Free v. Fee: Resources for Competitive Intelligence (Part 2)

This is Part 2 of a 3 part series and it takes a look at the advantages and limitations of free Web resources for competitive intelligence. Free resources abound on the open Web, and while they do offer some advantages they also have limitations on what is actually considered free.

The most obvious yet perhaps often overlooked resource for company information is the Website of the company and can generally be found via a Google search or educated guess of the URL for the company. While arguably the company's site may be mostly marketing in nature, often valuable and accurate information such as names of the executives, phone number, address etc. can be gleaned from the site.

Company directories are abundant on the free Web. Dun and Bradstreet offers a free search to quickly determine if a company has a report on file before paying for it either directly on the site or getting it via the gateway on Lexis or Westlaw.  One can also get free basic directory information on companies from Hoovers and  ThomasNet. Secretary of State business filings are also a great resource for company information. LLRX.com Directory of Business Filings provides an excellent and regularly updated directory of links to the Websites for all 50 States business filings. All of these resources are great starting points for free, albeit limited, information on companies. The more detailed information contained in business filings will incur a cost, albeit generally reasonable, and may require a subscription or payment by credit card for access.

If you are seeking information on a non-profit company try Guidestar. It is a wonderful resource for information on not for profits which includes free basic directory information and access (requires registration) to the form 990s for the company.

Website directories for company research are also abundant on the Web. Zimmerman's Research Guide offers a great article on company information which provides links to all of the resources discussed. Similarly, the Justia.com business research page offers a directory of links to resources for news, executives, ratings, filings, and watchdog groups for businesses.

Clearly, the Web offers plenty of free options for competitive research but the term free is not always as straight forward as it may seem. Often, the "free" resources are very limited in what they actually offer at no cost. But if you are prepared to hit a pay-wall at some point and understand the limitations of "free" these resources can provide a great foundation for the first phase of your company research.

Next up will be Part 3 where we'll cover Web-based  databases accessible via many public libraries resources.

Education Really Does Pay!

And nothing illustrates it better than this Bureau of Labor Statistics graph on the U.S. Department of Labor Website. Powerful proof!

Mobile Member Guide for the 112th Congress

Click here for details about this new app from the GPO. To access the app on your mobile device, go to http://m.gpo.gov/memberguide.

Supported Devices

• iPad or iPhone (iOS 4.3.3 or higher)
• Android devices (Android 2.1 or higher)
• Blackberry devices (Blackberry 6.0 or higher)

Free v. Fee: Resources for Competitive Intelligence (Part 1)

This is part 1 of a 3 part series on free v. fee based resources for competitive intelligence research. Part 1 showcases single search fee-based resources. Part 2 will take a look at the advantages and limitations of truly free Web resources. Part 3 will take a look at Web-based database resources accessible from most local public libraries.

One might argue that there are a plethora of free resources on the Web for competitive intelligence, and it would be hard to dispute that fact. The drawback is that free resources are quite disparate, require the researcher to interact with multiple resources one by one, contain information that may not be reliable, and have true limits on content that is actually free. So are truly free resources your best bet, especially if you are under a big time crunch?

There are several fee-based single search resources available among the big legal vendors that given the relatively low cost for a single search of multiple databases the cost may outweigh the time needed to do the research in multiple "free" Web resources. Lexis offers pay-as-you go access to SmartLinx Reports for businesses, locations, or persons. Similarly, West offers pay-as-you go subsriptions or flat-rate contracts for accessing business reports via either the Thomson Reuters Accelus platform or directly on Westlaw.com, and PeopleMap on Westlaw is an excellent single search resource for uncovering individuals. Most of these resources cost around $100 to search and may or may not also have an additional cost to download the report. Thus, care should be taken on their use depending on a client's ability to pay for the reports or your individual firm policy on treating these one-off services as overhead.

Nonetheless, if you're like most researchers your time is valuable and the ability to quickly locate infomation on a company or person may be vitally important, so the cost of the reports should be weighed against the hourly billing rate you would incur for searching the free disparate resources on the open Web.

Free Congressional Record App Available

You can now easily read the Congressional Record on your iPad. The app can be downloaded here for free from the iTunes store.

Not only will you save a ton of paper (i.e. trees) and acccording to the description on iTunes with this app you can also:
- Browse editions of the Congressional Record by date: January 4, 1995 (the 104th Congress, 1st Session) to the present
- Perform keyword searches within individual documents or sections within documents
- Share documents via email
- Save documents to your preferred iPad PDF reader
- Identify the latest bills and resolutions considered daily on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives
- Identify the latest bills, resolutions, treaties, and nominations considered daily on the floor of the U.S. Senate

Top iPad and IPhone Apps for Lawyers

This article from Attorney at Work provides a must see list of the top Apps for lawyers and includes a bonus link to a PDF of more than 30 top iPhone and iPad Apps. How many of them do you have on your device?

Librarian Recommended Apps for Lawyers plus a new one!

Wonderful suggestions of Apps for Lawyers-of course they would be since they are recommended by a Librarian! Plus the just released Lexis Advance App!