annual Reports Library has built up a collection of over 1.5 million original reports from companies, mutual funds and public institutions. There is an annual report gallery with links to many annual reports on-line, plus links to many other sources of annual report information. The site also contains resources on how to read an annual report, how to find a company’s annual report on-line and how to use annual reports in order to research a company. 50
Site: Annual Reports of the World’s Biggest Companies URL: http://www.areport.com
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25
Provider: ASPM GmbH Description: areport.com allows basic searching by company name or company ticker symbol, as well as more advanced searching based upon criteria such as industry type, geographic region/country, stock market or revenues. 51
Site: BigCharts URL: http://www.bigcharts.com Provider: BigCharts Inc. Description: This is a free investment-research web site which provides access to interactive charts, quotes, industry analysis, market news and commentary. 52
Site: CAROL (Company Annual Reports On Line) URL: http://www.carol.co.uk Provider: Marchcom Description: CAROL is an annual report site providing direct links to over 3, 000 corporate reports from Europe, Asia and the United States. The site covers quoted/listed companies that publish their annual reports on-line. Reports can be found either by company name, or by searching on an industry sector. ‘NewSource’ is CAROL’s news update page for breaking merger, acquisition and takeover news. There is also a useful set of web links to stock exchanges, information sources, professional bodies, vendors and media sites. 53
Site: Corporate Information URL: http://www.corporateinformation.com Provider: Winthrop Corporation Description: The CorporateInformation site provides a wealth of information on companies, whether public or private, foreign or domestic. There are over 15, 000 research reports on publicly traded companies, featuring in-depth analysis of sales trends, profitability, stock performance, financial position, research and development expenditure, and dividends, plus over 20,000 profiles for companies around the world, which cover basic information about the company, a brief description of its activities, names of the of ficers, address, phone number and stock chart. The CorporateInformation site is known for its links to other corporate information sites. By linking to over 1,000 sites it offers direct links to over 300, 000 company profiles. This makes it a good starting point for doing company research. The very fact that its coverage is so good does mean that when you get a set of search results, you need to check carefully to see that you pick out the
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reference(s) to the company you are interested in, especially if you have searched on a single word within the company name. The CorporateInformation site also allows you to undertake industry research, where you can find out about an industry sector and the companies within that sector. As an example, I looked up law firms, which tend to be partnerships rather than limited or quoted companies. But the CorporateInformation site led very quickly to a listing of the top 100 law firms with details of fee income and number of partners. 54
Site: EDGAR Database of Corporate Information URL: http://www.sec.gov/edgarhp.htm Provider: The Securities and Exchange Commission Description: EDGAR, which stands for Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval system, contains submissions by companies and others who are required by law to file forms with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The 10K or 10KSB, which contains the same information as the annual report to shareholders, is required to be filed on EDGAR, and there are other documents filed on the system too, such as the 10Q. 55
Site: FT.com URL: http://www.ft.com Provider: Financial Times Limited Description: FT.com is a highly regarded source of editorial analysis on financial markets, industries and companies. There are links to data and statistics such as market indices, and economic and demographic data. The site is also a good source of people information, with a who’s who in the business world, and there is a business directory which contains over 27,000 URLs. Other features of the FT.com site are an interactive charting tool (http:// www.marketprices.ft.com/ ftpages/mp_bigchartOKIE.htm) to aid investment research—the charting tool lets you analyse a company’s stock performance over pre-selected periods—and TempestDirect (http:// tempestdirect.ft.com), which lets you enter a company name in order to find out who provides the best broker research for the company and/or sector that you are interested in. 56
Site: FT 500 URL: http://www.ft.com/FT500/ Provider: Financial Times Limited Description: The FT500 survey provides an annual snapshot of the world’s largest companies ranked by market capitalisation and grouped by region.
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27
57
Site: Global Financial Data URL: http://www.globalfindata.com Provider: Global Financial Data Description: Global Financial Data specialises in long-term and current financial data, and has built up an extensive database of historical and current financial and economic data. The site provides access to current and historical data for the United States and over 150 countries, including stock markets from 1690, exchange rates from 1590, interest rates from 1700, commodities from 1500 and inflation from 1264. On rechecking this site I found that the limited amount of free information was no longer available following a redesign of the website. However, because of its uniqueness I think that it is worth keeping in this listing of business sites. Another site with similar information is that of Economic History Services (http://eh.net/hmit). The site lets users check purchasing power of the dollar from 1720 onwards; purchasing power of the pound from 1660 onwards; inflation rates for the US from 1721 onwards and for the UK from 1661 onwards. 58
Site: Hemscott.net Equities Direct URL: http://www.hemscott.com/EQUITIES/index.htm Provider: Hemscott.NET group plc Description: The UK Equities Direct service from Hemscott.NET is one of the best company-information resources available on the Web. For each company there is a company map, which is essentially a site map of the resources available on the web site, showing which items are chargeable either on a pay-per-view basis or through subscription to Hemscott.NET; there is also plenty of free information available on the site. For a typical company there would be the following data: company map, company statements, summary detail, annual report (provided by World Investor Link), five-year summary P&L with balance sheet, daily share price, 15 minute delay prices, brokers’ consensus, detailed broker forecasts (these are not free), share-price graph, advisers, directors, directors’ Zshare dealings (these are not free), major shareholders, registrars, contact details and key dates. UK Equities Direct is also one of the best sources available for information on corporate advisers such as solicitors, auditors, stockbrokers or property advisers. You can look up details of the advisers and also get a list of their quoted clients. The service also has lists of new issues, and has entries for investment trusts. The home page (http://www.hemscott.com) has much more information, including International Equities Direct, Hemscott Legal and Hemscott Invest. 59
Site: Hoover’s Online (United Kingdom) URL: http://www.hoovers.co.uk
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Provider: Hoover’s Inc. Description: Hoover’s UK provides access to information on over 50,000 companies worldwide, including over 1,400 based in the UK and Europe. Coverage is not restricted to public companies, but does include a number of privately owned companies. Hoover’s company capsules draw together in one place key information about companies, giving details of their activities, who their top competitors are, key financial data, and information on the company’s key personnel. Depending upon the company, there may be a link to the company’s annual report and/or the company’s web site. Companies can be searched by name, or accessed by browsing through the listing of industry sectors. 60
Site: Northcote Links to Annual Reports on the Internet URL: http://www.northcote.co.uk Provider: Northcote Internet Ltd Description: Northcote.co.uk is a gateway to UK companies’ annual reports on the Internet. Northcote has checked each of the FTSE 100 companies with a web presence, and has logged the location of their investor relations information. It is possible to find the annual report for a company either by searching the relevant FTSE Index (FTSE 100, FTSE 250, FTSE 350 etc) by company name, or by looking up a particular industry sector. The database now consists of over 800 companies. A table shows what information is available, such as annual report, preliminary results, annual review, and report and accounts. 61
Site: Northern Ireland top 100 URL: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/tops/laypot/home.html Provider: Belfast Telegraph Newspapers Ltd Description: The Belfast Telegraph web site has a ranked listing of the top 100 companies in Northern Ireland, giving number of employees, turnover, profit and a brief background. 62
Site: StockAcademy URL: http://www.stockacademy.com Provider: GlobenetDirect.com Ltd Description: StockAcademy provides free in-depth financial education, with courses at an introductory, intermediate or advanced level. There is also background information for people who make investment decisions and a trading facility.
Chapter 5 Regional information
General sources To find business information for a specific region there are a number of useful starting points. It is worth looking for the web sites of business support organisations such as Business Links, chambers of commerce or the relevant local authority. 63
Site: The British Chambers of Commerce URL: http://www.britishchambers.org.uk Provider: The British Chambers of Commerce Description: The site has a ‘find your chamber’ facility where users can find their local accredited chamber of commerce, either by selecting a geographic region on a pointer-sensitive map or by selecting a town from a drop-down menu. 64
Site: BUBL UK URL: http://bubl.ac.uk/uk/ Provider: BUBL Information Service (run by Strathclyde University Andersonian Library) Description: BUBL UK has a section on regional and local government which covers—for England—county councils, district councils, unitary authorities and London Boroughs, as well as local government in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Guernsey and Jersey. Using the BUBL UK listing as a starting point, you can very quickly link through to a local authority web site which may well have a section on support for local business. In the case of Blackpool Borough Council, for example, there are pages for the Council’s Economic Development Division, which in turn has links to Blackpool Business Park and Blackpool Technology Park.
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65
Site: Business Link National Web Site URL: http://www.businesslink.co.uk Provider: Business Link Network Company Description: Business Link has a network of local advice centres. To find a business link for a specific region, you can use this site. There is a pointersensitive map of the UK with hyperlinks to the relevant local business link. 66
Site: COUNTYWeb URL: http://www.countyweb.com Provider: COUNTYWeb.com plc Description: This site lets you quickly identify the top businesses within a particular county, and then display them either alphabetically, by sales or by number of employees. (See also Chapter 3, entry 34.) 67
Site: Eurochambres: The Association of European Chambers of Commerce and Industry URL: http://www.eurochambres.be Provider: Eurochambres Description: Eurochambres is an association of more than 1,300 chambers of commerce and industry, and their national organisations in 34 European countries. 68
Site: Federation of Small Businesses URL: http://www.fsb.org.uk Provider: The Federation of Small Businesses Description: FSB has a regional network, and its web site gives details of the regional committees and the branches within each region. 69
Site: open.gov.uk URL: http://www.open.gov.uk Provider: CCTA (Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency) Description: The open.gov.uk web site is a first entry point to UK publicsector information on the net. The site has a local government section (http:// www.open.gov.uk/index/t_local_government.htm) which covers district, borough and county councils. 70
Site: Tagish Local Government URL: http://www.tagish.co.uk/local/
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Provider: Tagish Ltd Description: Tagish maintains a directory of UK local government web sites down to parish level, as well as links to central government, political party links and embassy contact details worldwide. It is also worth checking what information services are available through your local public library. 71
Site: UK Public Libraries on the Web URL: http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/square/ac940/weblibs.html Provider: Sheila and Robert Harden Description: This site has links to public libraries throughout the UK. For example, Nottinghamshire County Council Library Services has a number of pages on its web site about its business library, and a business information guide. The guide includes a useful set of links to organisations relevant to local businesses, such as Nottingham Business Link, Nottinghamshire Chamber of Commerce and the East Midlands Development Agency. The listing below is intended to give a sample of the range of information available, rather than attempting to be a comprehensive index to all the regional resources available for the UK. To check whether there are similar sites available for the area in which you are interested, I would recommend starting off by viewing the web sites of the local business link, the local authority and the local chamber of commerce using the URLs listed above. England 72
Site: Basingstoke Business Directory URL: http://www.basingstoke.gov.uk/ Provider: Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council Description: This site contains a listing of over 1,200 companies based in Basingstoke and Deane. It is searchable by company name, free text or by category and subdivisions: e.g. within the category ‘professional services’ there is a subdivision ‘engineering consultants’. 73
Site: Business Information for Swindon and Surrounding Area URL: http://www.jump.co.uk/business/index.html Provider: Jump (Shift F7 Design Ltd) Description: This directory of web sites for Swindon and its surrounding area aims to be the best on-line source of local information, thus facilitating increased on-line communications between individuals, organisations and businesses.
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74
Site: Business—Yorkshire Links URL: http://www.leeds.gov.uk/links/buslinks.html Provider: Leeds City Council Description: This classified list of links to Yorkshire companies’ web sites is part of the City of Leeds site, which also has a business information page (http:// www.leeds.gov.uk/bus_info/bus_info.html) containing information on investing in Leeds, and the support and advice available for businesses which are thinking of locating in Leeds. 75
Site: Chester Information Network Business Directory URL: http://www.chester.org/business/cin-dir-cat/business-directory.htm Provider: City of Chester Description: The Chester Information Network (CIN) business directory has information on over 750 companies. Businesses can be selected by category, and the listing of categories is quite extensive. Entries contain company name, address, and phone and fax numbers, plus a description of products and services. 76
Site: The Competitive Newcastle Business Directory URL: http://www.british-publishing.com/Pages/NEWCASTLE/ NEWCFRM1.html Provider: British Publishing Company Limited Description: This is a searchable directory of Newcastle businesses which can be accessed by phrase or keyword, specific service category or by number of employees. 77
Site: Croydon Online-business in Croydon URL: http://www.croydononline.org/business Provider: Croydon Council Description: The business register is part of Croydon Online. It is a searchable database of businesses in Croydon. The Business Register has details of approximately 2,500 different companies, including email addresses and links to their web sites where these exist. 78
Site: The East Midlands Electronic Community URL: http://www.eastmidlands.net Provider: East Midlands Network Limited Description: Eastmidlands.net aims to provide a one-stop shop for everything you need to know about the East Midlands. The site is presented as a search
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engine for the area. There are links to business support organisations such as business links, the local chamber of commerce and local government. 79
Site: English Local Government Council Web Sites URL: http://www.oultwood.com/localgov/england.htin Provider: Oultwood Description: This is a portal providing access to local government sites. The sites listed can be accessed either by region or by type of council, and there are also links to the web sites of councillors. 80
Site: e-yorkshire.com—Yorkshire e-commerce, B2B online directory URL: http://www.e-yorkshire.com Provider: Yorkshire Net Description: e-yorkshire.com has details of Yorkshire e-commerce web sites offering secure online sales and services. The site aims to help York-shire businesses market to each other and to the consumer. 81
Site: Islington Business Hub: the virtual business centre URL: http://www.ibh.org.uk/ Provider: Islington Chamber of Commerce, Islington Enterprise Agency, Islington Council Description: The site has a searchable directory of Islington businesses, plus links to business support and business training organisations. 82
Site: Locallink URL: http://www.locallink.co.uk Provider: Local Link Limited Description: This is a purchasing directory searchable by product or service. 83
Site: London Directory URL: http://www.absite.com/london/ Provider: ABsite Description: The ABsite London Directory includes over 7,000 companies and 750 web links. These are arranged into broad categories which are then broken down into more specific subdivisions. Results are listed in two parts: those with web site links, and those without. Where no URL is given, the directory provides contact details.
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84
Site: MerseyWorld Business Park URL: http://www.merseyworld.com/park/ Provider: University of Liverpool Description: The MerseyWorld Business Park has a directory of over 1700 local companies in the Liverpool/Merseyside area with links to their web sites. The site is part of the Mersey World web site which has information on over 2, 000 Merseyside-based organisations and businesses. 85
Site: North Staffordshire Chamber of Commerce and Industry URL: http://www.nscci.co.uk/index2.htm Provider: North Staffordshire Chamber of Commerce and Industry Description: The Chamber of Commerce provides support services to local businesses. It is possible to search the member directory for products or services using either a company name and/or a type of business or activity. 86
Site: SINTO: the Sheffield Information Organisation URL: http://www.shu.ac.uk/services/lc/sinto Provider: SINTO Description: SINTO is a partnership of library and information services in South Yorkshire and North Derbyshire. The SINTO web site has a directory of business information services in Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham, Sheffield and North Derbyshire which helps companies and individuals identify the best services for their needs. 87
Site: The Sussex Business Directory URL: http://www.brighton.co.uk/business/ Provider: NTD Ltd Description: The Sussex business directory is part of the Virtual Brighton and Hove web site. Arranged by category, the business directory gives a brief description about each company along with a hyperlink to its web site. 88
Site: Yorkshire Business Centre URL: http://www.yorkshirenet.co.uk/businfo.html Provider: YorkshireNet Description: Yorkshire Business Centre is part of YorkshireNet. It contains the Yorkshire Business Net, which has links to the web sites of all types of Yorkshire businesses.
