Internet Sources of Marketing Information



Internet Sources of Marketing Information

Directory with categorized and indexed results

One of the original search engines, Provides tons of results and has an easy to use search tool

Very good for business research purposes (subscription required)

Now owned by Terra-Lycos and is a secondary web search engine. It performs multi-search of Inktomi, Google, Ask Jeeves

Started as a project at Stanford, now it’s a verb meaning to search the internet

Corporate Websites.

When looking for information, you have to look at the company’s own website! IT can provide a wealth of information about what the company is currently doing in the marketplace. Remember that corporate websites are also designed to lure investors and often provide a great deal of investment-level information just for that purpose. Don’t expect to find any company secrets, though!

The vast majority of corporate websites have bought their own corporate domain name (e.g. , , ). Others use abbreviated versions of the company name (Procter & Gamble is and Ben and Jerry’s is )

Government

The government, both federal and state levels, collects a great deal of information about companies and industries. This information has always been available in the government references section of your university library. Now, the government has done an admirable job of creating access to this information via Internet sources! Here are a few of the useful government sites.

The commerce department website contains useful legislative information pertinent to the external environment.

The CIA World Factbook is an excellent resource for international information.

The Census bureau details economic and social descriptors.

Fedstats offers statistics from more than 70 federal agencies at one location.

The Library of Congress is a vault of information about a great many subjects.

The Department of Labor homepage links to labor information including the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Business Publications

Because business publications focus their reporting eyes on the business world, they are an excellent source for information about companies and today’s marketplace. Almost all the major business publications have websites that include stories from the current issue as well as some archives that can be searched. A few of the sites do require a membership to search their archives.

Access to the type of news, articles, and information that Forbes is known for

Links to the Time magazine homepage and is a portal to Time Inc.’s magazines such as and

The world of advertising is at your mouse click with Advertising Age’s website,

Home of Adweek and linked to its partners Brandweek and Mediaweek

American Demographics magazine and its wealth of statistical data

The publishers of The Wall Street Journal bring your business news in the WSJ tradition.

The popular sales publication offers articles online. A magazine subscription is needed to search the online archives.

Internet-related issues are featured in the Web version of the E-commerce magazine.

Some of the articles are subscription only, but there is some good free information.

More than just college rankings, the online version of the U.S. News and World Report is a wealth of information.

Barrons online presents some market information for free and full text versions of the print version to subscribers.

Enter a company name into the search box on the Companies Online site and get information about the company plus a series of links that relate to the company and its products.

Newspapers

Major newspapers have also made their presence known on the World Wide Web. Because they focus exclusively on news, they are an excellent online source of business information. While the major newspapers carry a good deal of national information, more regionalized newspapers focus on the business news in their immediate geographic region. Matching a company’s headquarters with its local newspaper may result in more information than looking only at the large national papers.

National Papers

America’s newspaper has a user-friendly site that contains all the major business news

The business newspaper is a subscription based service that has archives of its articles online. It might be a good idea to subscribe while you are in college.

This news-only search engine looks through more than 250 online newspapers and retrieves all matches to your search request.

Large City Papers

The New York Times maintains its class and informative content online.

The windy city’s newspaper makes it easy to search and find corporate information.

From the nation’s capital, the Washington Post is rich in politically based business news

International Papers

sunday-times.co.uk Get an international flavor by searching through London’s source of business information.

If you want international business information you must look at the Financial Times.

Regional Papers



Regional newspapers are listed by the state in which they are published.

General Business Sites

In addition to print media and newspapers, there are a number of websites that provide researchers and investors with very timely and in-depth business information. These sites provide news headlines and also allow the researcher to search the site using key words.

Possibly the best business information site on the Web. Great information from the business search functions plus a business directory that links the researcher to even more business information!

The financial branch of the news network provides up-to-the-minute information about the marketplace and companies.

This joint venture between Microsoft and NBC television has both event news and business information.

ADNet provides business information that focuses on technology firms and advances

Compilation Sites

The following are sites that have been created and maintained as resources for business-based research.



The Michigan State University Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER) maintains a directory of international Web resources.

lib.umich.edu/govdocs/stats.html

The University of Michigan’s Document Center maintains a listing of Web-based statistical resources.

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download