Manta.com Adds In-Depth Profiles

Manta.com, the business information Web site operated by ECNext, this month announced the availability of in-depth company profiles of more than 45 million companies--both public and private U.S.-based and international organizations.

Manta.com aggregated several sources of information about each featured company into these complete profiles. The profiles include overviews, analysis, deeper executive profiles, emerging trends and opportunities, press announcements and news coverage. Users don't purchase a subscription to Manta.com. Instead, they pay only for the content they want.

Manta.com also offers access to company news, industry analysis, contact information and job postings. The site recently added a community feature that enables site visitors to add content to company information.

These new company profiles are a perfect--and necessary--addition to Manta.com. While Manta.com is geared toward individuals who can't or won't purchase an expensive business information subscription, these customers still want the same type of content. Manta.com has to offer similar content offerings to remain competitive and give customers a reason to try Manta.com, make that initial purchase--and return.

Jigsaw Launches Two New Offerings

Jigsaw last week announced the release of two new offerings, Jigsaw Clean and Jigsaw Team. Jigsaw Clean is a subscription-based service that automatically and regularly cleans, maintains and builds the data in corporate CRM systems. It scans a company's CRM database to update and augment out-of-date contact information. It then finds, flags and deletes dead records by comparing the database to records in the Jigsaw graveyard, which contains more than 1 million contacts. Jigsaw Clean also automatically identifies and removes duplicate records; and by using the Jigsaw directory, it updates inaccurate data and augments incomplete records with up-to-date information (direct-dial phone numbers, email addresses and titles).

Jigsaw Team is a subscription-based service that lets employees acquire contact information in bulk from Jigsaw and share it across their teams. It uses Jigsaw's online directory of more than 6.5 million business contacts to import contacts into CRM systems. The contact information users access from the directory includes a person's name, title, company name and address, direct-dial phone number and email address. The data can be integrated in CRM systems such as Salesforce.com, Oracle and Siebel, so team members can track their progress.

Both Jigsaw Clean and Jigsaw Team are interesting new offerings that really address market needs. Data cleansing is a necessary function, but not traditionally an easy one. Sales and marketing professionals know that their data isn't always the most accurate, but can't always find the time to clean it. Jigsaw Clean seems to be a very user-friendly service that will, at least at first, attract current Jigsaw users.

As an extension of Jigsaw Clean, Jigsaw Team will ensure that everyone within an organization who needs access to accurate business contact data will have it. This could be just what companies (especially sales organizations) need to gain a competitive advantage in their marketplaces. Integrating the service into these main CRM systems is a crucial function--and one that will likely motivate business professionals to give Jigsaw Team a try. Jigsaw Team also seems to be a easy-to-use offering, which should be another positive factor as Jigsaw markets its potential and current customers.

A Thomas Merger

Thomas Technology Solutions and ThomComp Inc., integrators for ThomasNet.com, are being combined into a single business unit--Content Data Solutions Inc.--effective Oct. 1. The new company will continue to be a wholly owned subsidiary of Thomas Publishing Company, which publishes the Thomas Register.

ThomasTech and ThomComp were previously sister companies. Their merger won't yield any changes to their product offerings. Combined, they will continue to provide prepress and content management solutions to publishers, manufacturers and other industries, as well as the Digital Publishing Website Solution, Directory Publishing Solution and Database Extract Tool.

This merger is definitely a good move by the parent company; and a move that should really have taken place a long time ago. In addition to the same parent, both companies competed in the same market with overlapping services and their headquarters were fairly close as well. By combining their efforts, the new Content Data Solutions Inc. will have an immediately strong presence in the marketplace. Customers will most likely get even more robust services as a result of the melding of both companies' capabilities. In addition, Thomas may be able to yield some cost savings in the process if the merger involves eliminating some redundancies (particularly in back office functions).

infoUSA to create new U.K. business database

infoUSA has announced that it will compile a business database containing all businesses in the U.K. The company plans to create the database by culling information from a collection of publicly available sources and by conducting between 2 and 3 million telephone surveys each year to help populate data in the entries with proprietary information. That information will include a company's trading address, name of the owner or manager, number of employees per location, web site address (URL), years established and whether the company is a single location or part of a larger organization.

infoUSA plans to compile all of the information for this new database in its Manchester (U.K.) facility, eliminating the need for outsourced help. Customers of a variety of sizes will be able to purchase the database in a variety of forms, from customized list products and online access to subscription services and license agreements to value added resellers.

A database of this kind is an absolute necessity as more and more businesses go global, especially due to the Internet. There is no doubt an eager market for this particular product and chances are that infoUSA will continue to create databases for regions it doesn’t currently cover.

It's also nice to see infoUSA taking the initiative to create the database on its own--using its own in-house resources to compile this extensive data. Knowing that the company plans to use such an enormous number of surveys to compile the data is a comforting thought and it really emphasizes infoUSA's commitment to accuracy. This entire initiative is impressive because creating such a complete database from scratch is such a large undertaking. It seems like many new databases today are just cobbled together from many disparate sources. This seems to be an incredibly organized effort that will most likely produce a quality product.

Alacra Launches Research Service

Online business information solution provider Alacra Inc. this week launched Research Recap, a resource geared toward the investment community and professional services firms. The site is built on a blogging platform and identifies, highlights and links to top research reports issued daily by industry and financial analysts, professional services firms and governmental agencies. Access is free, but paid content (which is password-protected) is also available.

Among the research reports Research Recap will initially track are Academic Research, Credit Research, Economic Research, Equity Research, Industry Research, Market Research and Public Sector. RSS feeds are available for each category. Users can search by keyword, company name or other terms to access an archive of posts with links to the original reports.

Research Recap editors determine what content to post depending on what they feel is the most relevant to customers. Some posts are related to current news or market events, while others address specific business trends. For instance, during the pre-launch beta phase, Research Recap featured research about the sub-prime mortgage crisis from sources such as Moody's, CreditSights, the International Monetary Fund, Oxford Analytics and PIMCO.

This is a really interesting concept. With the clutter of information available on the web, having one site dedicated to aggregating these often-lengthy reports into an organized and easy to search and find fashion will undoubtedly be valuable to many customers. Many users prefer to receive the bulk of their information in one place and Research Recap has been designed to become such a destination. While many users will likely know the kind of information they are looking for, chances are they will eventually welcome input from Research Recap editors on the latest news and trends they need to gain knowledge about.