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Northern Ireland 89
Site: North Down Business Park URL: http://www.northdown.co.uk Provider: North Down Borough Council Description: The North Down Virtual Business Park is a directory of businesses in this part of Northern Ireland, browseable by category. Scotland 90
Site: Aberdeenshire Business Network URL: http://www.aberdeenshire.com/businessnet/ Provider: Aberdeenshire Council Description: All businesses in North and West Aberdeenshire were given the opportunity to have their details on this site. 91
Site: Edinburgh Business Net URL: http://www.edinburgh.net.uk/ebn.htm Provider: Edinburgh Net Description: As part of Edinburgh Net, Edinburgh Business Net contains a directory of local companies, arranged by category. 92
Site: Glasgow City Council directory of companies URL: http://www.glasgow.gov.uk/html/business/bindex.htm Provider: Glasgow City Council Description: As part of Glasgow City Council’s business information site, the company directory contains business names and addresses, business contact names and descriptions of over 6,000 businesses in Glasgow. 93
Site: Grampian Oil and Gas Directory URL: http://www.oilandgas.co.uk/oilgas.html Provider: Grampian Business Directories Description: The Grampian Oil and Gas Directory contains details on over 900 Aberdeen and Grampian businesses involved in the oil and gas industry worldwide. The directory is searchable by keyword and/or location. The site also has an extensive set of links to associations and industry bodies, both UK and international.
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94
Site: Mull and Iona Chamber of Commerce URL: http://www.zynet.co.uk/mull/chamber/class.html Provider: Mull and Iona Chamber of Commerce Description: The site includes a classified directory of members, containing addresses, phone and fax numbers. 95
Site: Scottish Business Park URL: http://www.dundeechamber.co.uk/park/bpark.htm Provider: Dundee and Tayside Chamber of Commerce Description: The Scottish Business Park is a directory of businesses which can be viewed either as an A—Z company listing or as a classified listing of business categories. 96
Site: Scottish Enterprise Network Online URL: http://www.scottish-enterprise.com/ Provider: Scottish Enterprise Description: The Scottish Enterprise site has details of the enterprise centres providing business information and support services to Scottish companies. 97
Site: Virtual Hebrides URL: http://www.hebrides.com/ Provider: Eolas Description: Virtual Hebrides contains information on all aspects of Hebridean islands and culture. The site has a searchable business directory, including some web links and email addresses. Indeed, searches can be restricted to only retrieving companies with a web site or an email address. The business directory can be browsed by category or searched on company name and/or location. Wales 98
Site: Business Connect Wales URL: http://www.businessconnect.org.uk Provider: Business Connect Wales Description: Business Connect is a partnership of the key business support organisations. On completion of a registration form, users have access to a
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business directory, advice notes on over 200 issues, and links to major players in Wales. 99
Site: Business in the Isle of Anglesey URL: http://www.angleseygov.uk/english/business/index.htm Provider: Isle of Anglesey County Council Description: This site from Anglesey County Council contains the council’s economic development strategy, and outlines support and assistance available for businesses. There are a number of general business and training links, including some to a number of Anglesey-based businesses.
Chapter 6 Industry information
I have always found searching for information on an industry sector to be much more difficult than getting background information on a specific company. It may seem as though this is stating the obvious, but your success at tracking down industry information will depend upon how clear you are about what it is that you are looking for: • are you interested only in one country, for example • is it a ‘top 10’ listing for that sector that you are after • do you want to know what the key issues/concerns are that are currently affecting that industry (e.g. legal, regulatory, technical) • are you looking for recent industry news for a specific sector just to get a feel for recent developments? Being clear about what information you need will help you to formulate a more effective search strategy. Searching for industry information can be particularly frustrating if you are not familiar with the main sources for that sector. A useful starting point is to search through directories of trade associations in order to see whether there is a relevant association for the industry sector that you are interested in. The web sites of trade associations may give details of member companies, and/or there may be a set of links to useful web sites for that industry. Trade associations 100
Site: Market Resource Locator URL: http://www.irn-research.com/MRL.html Provider: IRN Description: This is a gateway to web sites containing statistics and market data, including trade associations and other industry sources. It can be searched either by industry sector, or alphabetically by the name of the organisation. In addition, there is an alphabetical listing which is limited to UK trade associations.
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The emphasis is on non-governmental sites— particularly trade associations and industry bodies—but there are also links to other statistical sources, including market research publishers, government statistical sites, media surveys and surveys from consumer companies. Coverage is primarily of UK or pan-European sites, but the links are also being supplemented by international sites. 101
Site: The Trade Association Forum URL: http://www.martex.co.uk/taf/index.htm Provider: Tarsus Martex plc Description: The Forum is a collaboration with the CBI and the DTI which gives access to details of around 600 UK trade associations within 270 industries. The database can be searched either by industry or by the name of the trade association. Apart from directories of trade associations, another tip is to look at a portal site for the industry you are researching. One way of identifying the most appropriate portals would be to use the Free Pint Portal. 102
Site: Free Pint Portal URL: http://www.freepint.co.uk/portal Provider: Free Pint Limited Description: The Free Pint site is a good place to look to try to identify the most useful portal sites for specific industry sectors. The portal enables easy navigation around the wealth of resources available on the Free Pint site, and a search by industry sector draws together resources from Free Pint itself alongside links to external resources. A typical entry might include a link to a feature article from Free Pint reviewing the Internet resources available for a particular industry sector, a news feed, one or more portal sites for the industry, key journals and in some instances trade associations. Library and information special interest groups Another approach would be to see if there are any library/information special interest groups which cover the sector you are interested in, and then looking on their web site to see if they have a useful set of links to relevant sources of information for that particular industry. As an example, if you look at the web site of IFEG—the Information for Energy Group —it leads you to a set of links to web sites of interest to the petroleum industry (http://www.petroleum.co.uk/ ifeg.htm). On my own web site I have a set of links to library and information special interest groups at http://website.lineone.net/~p.d.p/sig.htm.
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General industry resources Many of the useful sources for company information allow you to search for companies by industry sector or product name. I would not, however, recommend this as an efficient way to try to identify the main players within a particular sector. Often the web sites that make available free company information have very limited search functionality, and so you may not be able to sort the results into any meaningful order, and as a number of the company information sites cover a large number of companies, you can easily end up with a long list of results including many smaller companies. There are, however, a number of sources that can be used to get an overview of a particular industry. 103
Site: Business.com Industry Center URL: http://www.business.com/industry_profiles Provider: Business.com, Inc. Description: Business.com’s directory of business web sites has an Industry Center which includes industry profiles, industry specific news, and details of industry events and relevant associations. The site is a good way of getting a quick overview of an industry sector. 104
Site: Hoover’s Online URL: http://www.hoovers.com and http://www.hoovers.co.uk Provider: Hoover’s Inc. Description: Hoover’s and its UK equivalent lets you look for information by industry. There is an industries channel which lists companies within a wide range of industry headings. Hoover’s industry snapshots give a good overview of each industry, with useful market data and links to key players. There is also a glossary to acquaint users with the jargon for that industry sector. 105
Site: Moreover URL: http://w.moreover.com Provider: Moreover.com Description: Moreover.com lets you quickly scan news by industry sectors such as clothing, metals or textiles. Moreover.com is a news aggregator which draws together over 1500 sources. There are over 300 categories of news to choose from, and users can opt to have the headlines sent to their email box on a daily or weekly basis. 106
Site: Powerize.com URL: http://www.powerize.com
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Provider: Hoover’s Inc. Description: Powerize.com—a subsidiary of Hoover’s Online—has industry updates for a number of sectors, such as chemicals or insurance, which consist of press releases, audio/video, industry news and other articles. Users can subscribe to free industry newsletters. The Powerize service can be searched by company name, product name, ticker symbol, industry sector and/or free text, and the output can also be limited by date range. (See also entry 179) 107
Site: Price’s List of Lists URL: http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~gprice/listof.htm Provider: Gary Price Description: If you are looking for a ranked listing of the main companies within a particular industry sector, then Gary Price’s ‘List of Lists’ would be an excellent starting point. The site acts as a clearinghouse for ranked lists. Arranged by subject, there is a wide range of links to ranked listings. Examples include the top 100 automotive retailers, Europe’s top 100 largest spenders in IT, the world’s top 100 food and beverage companies, or a listing of the UK’s biggest brands. 108
Site: Work.com URL: http://dowjones.work.com Provider: Excite@Home, Dow Jones & Co. and Work.com Description: Work.com has a number of industry centres. There is also a directory of business resources on the Web, a browseable index of industry information, top business news and company profiles. For a specific industry sector, the main page will have links to stocks information, top news, hot topics and key listings of web resources relevant to that sector covering associations, government, news and information, publications, rates and quotes, and resources. Multiple industries 109
Site: The Applegate Directory URL: http://www.applegate.co.uk Provider: Applegate Media Description: The Applegate Directory covers a number of different sectors: electronics, engineering, plastics and rubber, and recruitment services. The aim of the site is to increase business for UK and Ireland based companies. Each of the directories is searchable in the following ways: company index, an alphabetical listing of companies by name; product selector, an
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alphabetical listing of products; town selector, an alphabeti cal listing by town; postcode selector, searchable by postcode area; top people, searchable by senior personnel in the industry; and top companies, searchable by the most popular companies. 110
Site: IndustryClick URL: http://www.industryclick.com Provider: IndustryClick Inc. Description: IndustryClick consists of a number of communities covering a range of sectors. These include: AgriClick (agriculture), DigitalMediaClick.com (entertainment technologies), MarketingClick (marketing), MediaCentral (media) and TelecomClick (telecommunications). Single industries Accountancy 111
Site: AccountingWeb URL: http://www.accountirigweb.co.uk Provider: Sift plc Description: AccountingWeb is a virtual community for accountants whose aim is to bring together people from all areas of the profession by providing the services and resources they need in their day to day work. Resources on the site include news stories; directories of accounting firms, suppliers, software/trainers and consultants, and training venues; useful links; and a tax zone which includes budget tax tables, links to the finance acts and a directory of tax offices. Advertising 112
Site: AdForum.com: gateway to the advertising world URL: http://www.adforum.com Provider: Maydream Description: Adforum is a portal for advertising agencies and firms. The site includes a worldwide directory with information on over 14,500 agencies and a database of awards and festivals. There is also a library of creative work which is searchable by agency name, production company, country, brands, or business sector. AdForum.com also has a searchable database of web sites relevant to the advertising and marketing industry.
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Agriculture See also entry 109, the Applegate Directory (http://www.applegate.co.uk). 113
Site: AgDomain URL: http://www.agdomain.com Provider: AgDomain.com Description: AgDomain.com is intended as a business tool for people involved in the agricultural sector. There are agricultural news headlines; market commentary; directories of dealers, breeders, consultants, associations and organisations; a buyer’s guide and more. 114
Site: agmachine.com URL: http://www.agmachine.com Provider: agmachine.com Ltd Description: agmachine.com aims to be a vortal for all matters relating to the agricultural machinery and farm equipment industry which takes into account national, regional and global requirements. The site includes the Worldwide Agricultural Machinery and Equipment Directory, which contains details of over 1300 manufacturers located in 60 countries. The directory includes 42 main categories and 263 sub-categories of machinery to help farmers locate machinery manufacturers. 115
Site: @griculture Online: agriculture news, discussion and information URL: http://www.agriculture.com Provider: Meredith Corporation . Description: @griculture Online is a community of agriculturalists—of publishers, organisations, companies and individuals. The site covers agricultural news; weather; markets information; a calendar of machinery shows, livestock events and field days; and a section on buying and selling, including a buyer’s guide. Architecture 116
Site: Archiseek Architecture Directory URL: http://www.archiseek.com Provider: Archeire Description: Archiseek is an on-line architecture directory—effectively a portal of the best architecture links. It includes a directory of architectural
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practices, relevant associations and professional bodies, awards competitions, and publications, such as an index of on-line journals.
