FirstRain: a New Way to Consume News
Jinfo Blog

By Perrin Kerravala

Abstract

FirstRain is an analytics company based in Silicon Valley which delivers targeted intelligence on businesses, industries and executives. Following her recent Mini Review, Perrin Kerravala suggests that FirstRain can offer an alternative to the Big Three news content providers. A web and social content aggregator, the platform uses big data analytics to give users a window into the business web.

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Buyers of news content, take note: you might have an option other than the Big Three. As followers of the recent FreePint Topic Series: Beyond Aggregation may know, rumours of changes to Factiva/DJX (see latest FreePint comment) are causing many content purchasers to reconsider their own news requirements and products. If your firm is considering a different way of consuming news, then my recent Mini Review of FirstRain is required reading.

A Window into the Business Web

FirstRain is a web and social content aggregator, specialising in delivering company, industry and business intelligence to sales and marketing professionals in diverse corporations. The company does a great job of identifying and classifying online content of business value. The platform tracks the latest 90 days worth of English-language articles, press releases and documents from the web and Twitter (and other languages from 2014). Using big data analytics, FirstRain gives users a window into the business web, while filtering out the noise and risk of untrustworthy, questionable content.

Customer-Focused Solutions

What makes FirstRain particularly notable is its highly customer-focused deployment solutions. FirstRain puts a lot of emphasis on making content easy to find and use, by delivering it directly through their clients’ own systems. This means FirstRain can be integrated into most Customer Relationship Management databases, such as Salesforce, or collaboration portals like SharePoint. Other options include apps for iPad, iPhone and Android.

Easy Set Up and Mobile Apps Loved by Users

FirstRain won’t be for everyone. It doesn’t have licensed, full-text content from commercial scientific and engineering journals. It doesn’t have paywall-blocked archival content from popular publications like The Wall Street Journal. But it will deliver abstracts and headlines from those sources, as well as the full-text from thousands of other web publications. It also has portal integration that is easy to set up, mobile apps that users love, and functionality that delivers results with barely any training.

FreePint Subscribers can find details on FirstRain’s latest and upcoming customisable solutions in FreePint’s Mini Review of FirstRain.

Editor's Note: Beyond Aggregation  

This article is part of the FreePint Topic Series: Beyond Aggregation, which runs from October to November 2013. Register your interest, and you'll get pre-notification of when registration opens for any webinars in this series, as well as a free copy of the FreePint Report: Buyer's Guide on News Content when we publish in November.

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