Northern Light SinglePoint - Taking Strategic Research Further
Jinfo Blog

By Norma Beavers

Abstract

Our latest product review takes an in-depth look at Northern Light's SinglePoint strategic research portal which is designed to to give company teams easy access to robust internal and external information sources - all from a single interface.

Item

Northern Light has built its reputation on having an extensive and practical knowledge of information and how information such as client-generated market research, internal information and subscription sources can best be used and optimised.

Jinfo's latest product review of Northern Light's SinglePoint portal explores how it uses integrated search to deliver results across all market intelligence content sources, how that differs from federated search, and why some argue that integrated search can take researchers and other users further.

Our reviewer, Sophie Alexander, notes, "Northern Light aggregates all content by obtaining a full-text original copy of every document from every source and then indexes it with their search engine, MI Analyst. Using consistent indexing, taxonomy, and text analytic strategies uniformly across all sources produces an integrated index that can behave the same way across all sources in terms of search syntax and relevance ranking."

This produces logical, rationalised indexing across otherwise unrelated sources such as web news, secondary research, premium sources, social media, and a client's own internal market research content.

Valuable Resource

Northern Light has focused its energies on providing strategic research portals since 1996, so here's a company that has history and a track record.

"They have a unique insight into what works and have developed a sophisticated portal with unrivalled content aggregation capability that spans a client's entire research collection, both internal and external," Sophie notes.

"They have developed trusted relationships with all content providers and say their aim is to foster a more collaborative partnership with vendors rather than compete. For example, Factiva is a competitor but Northern Light also integrates Factiva content into many of their portals."

Find Out More

To read the full in-depth product review, including information on development plans, competitors, and key advantages the portal brings to an organisation, read Jinfo's Product Review of Northern Light SinglePoint.

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