and
Automotive 117
Site: Automotive News Europe URL: http://www.autonewseurope.com Provider: Crain Communications Inc. Description: The Automotive News Europe site has news stories about the automotive industry, including a full-text archive; information about industry events, such as auto shows and dealer events; and auto auctions. There is also a set of industry links covering manufacturers, suppliers, organisations and other resources. 118
Site: just-auto.com URL: http://www.just-auto.com Provider: just-sites.com Ltd Description: Just-auto is a portal for automotive industry professionals worldwide. It provides a news section; details of automotive industry events; a set of links to companies allied to the automotive industry, such as manufacturers, distributors or trade associations; feature articles; and several different email alerts including a daily news alert and a weekly newsletter. 119
Site: Society of Automotive Engineers URL: http://www.sae.org/ Provider: The Society of Automotive Engineers Description: The Society of Automotive Engineers is a one-stop resource for technical information and expertise used in designing, building, maintaining, and operating self-propelled vehicles for use on land or sea, in air or space. The web site has topic areas covering globalisation, aerospace, intelligent vehicles, manufacturing, quality and sustainable development, and there is also a set of useful web site links. Aviation and aerospace 120
Site: ERAU Virtual Libraries URL: http://www.embryriddle.edu/libraries/virtual Provider: Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
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Description: This site leads to the aerospace virtual library, a resource for advanced research and development in the aerospace fields, and the aviation virtual library, an on-line resource on aviation. Banking 121
Site: CIB Supersite URL: http://www.cib.org.uk/supersite Provider: Chartered Institute of Bankers Description: The CIB Supersite is the Chartered Institute of Bankers’ index of the world’s best finance web sites. It is a portal to banking and finance resources for a wide range of topics, such as central banks; professional, trade and regulatory bodies; financial law; banking institutes; credit/debit/charge/smart card companies; accountancy; the Euro; and technology in finance. 122
Site: Qualisteam URL: http://www.qualisteam.com Provider: Qualisteam Description: This banking and finance site has a directory listing of banks on the Web (http://www.qualisteam.com/eng/banks/ banks_on_internet.html), covering over 3000 banks, classified by country. The site is available in English, French and Italian. There are also listings of stock exchanges, bonds markets, mutual funds and commodities markets around the world. Broadcasting and entertainment 123
Site: BECTU links URL: http://www.bectu.org.uk/info/links.html Provider: BECTU (Broadcasting Entertainment Cinematograph and Theatre Union) Description: The BECTU web site has a number of links to web sites covering arts and entertainment, broadcasting, engineering, and film production, distribution and exhibition. Building and construction 124
Site: BRIX: Builders Resource and Information Exchange URL: http://www.fmb.org.uk
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Provider: Federation of Master Builders Description: The BRIX site has a section on how to find a builder, which is searchable by postcode, town or village, and by a list of trades from general builders through to electrical contractors, shopfitters, glazing contractors, and painters and decorators. Other areas of the site include a bookshop of building related titles, discussion forums, a facility to buy building materials on-line, and an area covering consumer information with a number of advice notes. Chemical industry 125
Site: ChemConnect: the World Chemical Exchange URL: http://www.chemconnect.com Provider: ChemConnect Inc. Description: Portal for those working in the chemicals, plastics and industrial gas industries. The site provides a forum for B2B trading in the sector. 126
Site: ChemIndustry.com URL: http://chemindustry.com Provider: ChemIndustry.com Inc. Description: The chemical industry search engine ChemIndustry.com aims to provide chemical and allied industry professionals worldwide with information on products and services. Users can search for chemical names using a synonyms finder, and can search on a complete chemical name, partial name, CAS number or a molecular formula. 127
Site: ChemWeb: the chemistry community’s online resource URL: http://www.chemweb.com Provider: ChemWeb Inc. Description: ChemWeb.com says that it is the largest on-line chemical community in the world. The service is aimed at those in research chemistry and the chemicals industry. There is a library of nearly 200 journals from scientific publishers covering all aspects of chemistry The search facility and tables of contents are available free, although there is normally a charge for the full text of articles. Another area of the site provides access to nearly 40 different databases, including abstracts, patents, dictionaries and material-safety data sheets. Whilst these databases do sometimes carry a charge to view the full record, there are many free titles. There are a number of forums on topics such as analytical chemistry, electrochemistry, catalysis and organic chemistry. The forums bring together
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resources such as journals, databases, jobs, conferences and discussion groups relevant to that specialism. Electronics See also entry 109, the Applegate Directory (http://www.applegate.co.uk). 128
Site: eCoustics.com URL: http://www.ecoustics.com Provider: eCoustics.com Description: This site covers consumer electronics. It has news; articles; product reviews; discussions, such as consumer forums and news groups; and buying guides. These contain product specifications, pictures, reviews and sideby-side comparisons for a range of consumer electronics products, such as DVD players, MP3 players, CD recorders and mini systems. Engineering See also entry 109, the Applegate Directory (http://www.applegate.co.uk). 129
Site: EEVL: Edinburgh Engineering Virtual Library URL: http://www.eevl.ac.uk Provider: Heriot-Watt University Library Description: EEVL is a UK-based guide to engineering on the Internet. The site features a catalogue of quality engineering resources, targeted engineering search engines, bibliographic and events databases, a directory of science and technology librarians, an engineering on the Internet bibliography and links to useful sites. 130
Site: Engineering-uk URL: http://www.engineering-uk.co.uk/ Provider: iCorporation.com Description: The site contains editorials, features, articles, latest news stories, business news, product news and financial news. There is also a directory covering the engineering sector, which is searchable by company name, town, county and/or category, such as ‘electrical’, ‘hydraulic’, or ‘pneumatic’. Environment 131
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Site: WWW Virtual Library: Environment URL: http://www.earthsystems.org/Environment.shtml Provider: Earth Systems Inc Description: This is an index of useful and informative web sites on environmental topics. Fashion 132
Site: Fashion Forum: the online guide to the fashion and textiles industry URL: http://www.fashionforum.co.uk Provider: fashionforum.co.uk Limited Description: On-line guide for businesses, colleges and students of fashion, textiles and accessories. The site has a business directory which includes show calendars, features, trade information, recruitment and education. 133
Site: just-style.com: the premier apparel and textile industry portal URL: http://just-style.com Provider: just-sites Ltd Description: just-style.com is a one-stop resource for companies involved in the clothing, footwear and textile industries. Users can register for a weekly newsletter covering the apparel and textile industries, and/or they can receive a daily news alert. Food and drink 134
Site: just-drinks: the premier beverage industry portal URL: http://www.just-drinks.com Provider: just-sites Ltd Description: This site is aimed at business professionals working in the alcoholic beverages and soft drinks industries. It provides up-to-the-minute industry news from information sources such as Reuters, an events calendar, information for the industry, and a resources section covering industry-related service providers, trade associations, legal bodies, manufacturers, distributors and professionals. There are also feature articles providing analysis of industry trends, issues and practices. Users of the site can register to receive a weekly newsletter by email covering the beverage industry and/or subscribe to a daily news alert service.
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13 5
Site: just-food.com: the premier food industry portal URL: http://just-food.com Provider: just-sites Ltd Description: This site covers the whole of the food industry from baking through to meat and poultry. It includes news headlines, an events calendar, a directory of resources specific to the food industry, including service providers, trade associations, legal bodies, manufacturers and distributors. There is a weekly newsletter that users can receive by email, and/or a daily news alert. Health 136
Site: BUBL Link: 610 Medical sciences, medicine URL: http://link.bubl.ac.uk/medicine Provider: BUBL Information Service (run by Strathclyde University Andersonian Library) Description: BUBL Link/BUBL 5:15 is a listing of selected Internet resources covering all academic subject areas classified by the Dewey Decimal Classification scheme. BUBL 5:15 also provides an alternative interface to this catalogue of Internet resources based on subject terms. For medical sciences and medicine there are listings of general resources, discussion lists, journals, libraries, national centres, research, societies and so on. For each catalogue entry, the site title and a hyperlink are provided, along with a description plus details of the author, subjects covered, Dewey classmark, resource type (such as index, documents, guides, news, reference data) and geographic location. 137
Site: IFM Healthcare Links URL: http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/crd/ifmh/ifmlinks.html Provider: Information for the Management of Healthcare Description: This is an excellent portal to medical and healthcare resources on the Web, including links to health and social care search engines, healthcare libraries and databases, health and medical publications, NHS sites, dictionaries, directories and other relevant sites. 138
Site: OMNI (Organising Medical Networked Information) URL: http://www.omni.ac.uk Provider: OMNI Description: Billed as the UK’s gateway to high-quality biomedical Internet resources, OMNI covers Internet resources in medicine, biomedicine, allied health, health management and related topics. The catalogue of resources can be
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browsed alphabetically by topic, in order of NLM section, or by key word using MeSH headings. OMNI also has a mailing list that disseminates information about the services. 139
Site: Reuters Health Information URL: http://www.reutershealth.com Provider: Reuters Ltd Description: This service provides global medical and health news to keep both professionals and consumers abreast of developments. There are two news services: Reuters Medical News, a service for medical pro fessionals, and Reuters Health eLine, a consumer-oriented medical news service. There is also an archive of news stories, although this only covers a rolling period of 10 days for the professional service or 30 days for the consumer service. 140
Site: Yahoo health URL: http://dir.yahoo.com/health Provider: Yahoo! Inc. Description: This site lists over 40 categories, such as children’s health, hospitals and medical centres, pharmacy, and medicine and nursing. Yahoo is structured so that you can search either within your chosen category or using the Yahoo search engine as a whole. There is also a Yahoo health! portal at http://health.yahoo.com, which includes health news provided by Associated Press and Reuters, and links to a series of health resources and health research. Housing See also Property, below. 141
Site: Conncil of Mortgage Lenders URL: http://www.cml.org.uk Provider: Council of Mortgage Lenders Description: The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) is the trade association for the UK mortgage lending industry. The CML is a primary source of information on housing finance, the housing and mortgage markets and on housing policy in the UK. The site includes useful statistics on the largest mortgage lenders, house prices, mortgage lending, and mortgage arrears and possessions.
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Insurance 142
Site: Insurance-links.com URL: http://www.dataclarity.co.uk Provider: DataClarity Description: This site is global in coverage, with links to worldwide insurance web sites. Information is categorised by country and by business classification (actuary, agent/broker, underwriter/carrier, claims/loss adjuster, alternative risk insurance/captives, associations, government and state, environment, software, recruitment, legal, consultants, news and so on). 143
Site: Insurance Times URL: http://www.insurancetimes.co.uk Provider: News Communications and Media plc Description: Registration (which is free) is required in order to access the Insurance Times on-line daily and global news service. There is a useful set of links to insurance-related web sites covering trade associations and government bodies. The Insurance Industry Handbook On-line provides brokers and intermediaries with the information they need to find which insurers and schemes to approach for a variety of specialist risks. The handbook is searchable by category or by keyword. Law (see also entries: 44–The International Centre for Commercial Law, http:// www.icclaw.com and 45–solicitors-online.com, http:// www.solicitorsonline.com) 144
Site: Hemscott Legal URL: http://www.hemscottlegal.com (see also entries 44–The International Centre for Commercial law http://www.icclaw.com and 45– solicitors-online.com http://www.solicitors-online.com) Provider: Hemscott.NET group plc Description: Hemscott Legal is part of Hemscott.NET. It contains a number of resources which are geared towards lawyers, whether they work in private practice or in-house. The resources include a section on the latest deals and disputes, where you can find out which law firms have acted for which clients within a specific business sector; M&A; and new issues for FTSE companies. There are comprehensive details on all FTSE listed companies, including
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information on their legal advisers. It is possible to look for a specific law firm and to see who their quoted clients are. 145
Site: LAWLINKS: legal information on the Internet URL: http://library.ukc.ac.uk/library/lawlinks/default.htm Provider: University of Kent at Canterbury, Templeman Library, compiled by Sarah Carter Description: Lawlinks Lawlinks is an annotated list of web sites containing legal information. It covers not only UK resources, but also other jurisdictions and European Union and international law. There are a listing of gateways and portals which can be used as a starting point for legal research, links to the main UK and European legal publishers, special legal topics and general resources such as library catalogues or email discussion lists. There is a facility to search the LAWLINKS site, plus a listing of legal abbreviations. 146
Site: Legal Resources in the UK and Ireland URL: http://www.venables.co.uk Provider: Delia Venables Description: This is a well-established site covering a range of legal resources on the Web. There are links to the sites of firms of solicitors and barristers, to legal publishers and providers of on-line services, free legal current awareness services, legal information sources arranged by subject, and legal resources for other jurisdictions. Delia Venables is joint author of Researching the Legal Web, 2nd edition, published by Butterworths. She also produces an Internet newsletter for lawyers; details of both these items are available from her web site. This portal is one of the best starting points for doing legal research on the Web, and the information provided is very up to date. Mining 147
Site: Mining Technology URL: http://www.mining-technology.com Provider: Net.resources.international Description: This web site for the mining industry has an A-Z listing of mining contractors and suppliers; a catalogue of mining industry equipment, products and services; a section on mining industry exhibitions, conferences and
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events; and a listing of government departments, institutes, societies, associations and organisations active in the mining industry. Oil and gas See entry 93, the Grampian Oil and Gas Directory (http:// www.oilandgas.co.uk/ oilgas.html) Pharmaceutical industry 148
Site: InPharm.com URL: http://www.inpharm.com Provider: InPharm—Internet Services Ltd Description: InPharm.com is a portal for professionals working in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries, in R&D, medical, marketing or sales departments, service agencies or manufacturers. There are links to pharmaceutical companies, professional organisations, industry news, literature searches and other specialist pharmaceutical on-line communities. Plastics and rubber See entry 109, the Applegate Directory (http://www.applegate.co.uk). Property See also entry 141, Council of Mortgage Lenders (http://www.cml.org.uk). 149
Site: FOCUS URL: http://www.focusnet.co.uk Provider: Property Intelligence plc Description: Property Intelligence provides an information and market intelligence source on the UK•s commercial property market. Access to their databases is available on subscription. There is a set of links to web sites for commercial property; developers, landowners and investors; residential property sites; property information sites; official bodies; and sources of financial information. The site also has a property news headlines service. 150
Site: Moneyextra Homepages URL: http://www.homepages.co.uk Provider: Moneyextra plc
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Description: Covers everything to do with moving house. There are a property search section, details of mortgages, a homebuyers calculator, a guide to moving home, and other related services—solicitors, surveyors, removals firms and so on. 151
Site: PropertyBull.com URL: http://www.propertybull.com Provider: Sift plc Description: PropertyBull is an on-line property community for people who are active in the UK property sector. The site includes property news, industry forecasts and company profiles. Access to most of the resources and services on the site—including the weekly email bulletin—are free of charge, though there are a number of pay-per-view features such as the ICC company information zone. Publishing 152
Site: The Bookseller.com URL: http://ww.thebookseller.com Provider: J.Whitaker & Sons Ltd Description: The Bookseller.com has a set of links (http:// www.bookseller.com/links/links.html) to publishers online, retailers online and trade organisations. The site as a whole (http:// www.thebookseller.com/info/ msitemap.html) has a lot of information about publishing in the UK. 153
Site: NetRead: the publishing portal URL: http://www.netread.com Provider: NetRead Inc. Description: Contains a directory of writers, publishers, agents, editors, photography/illustration/design, production/pre-press, printers, distributors, booksellers and wholesalers. There are plenty of ‘How to’ articles on book publishing, and a set of links to what NetRead consider to be the best links for people in the publishing industry. There is also an ‘EventCaster’, a searchable events database. 154
Site: Publishers’ Catalogues Home Page URL: http://www.lights.com/publisher/ Provider: Northern Lights Internet Solutions Ltd
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Description: Directory of over 7,000 publisher’s catalogue home pages worldwide, arranged by city, state, country and topic. The listing can also be browsed by format such as e-books or maps/atlases. Recruitment services See entry 109, the Applegate Directory (http://www.applegate.co.uk). Telecommunications 155
Site: Telecoms Virtual Library URL: http://www.analysys.com/vlib Provider: Analysys Limited Description: This has a collection of links to telecoms sites worldwide which is a browseable subject listing. There is a hyperlink to a list of the 10 most popular links from this virtual library. 156
Site: Total Telecom A—Z of telecoms web sites URL: http://www.totaltele.com/links Provider: EMAP Media Description: The Total Telecom site is a good starting point for anyone looking for telecommunications-related information. There are links to analysts and consultants, industry forums/associations, Internet telephony, manufacturers, vendors, operators, regulators and government, satellite companies and standard bodies. The site also has the latest telecoms news, which is split up into headings such as mobile and satellite, Internet and ecommerce. There is also a jobs database and a diary of forthcoming events.
