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Major Sources of Business Information on the Internet |
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Business Information Home Page
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Please note: this is an archive copy of an article that was originally written for Freepint in November 1997. The information and links that it contains will not be updated. It provides an interesting snapshot of business information resources and the major search tools of the time. If, a couple of years ago, you mentioned the Internet as a source of free business information you would be greeted with howls of hysterical laughter followed by "You CANNOT be serious?". Today, the story is very different. In fact many of us now use the Web as our first port of call. That is not to say that everything is hunky-dory on the Net. There remain sites that offer incomplete, out of date and highly suspect information so you have to keep your wits about you. And then there is the problem of finding them in the first place! Search engines can get you there eventually, but it does help to have the addresses of some key sites to hand. What I have brought together here is a small, unashamedly UK biased selection from my own personal list of favourites. I have concentrated on free sites but mentioned a few worth-while priced services. Disclaimer: The following addresses were valid at the time of writing (November 1997), but they could change at any time. Neither can I guarantee the accuracy, reliability or quality of the information that you may find: things change very quickly on the Net as does the content of Web pages - and not always for the better.
GatewaysGateways are collections of links to other sites, usually covering a specific subject area or geographical region. RBA Information Services: Business Sources (http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/index.htm) Yahoo - Business and Economy Section (http://www.yahoo.co.uk/Business_and_Economy/) EMIC Information for Exporters (http://dtiinfo1.dti.gov.uk/OTS/EMIC/WEBPAGES/www.html)
Company financials and share pricesMany business people use the Net for share prices and company financials. Free share prices are delayed by at least 20 minutes, but you can obtain real-time prices at relatively low subscription rates. For a list of links to stock exchanges across the world try Qualisteam on http://www.qualisteam.com/eng/act.html, or the Financial Times on http://www.ft.com/ The FT also gives 20 minute delayed stock prices for UK listed companies plus some brief financials. One of the most popular services is Hemmington Scott (http://www.hemscott.co.uk/hemscott/) which covers UK listed companies. DataStream (http://www.datastream.com/) now gives free end of day quotes for 32,000 equities world-wide. More information plus share price graphs can be found on the related Market Eye pages (http://www.market-eye.co.uk/). If you are looking for reliable UK company accounts data, and you need it yesterday, go straight to ICC (http://www.icc.co.uk/). This is a priced service but you can be sure that if the company has a legal obligation to present accounts to Companies House, it will be in the ICC database. For US stock exchange listed companies, you can find two years of accounts on EDGAR (http://www.sec.gov/edgarhp.htm). For share prices try PC Quote (http://www.pcquote.com/)or QuoteCom (http://www.quote.com/)
NewsVirtually every major newspaper and magazine has a web site of some sort. Many of them are marketing sites and have only a couple of top stories from the current issue. Few provide the whole issue online, and even fewer have a searchable archive. Newslink (http://www.newslink.org/news.html) and News Resources (http://newo.com/news/) have links into the majority of news services. Internet newspapers can be a great way of keeping up with the latest events in other countries, but the downside is that they are often in the original language of publication. So brush up your French, German, Italian, Hungarian, Russian, Japanese........ Some UK papers worth reading online for free:
DirectoriesSome directories on the Web are designed to be part of a marketing site for a printed directory or subscription based service, so do check coverage and currency. If you are looking for telephone directories try Worldpages (http://www.worldpages.com/global.html) or Telephone Directories on the Web (http://www.contractjobs.com/tel/). For UK business listings you have a choice of three:
Conspicuous by its absence is BT's UK residential directory. There are two sites which claim to provide a UK White Pages but they are of doubtful provenance and not to be recommended.
StatisticsThe official national statistical offices are the obvious place to try if you are looking for country specific statistics. The UK Office of National Statistics (http://www.ons.gov.uk/) has a section called UK in figures and links to other countries' official statistics pages. Another good starting point is the Statistical Data Locators (http://www.ntu.ac.sg/ntu/lib/statdata.htm) That good old standby, the CIA World Factbook is available in full at http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/, as is the Handbook of Economic Statistics. For the EU, the Eurostat Facts Through Figures is at http://europa.eu.int/en/com/eurostat/serven/part2/21p2.htm.
Market DataSo you are looking for market information for widgets in Portugal? Where better to look than the Web since most Market Research companies have a home page. The results from your search engine may look good but wait until you connect to the sites. Then you find that they have exactly the information you need but at a price :-(. More often than not, you will have to pay for reliable, up-to-date, detailed market information. One of the most respected providers of business information is IAC. They have two Web versions of their databases: IAC InSite (http://www.iac-insite.com/) and InSite Pro (http://www.insitepro.com/). Both are well designed, quality sites: the bad news is that you have to pay to use them. But if you are going to be a heavy user of this type of information, it may be worth it and you could save yourself days of fruitless searching.
Search ToolsAnd Finally .... if you still haven't found what you need, it's time to tackle the search engines. Here are a handful to get you started:
Good Hunting ! |
| This page was last updated on 8 August, 2006 | Copyright
© 1997 Karen Blakeman. All rights reserved |