Today’s Byte is a hodge podge of sites that I think are fun and/or useful.
Deep Web Research 2005 – this is a great article from a librarian about the “deep web”, which the author describes as the 600 billion pages of information located through the world wide web in various files and formats that the current search engines on the Internet either cannot find or have difficulty accessing. (Currently search engines find about 8 billion pages.)
EurekAlert – this is a list of the top science stories by EurekAlert in 2004. It includes an ancient brewery discovered on a mountain top in Peru. (Thanks to Sheldon in Minneapolis for this lead.)
Wikipedia – this is an encyclopedia written by everyone for everyone. You can search the encyclopedia without logging in. The entries include links on every word that could be expanded and links to external pages when helpful. You need to log in to edit or add to an entry. Registration is free.
Today’s Byte is for anyone who needs to know about a business for a job interview, for a competitive advantage, to make an investment choice, or any other reason. The Internet is a great place to learn more about a company. Here is a short course on how to start competitive intelligence online:
1. Look for the company web site using a search engine such as Google. Use the company, product or service name. From the web site you can generally learn:
” The company purpose
” History, location, and staff members
” Future plans through press releases, letters from the president or investor notes
” You might even get a customer list from a clients or testimonials page
2. Look for recent news and press releases on Google News. Google News is better for press releases than news.
3. Check your local newspaper (especially if the company is local) and/or local library for access to local newspapers to so a search for more news on the company.
4. Check out stock information (if it’s a public company). You can start at Yahoo Finance or jump right into the Securities and Exchange Commission site, EDGAR.
5. See what regular people are saying about your company by doing a search with one of the following tools:
Look at the newsgroups: http://groups.google.com/
Look at blogs & RSS feeds: http://www.faganfinder.com/blogs/
Look at who links to them: http://www.lilnkpopularity.com
Check out these sources and you should have a pretty good view of the company in question.
(Today’s Byte is for folks with a web site.) For years I have seen the Bravenet tools on the web. This week I actually looked at the Bravenet services. Here’s what I learned:
Bravenet has tools that you can cut and paste into your web site, such as guest books, forms, clip art, and more. They seem to have a free version of everything and/or you can upgrade to their fee-based service. They even host free web sites.
To use their service, you have to sign in and then they will give you the html code for the application you want for you to copy and paste that into your site. You can manage your application from their web site. (So for example you can see the results of on online poll on your password protected portion of their site.)
I signed up. It was pretty easy and I don’t seem to be deluged with extra spam. I signed up to get a mailing list. So, far it seems to work well. Visitors to the site can sign up for their newsletter online. The client can manage the service from the Bravenet site. The only downside is that the list is clearly branded for Bravenet.
I think the Bravenet free services are good for a hobby or maybe nonprofit site. The Bravenet branding distracts from use for a professional site. The fee-based service is very reasonable. (For the tech lovers in the crowd the applications I have seen have been in php.) Usually I would opt to code something specifically for a site but there are times or sites where that doesn’t make sense. In those cases I think Bravenet is a good alternative.
I love when the Internet can help us save time or do things better in our real life. I have found a couple of sites that will help you recycle, donate, or barter stuff you don’t want.
Freecycle
They link to a number of local discussion lists where members post items that they are willing to give away. The bad news is you have to join Yahoo Groups to see the posts. The good news is that (at least in the Twin Cities) the groups look very active.
Craig’s List
There are Craig’s Lists all around the world. The link above goes to the Minneapolis-based site but there are links on the right to other sites. Each Craig’s List has a “for sale” and “free” section. Visitors post notes on things they want to buy, sell, barter or give. Again, these groups are very active.
ABC Free
This is a national site where people post items that they want to give or get. You can search by keyword and/or location. The spin here is that local schools get to see the free stuff before anyone else – so it benefits schools.