Chapter 7 Finance and investment
There is an ever-increasing number of web sites covering finance and investment. Many of these are aimed at private investors, and may offer facilities such as trading in shares and/or the ability to set up your own portfolio whereby you can monitor the performance of selected stocks. In order to find the web site for a specific stock exchange, I would recommend either looking at the listing available on Yahoo (http:// dir.yahoo.com/ Business_and_Economy/Finance_and_Investment/Exchanges/ Stock_Exchanges/) or on the web site of the International Federation of Stock Exchanges (http://www.fibv.com), which has links to the web sites of stock exchanges organised by geographic region. If you have a requirement for specific information on a particular stock such as price/earnings ratio, dividend yield or earnings per share, then a site such as Market-Eye (http://www.marketeye.co.uk) would be a good source. There are quite a few sites which give information about shares and share prices, but the free sites normally have a 15 minute delay. Realtime services are usually premium-rate services that are only available for a fee. Some sites concentrate heavily on personal finance and cover such topics as unit trusts, investment trusts, PEPs, ISAs, pensions, mortgages, credit cards, personal loans or insurance. It very much depends on what area of personal finance is of interest as to which sites should be recommended. Not all personal finance sites cover the range of topics listed above. 157
Site: Advanced Financial Network URL: http://www.advfn.com Provider: ADVFN.com plc Description: ADVFN.com provides free real-time share prices from the London Stock Exchange, live news feeds for breaking financial news, company research and a chart facility for both historic and intraday prices. There is also a premium service available for a subscription. 158
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Site: Bloomberg URL: http://www.bloomberg.co.uk Provider: Bloomberg Description: The Bloomberg web site contains information about shares traded on the London Stock Exchange, such as the most active stocks, the biggest gainers and the biggest losers. You can look at charts of stocks you are interested in to see how they are performing. The site can enable you to create your own portfolio, and there are tools, such as a mortgage calculator, and a financial glossary. Top news stories are also available. 159
Site: citywire.co.uk URL: http://www.citywire.co.uk Provider: Aurum Funds Limited Description: Citywire is an Internet financial news service for investors. There are news stories on both larger and smaller companies, as well as quotes and charts on companies which can be accessed either by company name and/or by tickers. There are sections for technology news and also for fund news, which covers investment trusts, unit trusts and ISAs. There is a heading for directors’ share dealings and one called ‘secret buying’, which aims to find out who is building up share stakes in companies without telling anybody. 160
Site: CNNfn: the financial network URL: http://cnnfn.cnn.com/ Provider: CNN America Inc. Description: CNNfn is primarily a source for information on markets and business/finance, as well as personal finance. The market information is largely about US markets, although there are sections for world markets. 161
Site: DigitalLook.com URL: http://www.digitallook.com Provider: Digital Look Ltd Description: This site juxtaposes financial information with football data. It gives access to company research, newspaper articles, newswires, tips, analysis, director dealings, broker forecasts, bulletin boards and new issues. Coverage includes US stock markets as well as UK stock markets, and there is a facility to monitor your portfolio. 162
Site: EuropeanInvestor.Com URL: http://www.europeaninvestor.com
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Provider: EuropeanInvestor.Com Description: This site is a source of information on Europe’s stock markets which provides equity prices across major European and US stock exchanges. Other features of the site include a multi-currency portfolio tracker, which allows you to monitor stocks across 18 European, US and Canadian stock exchanges, free daily newsletters delivered to your email box, coverage of the European high-technology markets and free real-time quotes. In addition to the stock quotes and portfolio features, the site also provides an overview of European and US markets, as well as analysis by country. Information provided includes intraday charts, latest IPOs, market movers, performance of indices and their company components, thus enabling investors to understand market movements and their implications for individual stocks. There is also a table of major currencies enabling users to obtain exchange rate data. The financial news available on this site comes from a number of different sources: EIC news (EuropeanInvestor.com’s own team of dedicated financial journalists and analysts), Reuters, AFX News, Business Wire and PR Newswire. 163
Site: European Stock Markets A to Z URL: http://www.itccommunications.net/SEEindex.html Provider: ITC Communications Description: This site aims to have links to the web sites of every company that is listed on a European stock exchange. Company profiles are also available, and these are provided via a link to Wright Investors’ Service. The site contains an ABC of world banks, and listings of building societies, stockbrokers and investment managers. 164
Site: FIBV: International Federation of Stock Exchanges URL: http://www.fibv.com Provider: International Federation of Stock Exchanges—FIBV Description: The FIBV is the trade organisation for regulated securities and derivative markets worldwide. The web site has links to the web sites of member exchanges, information about policies and securities information for each exchange, statistics and links to key sites for exchanges and regulatory agencies. FIBV publications are available from the site, including the annual report and the Focus newsletter. There is a site map to make navigation easier, and a search facility which allows you to undertake full-text searches for any words on the site. 165
Site: FIND Finance Guides and Newsletters
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URL: http://www.find.co.uk/financial/FG/ Provider: Omnium Communications Limited Description: This web page contains details of useful finance web sites and financial newsletters. 166
Site: Finfacts: the Irish finance portal URL: http://www.finfacts.ie/ Provider: Finfacts Multimedia Description: Finfacts is a portal of Irish finance and business information, including breaking business and technology news, industry news, stocks and currencies information, e-commerce, interest rates, Irish tax facts, salary surveys and a listing of the top ten business sites for Irish net visitors. 167
Site: FTSE URL: http://www.ftse.com Provider: FTSE Description: FTSE devises and calculates thousands of indices. It is not part of a stock exchange, although it is co-owned by the London Stock Exchange and the Financial Times. The web site has the last few months’ worth of data for index values, including information such as points rises, percentage rises, price/earnings ratio, and dividend yield. News releases are available on the site, and these include details of changes to the constituent companies that make up a particular index. 168
Site: Independent Financial Advice URL: http://www.ifap.org.uk/website.html Provider: Independent Financial Adviser Promotion Ltd Description: The Independent Financial Advice website promotes the value and accessibility of independent financial advice to the public. It has information on how to find an independent financial adviser, useful financial links, and a number of booklets which can be downloaded. 169
Site: interactive investor international URL: http://www.iii.co.uk Provider: interactive investor international Description: This site aims to provide investors with a one-stop shop containing all the information that they need in order to make an investment decision. It gives performance and price information for stocks as well as
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collective investments, such as unit trusts, investment trusts, PEPs and pensions. News information providers to the site include Money Marketing, Moneywise, AFX and International Money Marketing. Registration is required to some parts of the site, although this is free of charge. There is a wealth of personal finance information on areas such as mortgages, credit cards, investment trusts, new issues, on-line banking, savings, tax, pensions, ISAs and insurance. To monitor particular stocks, there is a feature to create your own portfolio. 170
Site: investhink.com URL: http://www.investhink.com Provider: WIN—IT Ltd Description: This is an investor’s on-line marketplace for news, prices, ebrokerage, charting and other content used in the investing process. 171
Site: itruffle.com URL: http://www.itruffle.com Provider: Zap! International Limited Description: The site offers news by email on companies and industry sectors, archive news, and investor briefings. It is a resource for the small cap sector. The service includes live investor presentations with company CEOs, and provides analytical tools to enable users to review companies’ financial performance. The site includes latest share price changes, snapshots of big movers’ stocks and FTSE indices, continuous news feeds, recent listings and their performance, directors’ dealings, business descriptions, management information, financials, prices, charts and company announcements In addition to the free content, there is also a category of premium research membership giving access to additional material. 172
Site: London Stock Exchange URL: http://www.londonstockexchange.com/ Provider: London Stock Exchange Ltd Description: This site contains information on the various different markets, such as techMARK; the companies whose shares are traded on the exchange; and how to buy and sell shares. It is useful for private investors, institutions, prospective issuers and existing issuers. The companies section provides a list of UK, International and Alternative Investment Market (AIM) companies, which is searchable either by sector or by mar ket. There are over 2,750 companies quoted on the Exchange, including over 500 from outside the UK.
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The site provides general information about the London Stock Exchange, covering its history, activities, publications and press releases. It also gives key contacts in the Exchange and the City of London, and useful reference guides, such as a glossary and list of FAQs. 173
Site: Market-Eye URL: http://www.market-eye.co.uk Provider: Datastream/ICV Description: The Market-Eye service has three levels of access. Guest access provides instant access to market prices and news, and is available without registration. Investor access provides a range of tools, such as a discussion forum, interactive charting and free downloads, plus email newsletters. Whilst it is free of charge, the investor service does require registration. The premium service is only available to fee-paying subscribers. It provides real-time prices, multiple portfolios, a six-month news archive and sophisticated data downloading. The site gives access to company share prices, with details of the price/ earnings ratio, dividend yield and earnings per share. It is easy to browse for the company you require, and then to get a five-year download of closing prices for that equity. The service covers commodities in addition to equities. 174
Site: Micropal.com URL: http://www.micropal.com Provider: Standard & Poor’s Description: Provides fund information, monitoring over 38,000 funds globally such as pension funds, investment trusts, unit trusts and offshore funds. 175
Site: moneyextra incorporating MoneyWorld: the UK personal finance website URL: http://www.moneyextra.co.uk Provider: The Insurance Trading Exchange Ltd (a subsidiary of Moneyextra plc) Description: Moneyextra aims to help users to manage their money better. The site provides access to information on many aspects of personal finance, including savings rates, ISAs, mortgages, tax, insurance, loans and credit cards. The site includes a wide range of guides on all aspects of personal finance, such as making a will, PEPs, tracker mortgages and minimising home insurance premiums. Some services are only available to Money World Club members, such as a personal portfolio feature, though membership is free of charge.
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176
Site: moneygator.com URL: http://www.moneygator.com Provider: moneygator.com Description: Moneygator.com is a site for information on personal finance products from leading banks and building societies. It covers mortgages, credit cards and personal loans, and there is a section listing forthcoming items, such as insurance products. 177
Site: The Motley Fool UK URL: http://www.fool.co.uk Provider: The Motley Fool Limited Description: The Motley Fool was set up in the United States in 1993 by the brothers David and Tom Gardner. There are other Fool sites in addition to the Motley Fool UK—Fool USA and Fool Germany. The site allows you to search by company, and then to view news, discussion board messages and a share price for that company. There are customisable areas of the site, such as ‘my portfolio’ or ‘my fool’ which let you set up favourite message boards, indices, companies or web links to monitor. 178
Site: Multex Investor UK URL: http://www.multexinvestor.co.uk Provider: Multex Investor Europe Limited Description: Multex Investor UK is a web site for private investors. As a registered user you have access to investment research, daily broker reports and market analysis from financial specialists. Searches can be undertaken either by company name or ticker symbol. In addition to free reports there are some items which are available on a pay-per-view basis. 179
Site: Powerize.com URL: http://www.powerize.com Provider: Hoover’s Inc. Description: Powerize.com is a provider of content integration services for enterprise information portals (EIPs) and high-traffic web sites. The service contains business news, industry updates, a business finder, stock quotes and a stock market update. It is possible to search by company name, product name, ticker symbol, industry sector or free-text search term. Whilst some parts of the service are available free of charge, they are only available once you have registered as a user of the service. Some items are only available on a pay-per-view basis. (See also entry 106.)
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180
Site: Shareissues.com URL: http://www.shareissues.com Provider: Share Issues Limited Description: The site is a source of information about new issues across global markets. To view prospectuses you need to submit your email address so that the service can update you if any details of the share offer change. The site has links to relevant organisations including markets, stockbrokers, lawyers, PR companies, banks and accountants. (NB on rechecking this site in December 2000, there was a note to say that the company has closed down and asking if anyone is interested in taking it on. I have therefore left the entry in place in case it is relaunched). 181
Site: Sharepages URL: http://www.sharepages.com Provider: Sharepages.com Limited Description: Sharepages.com is a web site for investors. Key elements of the site are market indices; price quotes; analysis, for example of the day’s movers or buying activity; company charts and profiles; news as it breaks from the Regulatory News Service (RNS) and the City Diary of future issues and results announcements. 182
Site: Sharepeople.com URL: http://www.sharepeople.com Provider: Sharepeople Limited Description: Sharepeople.com is an on-line stockbroker which aims ‘to truly bring shares and people together’. The service is targeted at UK residents. Whilst the main purpose of Sharepeople is to facilitate the buying and selling of shares, the site provides useful background information to help investors trade successfully. This includes analysis of past share performance going back five years, and free access to live news feeds. Investors have free access to Standard & Poor’s Concise Fund Research (CFR) reports which provide useful information on unit trusts, and to BARRA Global Estimates where share experts rate and recommend UK and continental European companies. 183
Site: TheStreet.co.uk URL: http://www.TheStreet.co.uk Provider: TheStreet.com (Europe) Ltd Description: TheStreet.co.uk aims to provide investors with the information required to help them make better investment decisions. The main emphasis of the site is on news and commentary. This is backed up by access to quotes for
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equities, unit and investment trusts, and pension and life funds. Looking for a specific equity, in addition to a share price quote, there is access to related news stories and to the company’s financial history. 184
Site: This Is Money URL: http://www.thisismoney.com Provider: Associated New Media Description: This Is Money is run by Associated New Media, the arm of the Daily Mail and General Trust responsible for on-line activities. It is a personal finance site covering news and market data, saving and investing, mortgages and homes, pensions, insurance and taxation. There are listings of key stock market indices which lead users quickly to a set of links for each constituent company of that exchange, from where you can access the company’s share price information, including a performance chart, and there are also links to recent stories mentioning the company. There is also a useful listing of the companies featured that day, enabling users to monitor up-to-date information on companies of interest. 185
Site: TrustNet: investment funds information service URL: http://www.trustnet.co.uk Provider: TrustNet Limited Description: Provides free, daily updated prices, performance, charts and detailed background information on all UK unit trusts and all UK investment trusts. 186
Site: UK-iNvest.com URL: http://www.UK-iNvest.com Provider: UK-iNvest.com Limited Description: UK-iNvest is a good source of stock market and personal finance information. After completing the free registration process, you have access to live share prices from the world’s major markets, and with the ‘Your portfolio’ facility, you can follow the performance of your share portfolio on a 20-minute delayed feed. There is a ‘Your money’ section covering items such as savings rates, ISAs and pension plans, and also a comprehensive database of unit trusts and investment trusts which includes daily price information.
