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.
RBI Expands Presence in Aviation Market
Reed Business Information (RBI), a unit of Reed Business and Reed Elsevier, has acquired Commercial Aviation Report and Commercial Aviation Value Report from London-based Commercial Aviation Media (CAM). RBI will integrate the titles into its Flight portfolio, which contains Flight International and Airline Business magazines, the http://www.flightglobal.com/ web portal, the Air Transport Intelligence (ATI) service and the ACAS fleet database.
RBI plans to cease publishing CAM's magazines in print and will transition the publications online to complement Flight's ATI news and data service. The publications will be rebranded as Flight Commercial Aviation Online and will cover the latest aircraft deal transactions, new aircraft and airline financings, analysis of airline financials, expert industry comment and financial gossip from the aviation market. In addition, Flight will will also benefit from PBI's new ownership of CAM events--The U.S. Valuation Conference and The European Aviation Conference. Flight already manages several aviation conferences, including the Network series and the new Asian Aerospace Congress.
RBI also plans to tap into CAM leadership. Laura Mueller and Olivier Bonnassies, who edited and published CAM's magazines will join RBI and report to Flight’s managing editor Andrew Doyle at Flight's U.K. headquarters.
This deal effectively expands RBI's presence in the aviation market by combining Flight's expertise in the aerospace industry with CAM's knowledge of the air finance market. It would certainly have been too great a challenge to create CAM's content on its own; and purchasing a well-established brand is usually a good move. With the market recognition and deep pockets that RBI can provide, look for the entire CAM portfolio to be enhanced in features and functionality going forward.
It's interesting that RBI is abandoning the print products so quickly, but company officials must feel strongly that this market would be better served (and perhaps prefer) to access its content through the online ATI service. If anything, it's a smart cost-saving move.
Idearc To Acquire InfoSpace Directories
Idearc Inc., which owns Superpages.com and is the publisher of the Verizon Yellow Pages announced plans this week to acquire Switchboard.com and additional online directory properties from InfoSpace Inc. at a price of $225 million. Idearc will assume Switchboard.com's existing distribution network.
According to comScore's Media Matrix, Superpages.com's network had 21.3 million unique visitors and InfoSpace Directories and Resources had 7.7 million unique visitors in August 2007. Superpages.com had more than 2.8 billion network searches in 2006.
Idearc officials outlined in a press release announcing the deal that the company expects to increase the scale of its local search platform to help advertisers reach an even larger group of customers.
This acquisition was definitely a good move by Idearc since it will simply help Superpages.com solidify its position as a leader among Internet yellow pages sites. More advertisers will likely be drawn to Superpages.com because of its even greater reach. It will be interesting to see if Superpages.com bolsters the features and functionality of its offerings as well. It will also be interesting to see what happens to InfoSpace now that it has left this 'space.' InfoSpace had only acquired Switchboard in 2004 (for a $160 million price tag).
Facebook Meets Google
Facebook has announced that public search listings will be freely accessible on the Web--meaning individuals who are not logged on to Facebook will be able to view Facebook profiles when they search for another individual via a general search engine. According to Facebook, these publish search listings display less information than a Facebook user could access and that Facebook members will be able to control the viewing of their listings. If they don't want it to be accessible outside the Facebook network, they can adjust their search privacy settings.
Facebook gave its members a one-month notice about the new public search capability to ensure that they were comfortable with their profiles "going public." This certainly isn't a revolutionary idea. It's one that has been successfully embraced by both ZoomInfo and LinkedIn.
Still, there's no doubt this new search function will help individuals find each other when they use more general search engines like Google. But it will also serve to add more attention--free publicity--to Facebook with every search conducted. That's most likely the main reason behind this. However, it would see that the ultimate reason people create profiles on services such as LinkedIn and Facebook is to be found. Such an addition to Facebook was invevitable.