Chapter 8 Information for UK exporters
Some of the best web sites for UK exporters are provided by or run on behalf of the Department of Trade and Industry, such as the sites of the DTI’s Export Control Organisation, Trade Partners UK and TradeUK. The sites mentioned in this chapter have information on potential sales leads, researching international markets, and sources of help and advice for exporters. 187
Site: The British Chambers of Commerce URL: http://www.britishchambers.org.uk Provider: The British Chambers of Commerce Description: The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) web site has news relevant to UK businesses. There is an Export Zone, designed for British exporters, which has been provided jointly by the British Chambers of Commerce and UPS, the express delivery company. Users can access the quarterly economic survey, and there are useful links to other web sites, such as key economic sites, the main European institutions, relevant government departments and overseas trade pages. The site has copies of the BCC’s press releases, plus details of lobbying work in areas such as the economy and tax, small firms, international trade, Europe, company and financial affairs, and education and training. 188
Site: British Exports Interactive URL: http://www.britishexports.com Provider: Kompass Description: Contains information on around 20,000 UK exporting companies, which can be searched by company name, product/service or tradename. 189
Site: DTI Export Control Organisation URL:http://www.dti.gov.uk/export.control/index.htm
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Provider: Department of Trade and Industry Description: The site has information on applying; for an export licence, notices to exporters, details of sanctions, licensing policy, and legislation affecting strategic export controls and all the Open General Licences (OGELs), plus an area of help and advice. 190
Site: Exportall URL: http://www.exportall.com Provider: Dutch Export Consultancy and Worldwide Info Search Description: Exportall is a one-stop source for export and international business information. It consists of two directories. The general directory provides links to web resources in business and industry, news and media, reference, travel and transport and so on, and to search tools. The country directory features a home page for every country in the world and helps you find information in a number of sub-categories, such as business and industry, facts and figures, government and politics, news and media and so on. There is a useful set of links to other export sites at http:/ /www.exportall.com/categories/ export_info.htm. Exportall also has the latest international business headline news (in association with NewsPage), interesting web sites and on-line reports, and export tips. 191
Site: EY/Passport Online URL: http://www.doingbusinessin.com Provider: Ernst & Young Description: Provides useful information on the investment climate, taxation, and business and accounting practices of countries around the world. 192
Site: TED: supplement to the Official Journal of the European Communities URL: http://ted.eur-op.eu.int Provider: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities Description: Tenders Electronics Daily (TED) is the Internet version of the Official Journal ‘S’ series, and is the fastest way to receive information on approximately 500 tenders daily. TED supplies information on: • • • • •
public contracts for works, supplies and services from all EU Member States utilities contracts (water, energy, transport and telecommunication sectors) public contracts from the EU institutions European Development Fund contracts (ACP countries) PHARE, TACIS and other contracts from central and eastern Europe
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• European Investment Bank (EIB), European Central Bank and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) • EBRD-financed projects • European Economic Area contracts (Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein) • notices concerning European Economic Interest Groups (EEIGs) • public contracts for food aid, and • public contracts for air services. 193 Site: Trade Partners UK URL: http://www.tradepartners.gov.uk Provider: Trade Partners UK Description: The Export Market Information Centre (EMIC) has identified useful web sites for UK exporters wishing to research countries, markets and contacts. These links are accessible by sector and/or geographic area. The site also provides access to an events database and a section on export opportunities. 194
Site: TradeUK URL: http://www.tradeuk.com Provider: British Trade International Description: TradeUK is British Trade International’s Internet service for international buyers and UK exporters. There is a facility to search for British firms by product or service and/or by business name. The service has useful links for British exporters doing business overseas, covering areas such as trade events, obtaining finance, moving the goods, and sales leads, plus links to expert organisations that can help business people plan and implement an export strategy. 195
Site: UK Network of Euro Info Centres: the business gateway to Europe URL: http://www.euro-info.org.uk Provider: UK Network of Euro Info Centres Description: Euro Info Centres (EICs) provide local access to a range of specialist information and advisory services to help SMEs seeking to develop new markets in Europe, and new products.
Chapter 9 Business news
There are a number of different ways of monitoring business news on the Internet. One option is to use the web sites of well-established organisations, such as: • the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/ default.stm) • Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/news) • one of the daily newspapers, such as the Daily Telegraph (http:// www.telegraph.co.uk) or the London Evening Standard (http:// www.thisislondon.com). Other options include: • using a news aggregator such as Moreover (http:// www.moreover.com) which draws together news stories from over 1500 different sources • looking for business news on a site which gathers together a wide range of business information, such as Powerize.com (http:// www.powerize.com). The latter is a division of Hoover’s Inc. and provides news information as part of a much bigger business and investment research service. Interactive investor international (http://www.iii.co.uk) uses the news of other organisations, such as AFX or Moneywise. 196 Site: Ananova URL: http://www.ananova.com Provider: Ananova Limited Description: Ananova has a heading for business news that brings together relevant stories, and each story then has links to other stories on the company or industry sector appearing on Ananova. There are also links to other related stories on the Web from sources such as BBC News Online, The Independent, News Unlimited, or AFX Press. There is also a link for market news. The site features Ananova, the world’s first virtual newscaster.
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197
Site: BBC Online: Business news URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/default.stm Provider: British Broadcasting Corporation Description: Part of the BBC Online service (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news), the business news section has sub-headings for market data, economy, companies, e-commerce, your money and business basics. The site is an excellent source for business news. Related stories on the web site are listed as hyperlinks, along with links to the home pages of companies mentioned within the story. Content includes audio and video clips, not just text. There is a desktop marketwatch feature which has information on popular shares, including a graph of performance over the past three months, latest share price information and links to stories about the company The site has market data on the FTSE 100, Dow Jones and NASDAQ, currencies, gilts, bonds and interest rates, and a section on commodities. The ‘your money’ section covers topics such as pensions, the property market or the demutualisation of building societies, while ‘business basics’ has a good overview of topics such as international trade or e-business. This site is well designed and easy to navigate, and there is a search facility to help you quickly locate stories from the news archive. 198
Site: eFinancial News URL: http://www.efinancialnews.com Provider: eFinancia1News.com Ltd Description: This site has news stories, comment and analysis covering Europe’s investment banking, fund management and securities industries. 199
Site: Electronic Telegraph URL: http://www.telegraph.co.uk Provider: Telegraph Group Limited Description: The Electronic Telegraph has a section on city and financial news covering UK and world markets. There are also a number of subsections such as Telegraph money which covers personal finance; share prices; market report; city diary; key indicators; and a section for small businesses. 200
Site: EUbusiness URL: http://www.eubusiness.com Provider: Eubusiness Ltd Description: This site is an independent commercial news service covering information about EU policies and legislation. Users can register to receive a
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newswire called ‘Eubusiness week’, which is sent out by email once a week summarising the news that has been added to the site for that week. The site has general news stories, plus information by industry sector or country. If you are looking for information by industry sector, the site draws together news stories relevant to that sector and has links to key official documents, useful web links such as a link to the appropriate directorate general (s), plus factsheets giving a useful overview of the key issues concerning that sector. 201
Site: Excite UK Channels: news URL: http://www.excite.co.uk/news/money Provider: Excite UK Ltd Description: Includes sections on UK money and world money. 202
Site: Individual.com URL: http://www.individual.com Provider: Individual.com Inc. Description: Provides free customised news, information and services over the Internet. You can create your own Individual.com personal news page (see entry 264) consisting of your own chosen topics, featured companies, personal stock quotes and so on. Users then receive a personalised Individual.com daily email briefing containing headlines and summaries which are linked to the stories on their individualised web page. 203
Site: ITN Money URL: http://www.itn.co.uk/business.shtml Provider: Independent Television News Limited Description: This site is dedicated to business news stories. There is also a search facility available. 204
Site: Moreover URL: http://www.moreover.com Provider: Moreover.com Description: Moreover is a news aggregator providing news headlines from over 1500 sources free of charge. News is available for over 300 predefined categories. Users can also opt to have the headlines delivered by email on a daily or weekly basis. If you want something that is not covered by Moreover’s readymade categories, it is possible to get customised news feeds geared to your requirements. (see http://www.x.moreover.com/ keywiz/)
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Moreover.com enables you to refine a basic search by news source and by category, or by using Bright Station•s InfoSort technology to refine the search by market sector, scope term or geographic location. 205
Site: NewsDirectory.com URL: http://www.newsdirectory.com Provider: Infonautics Corporation Description: Provides links to over 8,400 newspapers and magazines worldwide. These can be accessed by searching for the newspaper or magazine title. The listings are also browseable. For newspapers browsing is by region or country, and for magazines browsing is by subject. There is a heading for business newspapers, and for magazines the headings include automotive, business, health and industry trade publications. 206
Site: News Index URL: http://www.newsindex.com Provider: News Index Description: Allows you to search for news stories appearing on more than 300 news sites. The search engine checks back with these sites several times a day to keep abreast of developments. Users can set up custom searches and have results emailed to them each day. 207
Site: NewsNow URL: http://www.newsnow.co.uk Provider: NewsNow Publishing Ltd Description: Headlines are organised into six broad categories: business and finance, information technology, current affairs, sport, TV and entertainment. Clicking on a category then lets you select more specific topics. For example, in the case of business and finance, sub-headings include economy, electronic commerce, energy/utilities, import/export and insurance. The headlines are grouped according to how many minutes or hours old they are, and UK stories are marked with the Union Jack. 208
Site: NewsTrawler URL: http://www.newstrawler.com Provider: NewsTrawler Pty Ltd Description: NewsTrawler is a parallel search engine for news on the Internet which lets you search for articles from the archives of hundreds of on-line news, magazine and journal sources from around the world.
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Site: Non-US Newspaper Archives on the Web URL: http://metalab.unc.edu/slanews/internet/ForArchives.html Provider: Special Libraries Association, News Division Description: This site provides links to newspaper archives arranged by region and country. There are notes which indicate, for example, if free registration is required to search the archives or whether there is a charge for retrieving the full text of articles. 210
Site: Reuters URL: http://www.reuters.com/news Provider: Reuters Ltd Description: Reuters news site has a heading for ‘top stories’ which splits into two sections: top world stories and top business news. The latter also has headings for market news and economic news. 211
Site: This is London URL: http://www.thisislondon.com Provider: Associated Newspapers Ltd Description: This is the web site for the London Evening Standard. The service has a section entitled ‘Business day’, which includes city comment, a story index, market index, money markets and share prices. 212
Site: TotalNEWS URL: http://www.totalnews.com Provider: TotalNEWS Inc. Description: Has a business heading at http://www.totalnews.com/ business.html covering finance, business, marketing and advertising, and trade and industry. 213
Site: UK Company News URL: http://www.companynews.co.uk Provider: MD Management Ltd Description: You can search for companies by name or by sector. The entries give basic information on the company including sales, profits and details of the company’s activities. The web site also includes a new issues directory with details of forthcoming flotations.
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Site: Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition URL: http://interactive.wsj.com/home.html Provider: Dow Jones & Company Inc. Description: Only a limited amount of information is available free of charge, as some of the content is only available to paying subscribers. However, the free content includes breaking news and tech news. Locating the web sites of newspapers or business magazines To look for a specific newspaper or magazine, there are a number of useful sites which act as portals to the web sites of newspapers and business journals, whether UK, European or worldwide. 215
Site: EuroSeek MediaGuide URL: http://mediaguide.euroseek.net/ Provider: Euroseek AG Description: Despite its name, the Euroseek MediaGuide is a good starting point for identifying the web sites of newspapers throughout the world. It covers links to news media worldwide, mainly to newspapers in the country’s own language. You first select by continent, and then select the country of the newspaper that you require. 216
Site: FindArticles.com URL: http://www.findarticles.com Provider: LookSmart and the Gale Group Description: FindArticles.com is a searchable archive of articles from more than 300 magazines and journals. It is free of charge, and the articles go back to 1998. Subject headings include automotive, business and finance, computers and technology, and news and society. 217
Site: International Newspapers URL: http://www.concentric.net/~Stevewt/international/ Provider: Stephen Trask Description: Newspaper index containing links to the web sites of over 3,000 newspapers from over 80 countries. 218
Site: Media UK Online Media Directory URL: http://www.mediauk.com
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Provider: MediaUK.com Ltd Description: The Media UK directory has an extensive set of links to media websites covering radio, magazines, newspapers, and television. 219
Site: Newspaper Society URL: http://www.newspapersoc.org.uk/home.html Provider: Newspaper Society Description: This site lists UK regional and local newspapers on the Web, allied newspaper bodies and other useful links (e.g. the British Newspaper Library or historical newspapers). 220
Site: OnlineNewspapers.com URL: http://www.onlinenewspapers.com Provider: Web Womat Pty Ltd Description: The listings of newspapers are browseable by region or country, and cover both local and national newspapers. 221
Site: PubList.com: the international directory of publications URL: http://www.publist.com Provider: Bowes & Associates Inc. Description: PubList is a database with details of over 150,000 publications including magazines, journals, e-journals, newsletters and monographs. In addition to a quick search facility, users can use the advanced search options to search by title, publisher, subject or ISSN. 222
Site: Research Index URL: http://www.researchindex.co.uk/ Provider: Research Index Limited Description: This is a useful index for news stories, searchable by company name or industry sector. It covers a wide range of UK news sources, including tabloids as well as broadsheets, and a number of magazines. However, this is purely an index and results are limited to headlines and source information. The source information is given using abbreviations (a list of the abbreviations used on the site is given). Search results appear on-screen, but they can also be sent to an email address or faxed if required. In addition there are links to the web sites of UK newspapers, arranged by region, and to UK magazines under headings such as business, industry trade publications, computer, health or automotive.
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Site: WWW News Resource Page URL: http://sun3.lib.uci.edu/~dtsang/netnewsl.htm Provider: The UCI Libraries Description: This site from University of California provides newspaper links arranged by country, and covers US and non-US publications.
Chapter 10 Biographical information
This chapter looks at some of the free web resources available covering biographical information, particularly from the perspective of looking for businessmen and women. 224
Site: The Applegate Directory URL: http://www.applegate.co.uk Provider: Applegate Media Description: The Applegate Directory (see entry 109) has a ‘top people’ feature, which lets users search by an individual•s name, and shows his or her job title along with a hyperlink to the company he or she works for. 225
Site: Biographical Dictionary URL: http://s9.com/biography Provider: S9.com Description: Covers more than 28,000 notable men and women who have shaped our world from ancient times to the present day. The dictionary can be searched by birth years, death years, positions held, professions, literary and artistic works, achievements and other keywords. 226
Site: Biographical information: LibrarySpot.com URL: http://www.libraryspot.com/biographicalinfo.htm Provider: StartSpot Mediaworks Inc. Description: Provides links to key resources for biographical information. In addition to the biographical information section there is a ‘people’ section at http://www.libraryspot.com/people.htm, including a link to Industry Insite, which lets people connect with other business professionals, and a range of other people-finder tools.
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Site: Biography.com URL: http://www.biography.com Provider: A&E Television Networks Description: Biography.com allows users to explore the lives of the world’s most notable personalities, past and present. The site features a searchable biography database of over 20,000 personalities. 228
Site: BusinessZONE (ICC) URL: http://www.businesszone.co.uk Provider: ICC Information Ltd Description: Provides access to a searchable database of 1.4 million live companies using Companies House data. It is free to search, though the free information retrieved is somewhat limited. Director search results are displayed as follows: Person x Live Directorships/Trading Company: Live Directorships/Insolvent Company: Live Directorships/Dissolved Company: Resigned Directorships: Postcode: 229 Site: Companies House: Disqualified Directors URL: http://www.companies-house.gov.uk Provider: Companies House Description: Under the section on ‘company information’ is a searchable database of disqualified directors. It is taken from the Register of Companies and Register of Disqualified Directors, and can be searched Monday to Saturday 7 a.m. to 12 midnight. 230
Site: FT.com People URL: http://people.ft.com/people Provider: Financial Times Limited Description: To undertake a people search, you can enter the name of the person or the company in the search box to find dossiers on individuals. The dossier includes the person’s claim to fame, a quotation and links to resources on FT.com, such as relevant articles, company home page, company profile and latest news.
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Site: Hoover’s Online UK URL: http://www.hoovers.co.uk Provider: Hoover’s Inc. Description: The Hoover’s Online service allows you to search for people using the Search drop-down menu. You are then shown the person’s job title, plus a hyperlink to the Hoover’s capsule for the company that he or she works for. 232
Site: Price’s List of Lists URL: http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~gprice/listof.htm Provider: Gary Price Description: Gary Price’s List of Lists has links to some useful sources of biographical information, for example the Sunday Times Rich List and a list of Britain’s top 100 e-millionaires. 233
Site: PublicFigure.com: Business URL: http://www.publicfigure.com/PublicFigure/static/business.htm Provider: PublicFigure.com Inc. Description: This is one part of a large source of news and information about the world’s most famous people. Entries are set out under headings for bio, profile, news and photos, and works. There is full-length content for over 5,000 public figures, plus life summaries for an additional 17,000 of the most prominent people in history. Content includes the latest breaking news, photographs, overviews of the projects or work that brought them to the headlines, interactive video and audio with live interviews, and hosted chat rooms with the most prominent people in the world. 234
Site: xrefer: the web’s reference engine URL: http://www.xrefer.com Provider: xrefer.com Ltd Description: This site brings together a number of traditionally printed reference works, such as encyclopaedias, dictionaries, thesauri and books of quotations, covering a wide range of subjects. Biographical sources include the Macmillan Dictionary of Women’s Biography, the Penguin Biographical Dictionary of Women and Who’s Who in the Twentieth Century. There are also a number of business, finance and law publications that can be consulted.
Chapter 11 Other business information
This chapter covers a number of useful sites for business people which don’t fit neatly into any of the other chapter headings. They include sites that aim to empower businessmen and women to be more effective in their work, and sites performing a specific function, such as currency converters. Miscellaneous sites 235
Site: AllBusiness.com URL: http://www.allbusiness.com Provider: AllBusiness.com Description: The AllBusiness.com web site is a resource for small businesses. It is split into four main headings. The home section provides access to a database of articles, interviews and expert insight covering the major areas of small business such as technology, intellectual property, business planning, and human resources. ‘Services’ has business tools and services (e.g. how to find vendors, recruit employees, get funding, incorporate your business, or download forms and agreements). The products section is an area for purchasing products and supplies, and the community section is a place where entrepreneurs and small business operators can go to share experiences, consult the experts and learn from one another. 236
Site: bird-online URL: http://www.bird-online.co.uk Provider: Bird-Online.co.uk Limited Description: Bird-online is an information resource for business in the UK and Ireland. It is a meeting place for businesses, with facilities to look for local, industry-specific events, identify business opportunities, find a consultant to assist your business with particular areas of need, or buy and sell business services on-line.
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237
Site: Business Advice Online URL: http://www.businessadviceonline.org Provider: Small Business Service Description: The site provides a wealth of information relevant to businesses covering topics such as exporting and importing, or starting a new business. There is also a section on doing business on the Internet which is split up by business type, such as clothing, footwear and fashion. These sections provide links to relevant trade associations and other business support organisations. 238
Site: ebustnessforum.com URL: http://www.ebusinessforum.com Provider: Economist Intelligence Unit Description: Provides insight and analysis to help senior executives build successful strategies for the global digital economy. The site has a ‘doing ebusiness in…’ series of country overviews, which include the EIU e-businessreadiness rankings. These grade 60 of the world’s economies on their ability to facilitate digital-age commerce. The site is arranged into sections: thought leadership, best practice, global news analysis, research and doing business in. The best practice section is arranged by industry sector, and the global news analysis section is divided up by whether the story is global in scope, or specific to a particular region. The research section covers market trends, executive surveys and benchmarks, business strategies and a mini-portal of links to e-business sites covering regional and country information, professional services, research, portals, news and journals. There is a facility to search either across the whole site, or within one specific section. 239
Site: eHow.com URL: http://www.ehow.com Provider: eHow Inc. Description: This American site describes itself as ‘providing step-by-step instructions on how to do just about anything, and buy the stuff you need to do it’. Under the section for running a business, for example, there are pages about a wide range of topics such as writing a business plan, firing an employee, or conducting market research. 240
Site: The Enterprise Forum URL: http://www.enterpriseforum.co.uk Provider: Centre for Enterprise
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Description: Virtual discussion forum for people who want to contribute to current thinking in research, policy and practice related to management development and small business enterprise: ‘The discussion forums are focused around a series of articles on key topics, written by businesses and the wider business stakeholder community’. 241
Site: enterprise zone URL: http://www.enterprise-zone.org.uk Provider: Department of Trade and Industry Description: The enterprise zone is a gateway to business information for SMEs. It provides links to information, resources, or sources of expertise on finance, information technology, sales and marketing, law, human resources and training, export and other key business issues. Under each section are groups of web sites focused around these key topics for business, reflecting the questions that are asked of business advisers and Business Links. The enterprise zone provides access to information and resources to help businessmen and women plan, decide and act. Other facilities include LinkShopper, an e-commerce service that enables online procurement of office supplies. It is designed to save costs and maximise time management when buying office equipment and consumables. The site is operated by Bright Station plc. 242
Site: Ginfo.net: global information network business directory URL: http://www.ginfo.net/ Provider: Global Information Network LLC Description: Portal for global e-business. 243
Site: Invest UK URL: http://www.invest.uk.com/index_flash.html Provider: Invest UK (with Trade Partners UK, as part of British Trade International) Description: Invest UK is an investment agency covering the whole of the UK which helps the world’s companies to set up or expand business from a British base. 244
Site: London ASPECT URL: http://www.sbu.ac.uk/aspect/welcome.html Provider: London ASPECT
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Description: London ASPECT is a partnership between South Bank University and Business Link London Central, with the aim of supporting SMEs seeking to compete in the current technological environment. The site has links to resources for business advice and support services, electronic commerce and so on. 245
Site: Office.com URL: http://www.office.com Provider: Office.com Inc. Description: There is a company research section which lets you search for companies by name or within a specific industry, by business description or SIC code. This can then be limited by sales, number of employees or by US location (city/state/zip code). The majority of the site covers business support services, including a business services centre; a ‘run your business’ section, covering areas such as human resources, information technology, law and finance; and there is also a marketplace section which has information about a wide range of products from a number of different vendors. Information is available on US and international companies and executives. 246
Site: One Stop Internet Shop for Business URL: http://europa.eu.int/business/en/ index.html Provider: European Commission Description: This site is part of the European Commission’s ‘Dialogue with Business’, a service to help companies make the best of the single market. Coverage includes how community policies affect f ect business, summaries of texts of EU legislation, EU funding opportunities, public procurement and intellectual property rights. There are also links to other topics of interest to businesses such as details of fairs and exhibitions. 247
Site: open.gov.uk URL: http://www.open.gov.uk/ Provider: CCTA (Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency) Description: The open.gov.uk site is a first entry point to UK public sector information on the net. It has a section at http://www.open.gov.uk/index/ t_business.htm which lists all public sector bodies associated with business, under headings such as audit, buying, consumer protection, exports, finance, industry, inward investment, standards and so on. There is also a topic index at: http://www.open.gov.uk/index/topicindex.htm.
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Site: SMe: learning URL: http://www.business-info.org.uk Provider: Department for Education and Employment Description: Aims to improve links between universities, support services and small firms. Resources include advice notes, support materials, and links to sites covering areas such as government departments, and education and training. The site is designed and maintained by the Modbury Group. 249
Site: The Biz: the business information zone URL: http://www.thebiz.co.uk Provider: The Business Information Zone Limited Description: The Biz is a business-to-business information resource to help UK business people. There is an index of useful sites with descriptions, and details of business events, training and a number of interactive on-line forums. There is also a facility to post a question and get an email response within 24 hours. 250
Site: Virginbiz.net URL: http://www.virginbiz.net Provider: Virginbiz.net Deseription: The main aim of the Virginbiz.net site is to provide a complete on-line service to small businesses wishing to harness the power of the Internet. Focusing on businesses with fewer than 20 employees, it provides useful information for people managing small businesses. Amongst the commentary and advice there are plenty of hyperlinks. For example, a section on market research includes hyperlinks to a listing of business libraries, government agencies and departments, such as the DTI’s export explorer web site, and trade associations such as the British Agents Register, a source of information on professional sales agents. Virginbiz.net also has a number of news feeds, covering topics such as information technology or sales, as well as a number of industry newsletters. 251
Site: Work.com URL: http://dowjones.work.com/ Provider: Excite@Home, Dow Jones & Company and Work.com Description: Work.com’s aim is to empower people to be more effective in all aspects of their business life. The site offers a broad range of business information and applications, and industry-specific news and services to help make people’s business lives more successful. Business people can use
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Work.com to keep up to date with customised news, identify strategic partners and service vendors, and make better informed business decisions The site includes a directory of business resources on the Web covering: business news and research, careers and education, computing and IT, consulting, economics, finance and investment, human resources, industries, international and trade, Internet, law, management, sales and marketing, and small business. Business courses 252
Site: The Association of MBAs: the global network for the MBA community URL: http://www.mba.org.uk Provider: The Association of MBAs Description: Founded in 1967, the Association raises public, business and academic awareness of the Master of Business Administration as the premier management qualification. In addition to acting as a professional network for its members, the Association offers impartial advice and information to the general public, prospective students and companies seeking to recruit and place MBAs. The Association works with and advises companies and organisations seeking to recruit MBAs and place individuals on accredited MBA programmes. The web site covers all aspects of the MBA qualification, from information for those wanting to study at business school, financing an MBA, getting a loan, accreditation, through to information for employers of MBA graduates. 253
Site: Business Schools, Departments and Programmes URL: http://uk.dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Education/ College_and_University/ Business_Schools Departments and_Programmes/ Provider: Yahoo Inc. Description: Links to the web sites of UK business schools. Currency converters 254
Site: FXConverter 164 Currency Converter URL: http://www.oanda.com/converter/classic Provider: OANDA Corporation Description: OANDA.com is an excellent site for currency information. The first screen has a quick convert feature for the most popular currencies, and there is also a full currency converter which covers a much larger number.
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In addition to getting the latest exchange rate, there is also a facility to look up historic information. Output can be in HTML, ASCII or CSV format. OANDA is the Internet arm of Olsen & Associates, an econometric research and development firm based in Zurich, Switzerland. 255
Site: Universal Currency Converter URL: http://www.xe.net/ucc Provider: Xenon Laboratories Incorporated Description: The Universal Currency Converter has a standard version with the most frequently requested currencies, or a full version which has currency information on 180 currencies in over 250 geographic locations. Rates are updated once per minute. Historic information is available at http://www.xe.net/ ict Patents information 256
Site: Delphion Intellectual Property Network URL: http://www.delphion.com/ Provider: Delphion Description: Patents database covering US, European, Japanese, and WIPO PCT (World Intellectual Property Organization Patent Co-operation Treaty) sources. Searches can be by patent number, search word or phrase, or the information can be browsed by US class either by title or by patent number. 257
Site: esp@cenet: Europe’s network of patent databases URL: http://gb.espacenet.com/espacenet/gb/en/e_net.htm Provider: European Patent Organisation Description: esp@cenet covers patent applications in their original language from the United Kingdom, other European countries, the European Patent Office and the World Intellectual Property Organization (PCT), plus those with an English abstract and title from Japan and elsewhere in the world (30 million documents). Searches can be by free text, patent application number or company name. 258
Site: The Patent Office URL: http://www.patent.gov.uk Provider: The Patent Office
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Description: A number of database services are available from the Patent Office web site at http://www.patent.gov.uk/dbservices/patent.html. These include: (a) esp@cenet: This service provides an interface to the published patent application databases of the UK Patent Office, the European Patent Office and other European national patent offices, as well as access to the PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty) database of published patent applications. A full copy of the specification, claims and drawings may be viewed if available (see also entry 257). (b) Patent Status Information Service: This enables users to check a patent’s priority and filing dates, verify the applicant or owner, identify the inventor, establish whether the patent is in force and contact the owner or their representative. It also provides a link to any related Supplementary Protection Certificate (SPC). (c) Supplementary Protection Certificate (SPC) Service: This provides status information on SPCs which can be searched by entering either the SPC or patent number. 259
Site: US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) URL: http://www.uspto.gov/patft/ Provider: US Patent and Trademark Office Description: The USPTO offers web access to separate bibliographic and fulltext patent databases covering the period from 1 January 1976 to the present.
Chapter 12 Personalising Web services
There is so much information available on the Web these days, including plenty of free business and industry information as seen by the range of sites listed in this book, that people are in danger of suffering from information overload. The problem that busy managers and business people face is how to sift through the available data for valuable information nuggets; how to manage the flow of information more effectively. Rather than having to look at numerous different web sites, there have been a number of attempts to come up with solutions that aggregate different types of information from a wide range of different sources onto a single page. Technology for aggregating information 260
Site: Octopus.com URL: http://www.octopus.com Provider: Octopus.com Inc. Description: The tools developed by Octopus enable users to collect information from across the Internet and assemble it all in a single place, called a ‘View’. There are a number of pre-defined views available which can then be customised to a user’s needs. It is also possible to do a search across a number of search engines simultaneously. Whilst this is nothing new, I found that the way in which the results were presented was very good and made it easy to quickly view retrieved sites. 261
Site: OnePage.com URL: http://www.onepage.com Provider: OnePage.com Inc. Description: OnePage lets you choose the best parts from your favourite web sites and then to put them all into one place. The site is aimed at businesses and individuals.
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Site: Yodlee URL: http://www.yodlee.com Provider: Yodlee Inc. Description: Yodlee gives users instant access to their personal accounts on a single page, and it draws upon thousands of leading web sites. Users can quickly look at their finances, look at shopping or travel information, check their email, and more. Personalised news services It is possible to tailor a web page to your own needs by aggregating material from a number of different sources. There are news services which let you tailor the sources that appear to match your interests. Where commercial sites draw together material from other web sites this is bound to lead to controversy, and there will inevitably be lawsuits to determine issues of ownership and access. This kind of aggregation raises questions of security, liability and regulation. 263
Site: CRAYON (CReAte Your Own Newspaper) URL: http://crayon.net Provider: NET Pressence, Inc. Description: CRAYON uses the analogy of a newspaper to organise periodical information to create a customised news page containing the information you are most interested in. There are a number of headings available, such as ‘Business’ or ‘World’, and you can opt whether to select any of the sources within each heading. So, for the ‘Business’ heading the choices include Business Week daily briefing, Money Magazine market watch, the Financial Times and the Motley Fool; the ‘World’ heading has sources such as The Times, the Electronic Telegraph, ITN, or the Press Association. If the source you want isn’t listed, then you can add it to the section of your choice by entering a name for the site plus its URL. 264
Site: Individual.com NewsPage URL: http://www.individual.com Provider: Individual.com Inc. Description: The Individual.com service lets you create your own individualised news web site, with the option to receive a daily email news briefing. At the time of registering, you have to select a job from a dropdown list, and this is then used to suggest appropriate news for you (though this can be overridden). At a later stage you can make alterations by adding, prioritising or removing topics from your settings.
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Site: Moreover URL: http://www.moreover.com Provider: Moreover.com Description: Moreover.com is a news aggregator which draws on over 1500 different information sources. The service has over 300 pre-defined news categories to choose from, and users can opt to receive the news headlines for any of these categories delivered as an email on a daily or weekly basis. It is possible to tailor the service beyond the 300 pre-defined categories. Personalised search engines Many of the search engines have a personalisation feature which allows them to be turned into portals that are tailored to a user’s requirements. Their usefulness depends upon the level of personalisation that is possible, and the range of sources that are available from which to choose. Many of the services contain stock quotes, newswires, weather, and more. I would recommend experimenting with a few of the following examples to see whether any of them suit your needs. It should be noted that some services are heavily slanted towards users in North America, so that when you try to edit, say, the weather section, you find that all the options relate to locations in the United States. It is best to use the UK version of the search engine—if one is available—and to look out for an option to personalise that particular search engine (e.g. http://www.yahoo.co.uk rather than http://www.yahoo.com), otherwise you may find that the list of sources is has a North American bias. Once you have found a service that best meets your needs, it is worth spending time refining your chosen search engine portal so that it incorporates your most heavily used bookmarks, most frequent searches and the sources that you regularly monitor. And when you are happy with it, make it your home page. To do this in Internet Explorer, select the Tools drop-down menu, and then select ‘lnternet Options’. Under the ‘General’ tab set the home page that you wish to default to. In Netscape Navigator select the Edit drop-down menu, and then select ‘Preferences•. Then make sure that the radio button options for ‘Navigator starts with…’ have ‘HomePage’ selected, and that the home page URL you use is that for the search engine portal that you have created. 266
Site: My Alta Vista URL: http://live.altavista.com/ Provider: AltaVista Company Description: It is possible to tailor your home page from a choice of over 30 content modules, adding the ones you like, removing the ones you don’t like and
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determining the layout. For example, you can select which category of news you want as the lead story on your page from a range such as best top stories, tech and web, money and stocks, international, and so on. 267
Site: my.nbci.com URL: http://home.nbci.com Provider: NBCi Description: From the NBCi home page click on the ‘My NBCi’ tab. You can then tailor the web page according to your interests and requirements. You can edit the various services, such as portfolio, market summary, news and bookmarks, so that only the things that are relevant to your needs are covered. 268
Site: My Yahoo URL: http://uk.my.yahoo.com Provider: Yahoo! Inc. Description: With My Yahoo! you can select the page title, which companies you want to monitor share prices for in the ‘portfolios’ section, which ‘news clippers’ you want (whereby you select a saved search and this is then matched against relevant news stories), saved searches, and whether you want a link to any of the Yahoo categories—for example I chose ‘lnternet statistics and demographics’; you can also save sites as bookmarks on your personalised page. There is the facility to tailor the headlines shown on your page. First of all there are some broad headings, such as business and industry, technology/Internet, or current events and politics. Then, within those broad headings, you select from a list of options what specific types of headlines are most appropriate to your needs. For example, within the business and industry section, the options include ‘UK: business from PA’ and ‘UK: personal finance from FTyourmoney.com’, and you can also choose specific industry sectors such as construction or oil and energy. There are also push-technology alerting services such as that offered by NorthernLight.com. 269
Site: Northern Light Search Alert Service URL: http://standard.northernlight.com/cgi-bin/cl_cliplist.pl Provider: Northern Light Technology Inc. Description: The alerts chosen can be previewed before the alert is saved. Users choose whether the alert should search, for example, all Northern Light sources, the Web, the site’s ‘Special Collection’ (an online business library of 7100 full-text journals, books, magazines, newswires, and reference sources).
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Searching is free but the ‘Special Collection’ documents themselves must be purchased. The search upon which the alert is based can be a simple search, power search, business search, Investext (‘thousands of investment research reports written by expert analysts’), or news search. Tracking web site changes If you want to monitor web sites—for example, those of competitors—for any updates or to know when new content has been added, there are a number of services available to track such changes. These services then email you when changes occur. Examples of this kind of service are: 270
Site: C4U URL: http://www.c-4-u.com Provider: C4U Ltd Description: C4U provides software which constantly monitors web sites, locates new data and alerts you to the changes that have been made. C4U provides users with a browser-like window which shows you the entire text with the new text highlighted. 271
Site: Daily Diffs URL: http://www.dailydiffs.com Provider: EoExchange Inc. Description: Daily Diffs monitors changes on tens of thousands of web pages. These can be browsed through subject headings, such as finance and investment, global commerce and news, industries and business, or Fortune 100 companies. In addition users can track any pages they wish by creating an EoMonitor account (http://www.javelink.com/ newuser.cgi) which provides free monitoring for up to 20 pages. 272
Site: Netmind URL: http://www.netmind.com Provider: NetMind Description: NetMind lets you track any web page and then alerts you to changes through the means of your choice—one option is to receive the alerts by email. 273
Site: Spyonit.com
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URL: http://www.spyonit.com Provider: Spyonit.com Inc. Description: In order to use Spyonit.com, you first need to create a My Spies account. Once this has been set up you can create and manage your own Spies. Spyonit.com can be used for competitor intelligence—for ex ample, you can ask it to tell you when a company or person or thing that you want to track has been mentioned on any web site within the last week—or, using Cover Story Spy in the news and current events section, you could ask it to track only major news about a company rather than every detailed mention. 274
Site: URLy Warning URL: http://www.urlywarning.com Provider: URLy Warning.com Inc. Description: URLy Warning provides a set of tools to let users watch individual web pages. Users are alerted when a change occurs, and they are shown the original page, the modified page and then the changes are highlighted. A sample is available at http://www.urlywarning.com/ sample.htm. Broken links 275
Site: Linkcheckers and site maintenance tools URL: http://www.unn.ac.uk/central/isd/links.htm Provider: University of Northumbria at Newcastle Description: This site has a useful overview of link checkers and site maintenance tools, although it is a mix of free and priced software. 276
Site: LinkGuard URL: http://www.linkguard.com Provider: LinkGuard Description: The World Wide Web depends largely upon the use of hyperlinks. According to LinkGuard, over 10 per cent of the total links on the Internet are broken, and there is even a new word to describe the problem: linkrot. LinkGuard provide a broken-link checking service, but only the first few w uses of the service are available free of charge. 277
Site: Net Mechanic URL: http://www.netmechanic.com Provider: NetMechanic Inc.
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Description: Net Mechanic provides software to check for broken links. Their ‘HTML toolbox’ also looks for spelling errors, browser compatibility problems, slow loading pages, and HTML coding errors.
Chapter 13 Keeping up to date
The Internet is one of the most dynamic information sources available. New web sites are appearing all the time; existing sites get a ‘makeover’ and you find that you have to reacquaint yourself with the layout; new sources or facilities are added to established sites, and so on. The Internet is also so huge that you cannot possibly hope to be familiar with everything that is available. How can you keep up to date with new web sites? I am sure that everyone would like the answer to be a single source which would encompass all the new sites that are useful to them. Sadly, such a site does not exist; and knowing what is available on the Web is something that you can only really appreciate through hours of reading magazines and current awareness services, as well as plenty of searching on the Web itself. Having said that, there are certainly a number of sources which do help you to keep up with useful web sites. 278
Site: Business Information Searcher URL: http://www.dataresources.co.uk/bisl.html Provider: Effective Technology Marketing Ltd Description: Business Information Searcher (ISSN 1365–5760) provides quarterly coverage and critical review and comparison of key products and services of interest to the european business information community, including a regular section of what’s new on the internet. 279
Site: Free Pint URL: http://www.freepint.co.uk Provider: Free Pint Limited Description: Free Pint is probably best known for its free email newsletter containing tips and tricks on finding reliable web sites and searching more effectively. Published twice a month, the newsletter contains articles and book reviews. You can search through the archive for articles on topics such as portals, small business on the Web, statistical information on the Web, or market research information on the Internet. The advantage of a newsletter that is either
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emailed to you, or which you view on the Web, is that the sites listed are hyperlinked—you don’t have to type in the URL from scratch. But Free Pint is much more than a fortnightly newsletter. Indeed it has built up into lively virtual community where participants are often willing to help others with their awkward research enquiries. The Free Pint Bar (http://www.freepint.co.uk/bar) is intended as a forum for people to post questions on web-related questions, and also to help other members. Separate from the Free Pint newsletter, it is also possible to receive an email every other day of the latest Bar postings, and this is a rich source for useful web sites. There is also a Student Bar. 280
The newsletters from Headland Business Information are also extremely good for finding out about new web sites (see the Bowker web site, http:// www.bowker-saur.co.uk). Titles published are: • Business Information Review (ISSN 0266–3821); frequency: 4 per year • Business Information Testdrive, which has a web review section (ISSN 1352– 0490); frequency: 11 per year • European Business Intelligence Briefing (ISSN 0957–0039); frequency: 11 per year • What’s New in Business Information (ISSN 0952 7001), which includes new developments in business information sources; frequency: fortnightly. 281 Site: Information World Review URL: http://www.iwr.co.uk Provider: Learned Information Description: Information World Review (ISSN 0950–9879) (http:// www.learned.co.uk), is another useful source for keeping up to date. There is a regular ‘Internet developments’ section, and there are regular focus articles on specific types of information, such as company information, patent information, or medical and health information; these focus articles also give the URLs of web sites which have been referred to in the articles. 282
Site: The Internet Resources Newsletter URL: http://www.hw.ac.uk/libwww/irn/irn.html Provider: Heriot-Watt University Description: The Internet Resources Newsletter (ISSN 1361–9381) is a free monthly newsletter for academics, students, engineers, scientists, and social scientists. The newsletter is edited by Heriot-Watt University library staff and aims to raise a wareness of new sources of information on the Internet.
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283
Site: Managing Information URL: http://www.aslib.com/man-inf/index.html Provider: Aslib-IMI Description: Managing Information (ISSN1352–0229), which is published ten times a year, mentions useful web sites in some of the news items, and a number of the articles contain references to web sites. Indeed, some of the articles contain listings of key web sites relevant to the topic under discussion. 284
Site: The Nutshell URL: http://www.thenutshell.co.uk Provider: Jointly produced by the Institute of Information Scientists (IIS) and Bowker Description: Contains information news, including a section covering Internet news, e-bulletins and other useful links. 285
Site: The Scout Report for Business & Economics URL: http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/report/bus-econ/current/index.html Provider: Internet Scout Project Description: This is published bi-weekly by the Internet Scout Project, Computer Sciences Department, University of Wisconsin-Madison. The Scout Report Signpost at http://www.signpost.org/signpost/ quicksearch.html has around 10,000 summaries from the Scout Report dating from April 1994 to the present, and these have been arranged according to Library of Congress classification. The listings can be browsed by LC classification or by LC subject headings. 286
Site: Tales from the Terminal Room URL: http://www.rba.co.uk/tfttr/index.htm Provider: RBA Information Services Description: Tales from the terminal room is a free electronic newsletter, published monthly, with the exception of July/August when there is a combined issue (ISSN 1467–338X). 287
Site: UK Online User Group URL: http://www.ukolug.org.uk Provider: Institute of Information Scientists Description: The UK Online User Group—a special interest group of the Institute of Information Scientists (http://www.iis.org.uk/)—is the national user group for on-line, CD-ROM and Internet searchers. The UKOLUG Newsletter
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(ISSN 0957–8544) is published bi-monthly and is a useful way of keeping up to date. The newsletter contains sections such as ‘Online’, which includes industry news by company, and there is also a section entitled ‘Internet news’. A meetings calendar lists training courses, seminars and meetings organised by UKOLUG as well as other organisations, such as the Library Association, Aslib, and TFPL, and these include training courses on various aspects of Internet searching. Discussion lists Discussion lists can be a useful way of picking the brains of colleagues in various organisations throughout the world. It is worth choosing carefully which ones to subscribe to, otherwise you can easily be overwhelmed by the number of messages that are posted. A useful tip is to see if the discussion list has a digest feature, which means that you get one email a day containing all postings instead of a separate email for each posting. I mention a couple of useful lists below, but in order to find others— perhaps ones which are more subject specific—a good place to start would be the listing available on BUBL at http://www.bubl.ac.uk/ mail/. 288
Site: Archives of BUSLIB-L URL: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/buslib-l.html Provider: Boise State University Description: BUSLIB-L is an electronic forum that addresses all issues relating to the collection, storage and dissemination of business information within a library setting, regardless of format. When users post a request for assistance—such as whether there are any web sites that would be able to answer a specific question—they are then expected as a matter of etiquette to summarise the responses that they receive. 289
Site: Workplace Libraries URL: http://www.la-hq.org.uk/hot_news/lists.html#Workplace Provider: Library Association Description: This email list is available for information professionals in workplace libraries to keep colleagues informed of activities and share ideas. It is an ideal place to share information about useful resources available on the Web. In order to join the Workplace email list, send the email message: subscribe workplace
to the email address [email protected].
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Training courses Another way of keeping up to date with Internet developments is to attend a training course. The benefit it is not simply listening to an expert in the field running through key developments: it is also the opportunity to network with others who are also interested in keeping up to date in the same field(s) as you. During the breaks for coffee or for lunch you have an ideal opportunity to chat informally with other professionals about the sites that they find most useful, or compare notes about sites that you have recently discovered. 290
Site: Aslib Professional Development Training URL: http://www.aslib.com/training/index.html Provider: Aslib-IMI Description: Aslib provides a wide range of training courses, including a number dealing with internet skills such as: • • • • • • • •
business information on the internet European Union information on the internet government and politics on the internet health and medical information on the internet legal information on the internet social sciences on the internet strategic approaches to internet research using internet search tools Exhibitions
Attending exhibitions is one way of keeping up to date with Internet developments. As a showcase for forthcoming products they can be an early indicator of new developments. There may be free meetings, seminars, or other events which will help visitors to keep up to date with products and services. There is also the opportunity to meet colleagues from other organisations, an ideal way of being able to compare notes about the resources that you use. The exhibition catalogue and/or some of the marketing material available from the exhibitors themselves may contain useful information that can be followed up at a later stage. 291
Site: Internet Librarian International URL: http://www.infotoday.com Provider: Information Today Ltd Description: Internet Librarian International is a library technology fair for libraries and information managers. It takes place alongside the London Book Fair.
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292
Site: Internet World URL: http://www.internetworld.co.uk Provider: Penton Business Media London Ltd Description: Internet World is held in London and a number of other cities such as Dublin and Manchester. There are a number of free seminars across a range of industries, disciplines and every level of experience. 293
Site: Online information URL: http://www.online-information.co.uk Provider: Learned Information Description: The On-line information exhibition held at Olympia every December, is a must for those involved in the management, delivery or use of electronic information. Further reading Allcock, Sue, Plenty, Annette, Webber, Sheila and Yeates, Robin. Business Information and the Internet: Use of the Internet as an Information Resource for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises: Final Report, British Library Research and Innovation Report 136, British Library Research and Innovation Cen- tre, 1999, ISBN 07123 97310 (pdf files of results from the project are available at http:// business.dis.strath.ac.uk/project/final/)
Bradley, Phil (editor). The Business and Economy Internet Resource Handbook, Internet Resource Handbook Series, Library Association Publishing, 2000, ISBN 1 95604 351 7 Lowe, Michael. Business Information at Work, Aslib/IMI, 1999, xix, 327 pp., ISBN 0 85142 403 1 Smith, Gerry. ‘Business information in transition: the Business Information Resources Survey, 2000’, Business Information Review 17/1 (March 2000), pp. 5–21 World Directory of Business Information Websites 1999/2000, 3rd edn, Euromonitor, 1999, ISBN 0 86338 881 7
Alphabetical listing of organisations/ providers
Provider
Entry number
A&E Television Networks Aberdeenshire Council aboutportals.com ABsite ADVFN.com plc AgDomain.com agmachine.com Ltd AllBusiness.com AltaVista Company Analysys Limited Ananova Limited Applegate Media Archeire Aslib-IMI ASPM GmbH Associated New Media Associated Newspapers Ltd Association of MBAs Aurum Funds Limited Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council BBC BECTU Belfast Telegraph Newspapers Ltd Big Charts Inc. Bird-Online.co.uk Limited Bizwise Limited Blakeman, Karen Bloomberg
227 90 3 83 157 113 114 235 266 155 196 109, 224 116 283, 290 50 184 211 252 159 72 197 123 61 51 236 6 8 158
ALPHABETICAL LISTING OF ORGANISATIONS/PROVIDERS
Provider
Entry number
Boise State University Bowes & Associates Inc. Bowker
288 221 280, 284
Bradley, Phil British Chambers of Commerce British Publishing Company Limited British Telecommunications plc British Trade International BUBL Information Service Business Connect Wales business.com Inc. Business Information Zone Limited Business Link Network Company Carter, Sarah CCTA Centre for Enterprise C4U Ltd Charity Commission for England and Wales Chartered Institute of Bankers ChemConnect Inc. ChemIndustry.com Inc. ChemWeb Inc. City of Chester CNN America Inc. Companies House Council of Mortgage Lenders COUNTYWeb.com plc Crain Communications Inc. Cranfield University Library Service Croydon Council DataClarity Datastream/ICV Delphion Department for Education and Employment Department of Trade and Industry Digital Look Ltd Dow Jones & Company Inc.
18 63, 187 76 37, 41 194, 243 31, 64, 136 98 7, 103 249 65 145 69, 247 240 270 48 121 125 126 127 75 160 33, 229 141 34, 66 117 10 77 142 173 256 248 189, 241 161 28, 108, 214, 251
101
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Dun & Bradstreet Dundee and Tayside Chamber of Commerce Dutch Export Consultancy EARL: the consortium for public library networking Earth Systems Inc. East Midlands Network Limited Economist Intelligence Unit eCoustics.com Edinburgh Net Effective Technology Marketing
36 95 190 1, 11 131 78 238 128 91 278
eFinancialNews.com Ltd eHow Inc. EMAP Media Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University EoExchange Inc. Eolas Ernst & Young Eubusiness Ltd Euredit Eurochambres European Commission European Patent Organisation EuropeanInvestor.com Euroseek AG Excite UK Ltd Excite@Home fashionforum.co.uk Limited Federation of Master Builders Federation of Small Businesses Financial Times Limited Finfacts Multimedia Free Pint Limited FTSE Gale Group Glasgow City Council Global Financial Data Global Information Network LLC GlobenetDirect.com Limited
198 239 156 120 271 97 191 200 35 67 246 257 162 215 201 108 132 124 68 55, 56, 230 166 14, 102, 279 167 216 92 57 242 62
ALPHABETICAL LISTING OF ORGANISATIONS/PROVIDERS
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GoInvest.com Grampian Business Directories GTI Ltd Harden, Robert Harden, Sheila Headland Business Information Hemscott.NET group plc Heriot-Watt University Library Hoover’s Inc. ICC Information Ltd iCorporation.com Independent Financial Adviser Promotion Ltd Individual.com Inc. IndustryClick Inc. Infonautics Corporation Information for the Management of Healthcare
13 93 15 71 71 280 58, 144 129, 282 59, 104, 106, 179, 231 32, 43, 228 130 168 202, 264 110 205 137
Information Outpost LLC Information Today InPharm—Internet Services Ltd Institute of Information Scientists Insurance Trading Exchange Ltd, The Interactive Investor International International Federation of Stock Exchanges Internet Scout Project Invest UK InvestorMap.com IRN Isle of Anglesey County Council Islington Chamber of Commerce Islington Council Islington Enterprise Agency ITC Communications ITN Jump just-sites.com Ltd Kemps Publishing Ltd Kings College London Kompass
2 291 148 284, 287 175 169 164 285 243 19 100 99 81 81 81 163 203 73 118, 133, 134, 135 36 21 188
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Law Society of England and Wales Learned Information Leeds City Council Legalease Library Association LinkGuard Local Link Limited London ASPECT London Stock Exchange Ltd Looksmart Marchcom Masse, Christian F. Maydream MD Management Ltd MediaUK.com Ltd Meredith Corporation Miami International Ltd Michigan State University Center for International Business Education and Research Moneyextra plc Moneygator.com Moreover.com Motley Fool Limited
45 281, 293 74 44 289 276 82 244 172 216 52 20 112 213 218 115 30 16 150, 175 176 105, 204, 265 177
Mull and Iona Chamber of Commerce Multex Investor Europe Ltd Nanyang Technological University Library NBCi Net.resources.international NetMechanic Inc. NetMind NET Pressence Inc. NetRead Inc. News Communications and Media plc News Index News Trawler Pty Ltd NewsNow Publishing Ltd Newspaper Society North Down Borough Council North Staffordshire Chamber of Commerce and Industry
94 178 12 267 147 277 272 263 153 143 206 208 207 219 89 85
ALPHABETICAL LISTING OF ORGANISATIONS/PROVIDERS
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Northcote Internet Ltd Northern Light Technology Inc. Northern Lights Internet Solutions Ltd NTD Ltd OANDA Corporation Octopus.com Inc. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities Office.com Inc. OMNI Omnium Communications Limited OnePage.com Inc. Oultwood PA see Ananova Limited Patent and Trademark Office (US) Patent Office Penton Business Media London Ltd Price, Gary Primark Property Intelligence plc PublicFigure.com Inc. Qualisteam RBA Information Services RDNC Research Index Limited Reuters Ltd S9.com Scoot (UK) Limited
60 269 154 87 254 260 192 245 138 165 261 79 259 258 292 107, 232 42 149 233 122 8, 286 21 222 139, 210 225 38
Scottish Enterprise Securities and Exchange Commission Share Issues Limited Sharepages.com Limited Sharepeople Limited Sheffield Hallam University Shift F7 Design Ltd Sift plc SINTO Small Business Service Society of Automotive Engineers
96 54 180 181 182 22 73 32, 111, 151 86 237 119
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SOSIG Special Libraries Association, Business and Finance Division Special Libraries Association, News Division Spyonit.com Inc. Standard & Poor ‘s StartSpot Mediaworks Inc. Strathclyde University Andersonian Library StreetEYELLC Tagish Ltd Tarsus Martex plc Telegraph Group Limited Templeman Library, University of Canterbury TheStreet.com Europe Ltd Thomson Directories TotalNEWS Inc Trade Partners UK Traffick.com Trask, Stephen TrustNet Limited UK-iNvest.com Limited UK Network of Euro Info Centres UK Office for Library and Information Networking UK Online User Group University of Bristol University of California, Irvine Libraries University of Kent at Canterbury, Templeman Library University of Kentucky University of Liverpool University of Michigan School of Information University of Northumbria at Newcastle
23 24 209 273 174 226 31, 64, 136 25 70 101 199 145 183 39 212 193, 243 4 217 185 186 195 21
University of Strathclyde. Department of Information Science URLy Warning.com Inc. US Patent and Trademark Office Venables, Delia Vert Tech LLC VNU Business Publishing Limited UK Virginbiz.net Waterlow Specialist Information Publishing Ltd
9 274 259 146 26 46 250 47
287 5 223 145 27 84 17 275
ALPHABETICAL LISTING OF ORGANISATIONS/PROVIDERS
Web Wombat Pty Ltd Webber, Sheila Websense Inc. J.Whitaker & Sons Ltd WIN-IT Ltd Winthrop Corporation Work.com Worldwide Info Search WWW Virtual Library Xenon Laboratories Incorporated xrefer.com Ltd Yahoo! Inc. Yodlee Inc. YorkshireNet Zap! International Limited zpub.com
220 9 40 152 170 53 108, 251 190 29 255 234 140, 253, 268 262 80, 88 171 49
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Subject index
Subject
Entry number
Aberdeen Aberdeenshire Accountancy Accountancy firms Advertising Aerospace AFX News Agriculture Alternative Investment Market Anglesey, Isle of Annual reports Architecture Auditors Automotive Aviation Banking Banks Barnsley Basingstoke Biographical information Brighton Broadcasting Broken links Building Building societies Business Links Business Wire Central government
90, 93 90 10, 45, 111 46, 47 112, 212 120 162, 169, 192, 196 29, 109, 110, 113–115 172 99 10, 49, 50, 52, 60 22, 116 58 117–119, 205, 216, 222 120 12, 15, 121–122, 198 31, 121–122, 163 86 72 224–234 87 123 275–277 124 31, 163, 176, 197 65, 241 162 69, 70 108
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Subject
Entry number
Chambers of commerce Charities Chemical Chester Churches
63, 67 31, 48 125–127 75 31
Civil engineering Commodities Company directories Company financials Construction Consumer electronics Corporate advisers Councillors Country information Credit cards Croydon Currency converters Current awareness services Demographic data Derbyshire Directors Discussion lists Doncaster Dundee East Midlands E-business Economic information Edinburgh Educational establishments Electronics Embassies Engineering Entertainment Environment Euro Euro Info Centres Exchange rates see Currency Converters Exhibitions
22 57, 122, 173, 197 8, 9 8, 9, 10 22, 124 128 58 79 9, 238 169, 175–176 77 8, 34, 254–255 9, Chapter 13 55 86 32–33, 58, 228–229 9, 23 86 95 78 238 5, 17 91 31 22, 109, 128 70 22, 29, 129 110, 123 131 121 195 291–293
110 SUBJECT INDEX
Export controls Exports Farm equipment Fashion Film production Financial information Glasgow Grampian Guernsey Health Healthcare
189 9, 187–195 114 132–133 123 13 92 93 64 136–140 137, 148
Hebrides Hospitals House prices Housing market Hove Human resources Information technology Insurance Interest rates International Money Marketing Investment managers Investment trusts IPOs ISAs Islington Jersey Law Law firms Leeds Libraries Liverpool Loans (personal) Local government Management consultants Market research companies Marketing Media Merseyside
97 31, 140 141 141 87 241, 245 207, 241, 245, 250 18, 142–143, 169, 175, 184 8 169 163 58, 159, 169, 174, 183, 185–186 162 159, 169, 175, 186 81 64 21, 29, 144–146, 251 44–45 74 71, 250 84 176 69–70, 79 10 8–9 110 31, 110 84
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Mining Money Marketing Moneywise Mortgages Mull and Iona Museums Newcastle News information North Derbyshire North Staffordshire Northern Ireland Oil and gas Offshore funds
147 169 169 141, 150, 158, 169, 175 176, 184 94 31 76 8–9, 196–214, 263–264 86 85 61, 64, 89 93, 109 174
Open general licences Partnerships Patents Pension funds Pensions People see Biographical information PEPs Personal finance Personal loans Pharmaceutical industry Plastics Police Political parties Portals Postcodes PR Newswire Project management Property Public procurement Publishing Quotations Rail timetables Recruitment services Regulatory News Service Rotherham Rubber
189 43–47 256–259 174, 183 169, 184, 186, 197 169, 175 11, 160, 169, 175–176, 184, 186, 268 176 148 109, 125 31 66 3–29 8 162 10 58, 149–151 192, 246 152–154 234 8 109, 132, 142 181 86 109
112 SUBJECT INDEX
Scotland Sheffield Small businesses
64, 90–97 86 24, 68, 195, 199, 237, 240–241, 244, 250– 251, 279 86 page 39 31 85 182
South Yorkshire Special interest groups Sports authorities Staffordshire Standard & Poor’s Concise Fund Research Statistical information Stock exchanges Stockbrokers Street maps Swindon Tax
8–9, 22, 55, 100 8, 12, 18, 52, 122, 162– 164, 172 58, 180 8 73 11, 32, 111, 166, 169, 175, 184, 187, 191
Tayside TechMARK Telecommunications Telephone directories Tenders Textiles Tracking web site changes Trade associations Tradenames Training Unit trusts Wales Yorkshire
95 172 110, 155–156 8,18 192 132 270–274 100–101 188 11, 81, 99, 111, 187, 241, 248–249 159, 169, 174, 182, 185– 186 98–99 74, 80, 86, 88
GLOSSARY
Enterprise Information Portals
EIPs, or intranet portals, enable users to access external information from the Web with a company’s proprietary intranet content, and they combine the search results into a single interface. They ‘use internet protocols and the Web metaphor to provide effective access to information across the enterprise’ (‘Enterprise information portals: an information industry perspective’, Martin White, 2000, http://www.intranetfocus.com/Portals/Portals_Paper/portals_paper.html). Portals
The word portal is used to describe a starting point for research on the Internet. Portals usually have a subject focus, such as the Social Science Information Gateway (SOSIG) (http://www.sosig.ac.uk); an industry focus, such as Mining Technology (http://www.mining-technology.com) for the mining industry; or they are a general starting point for research on the Web, such as Yahoo (http:// www.yahoo.co.uk). Push Technology
Push technology automates the search and retrieval function based on user defined criteria. A push application automatically searches a database for specific information and delivers it where the user directs, often as an email alert. The opposite of push technology is pull technology where the user has to make a point of checking whether there is any new information matching their interests, unlike push technology which does this automatically and alerts the user when new material has been identified. Startals
GTI Start (http://www.gtistart.com) refers to itself as a ‘startal’, which it defines as follows: ‘unlike the large (often bloated) portal sites a startal doesn’t try to index the entire Internet, instead it only lists the very best sites and content the Internet has to offer’ (see http://www.gtistart.com/ about /index.htm). Vortals
‘Vortals’ refers to vertical portals, defined on Traffick.com as follows: Vertical or niche portals are what we might have called web sites in the past. Today, however, certain category-leading web sites in a given topical
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category, or catering to a given demographic, are such significant players that many call them portals. The list of very popular and economically significant vertical portals is growing rapidly…. By contrastr portals are general interest portals covering a wide range of topics and features, such as Yahoo! or Lycos. (FAQs at http:// www.traffick.com/story/07–2000portalfaq.asp)
