Newsletter No. 18
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Free Pint
"Helping you make the most of the Web"
http://www.freepint.co.uk/
ISSN 1460-7239 9 July 1998 #18
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IN THIS ISSUE
EDITORIAL
TIPS AND TECHNIQUES
"Small is Beautiful: Being a Small Business on the Internet"
by Matt Moore
FEATURE ARTICLE
"Statistical Information on the Web"
by Lynne Clitheroe
FREE PINT FEEDBACK
ANAGRAM
CONTACT INFORMATION
ONLINE VERSION WITH ACTIVATED HYPERLINKS
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INTERNET RESEARCH: ELECTRONIC NETWORKING APPLICATIONS AND POLICY
http://www.mcb.co.uk/intr.htm
The first online and international peer reviewed journal offering
serious discussion and exploration of a powerful information
resource, currently in its 8th volume.
For more information and a free 30 day trial, e-mail Chris Keenan
at ckeenan@mcb.co.uk.
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EDITORIAL
WOW ... Free Pint now has a staggering 10,000 subscribers!
We would like to thank you all for doing such a fantastic job of
telling colleagues and friends about Free Pint. You obviously enjoy
reading each issue and from the feedback we receive the message is
clearly "Free Pint Forever"!
You may also have noticed in the last couple of weeks that Free Pint
has cropped up in popular newsletters, magazines and conferences
around the world, including Sweden, Canada, France, Norway, Belgium,
and the United States! Thank You for your fantastic support!
Once again we bring you a feature packed issue. We start off with a
look at how small businesses can make the most of the Web, which is
followed by a detailed look at what statistics resources are
available on the Web in the UK and around the world. As always, the
Feedback section is full of your letters and questions. By the way,
many of our readers print Free Pint out (it comes to about 10 pages)
and read it at a more convenient time.
Once again, thank you from the Free Pint Team for your support, and
may I now invite you to read on and enjoy your eighteenth Free Pint!
Kind regards,
William Hann
Managing Editor
william@freepint.co.uk
http://www.freepint.co.uk/
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is easier to read and use if you print it out first. Reserve your
free copy of Free Pint by emailing subs@freepint.co.uk or visit
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FREE PINT UPDATE
Keep informed of Free Pint's progress by receiving the Update every
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TIPS AND TECHNIQUES
"Small is Beautiful: Being a Small Business on the Internet"
by Matt Moore
According to a recent Datamonitor survey, of the 1.2 million European
companies accessing the Internet in 1997, 50% had fewer than 10
employees. As one of these small businesses, you now have an Internet
connection. Unless your company has specific technology requirements,
it will be a modem-accessed account with an ISP - giving an e-mail,
WWW access and server space for your own site. What can you do with
these? Well, meet new clients, keep old ones, improve products and
keep up to date - in fact, pretty much what you've always done - only
better. A word of warning - the Internet can be a complex and
time-consuming environment. Fix the amount of time you allow yourself
(say one hour per week) and stick to it.
Meeting People
The first issue of Free Pint contained an excellent introduction to
business information sources on the World Wide Web.(This issue is
still available from the Free Pint Web Site at
http://www.freepint.co.uk/). Many of these sources will be of use
to you. However, most business people already know what's going on
in their markets - because they hear it from their peers. The
Internet is a vast, interlocking series of niche markets. People may
already be publicly talking about you and your products without
your knowledge.
There are many places to meet people. Usenet consists of thousands of
bulletin boards. The groups are organised hierarchically. A few are
specifically business-orientated. Others discuss topics relevant to
your market. Usenet can be searched using AltaVista
(altavista.digital.com) and Hotbot (www.hotbot.com) as well as the
specialised Dejanews service (www.dejanews.com). E-mail discussion
lists are the 'private' versions of Usenet. Posting to these
discussion groups are sent only to subscribers and such groups may be
moderated (i.e. content is edited before distribution). The most
comprehensive search tool for these is Liszt (www.liszt.com). The
most developed meeting places are the virtual community sites, where
resources as well as communications are offered to specific groups -
often in a specific sector or around a locality.
Despite their individual differences, there are some common
guidelines that should be noted no matter what forum you use. Much of
what is said in any discussion area will be irrelevant to you. It is
possible to screen e-mails, but easier to set your e-mail program to
forward all discussion list information to a separate folder where
you can look at it when you have a spare moment. Most bulletin boards
and discussion lists have an American bias - but there are a growing
variety of national and international sites. Perhaps the most
important issue of all is how to behave. Certain kinds of behaviour
will give you a bad reputation and will provoke retaliation from
other users. 'Spamming' - the indiscriminate posting of a message
across multiple forums - is one of these. So is the posting of
irrelevant messages to bulletin boards. This can be avoided by
reading the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) postings that define the
purpose of a forum and also prevent new contributors from advertising
as this is a touchy matter. Most advertising posts are viewed as
irrelevant junk mail by list users. A better strategy is to begin to
contribute to a group as a user. Offer information, ask questions and
mention your products and services as and when they are relevant. If
you are clever, you can link what you do here to your web site.
Your Site
As a small business, it is unlikely you have a dedicated webmaster.
This means you will have to keep the site simple. This is a good
thing. Too many sites contain unnecessary graphics, special effects,
and complexity. They are the equivalent of being transferred eight
times during a phone call, annoyed by over-excited 'hold' muzak and
told the individual you need is on holiday. People should want to
visit your site. Although one person should have responsibility for
the site, try to involve others. Think of it from a marketing rather
than an IT perspective. Get a domain name linked to your identity.
Remember to integrate your site into the rest of your marketing plan.
Does all your stationery contain your e-mail and your URL? Does your
site have the same kind of feel as your print brochures? Provide some
information about yourself and your products and services - but do
more, e.g. a web site can provide a continually updated catalogue for
clients. Don't be afraid to steal good ideas from other sites you
see.
Update content regularly - ideally once a month - and state on each
page when it was updated. Keep it simple - no page should be more
than 3 or 4 clicks from the homepage and the site should work equally
well with the graphics option turned off.
There are many good HTML style guides to help you do this
(http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/General/Internet/WWW/HTMLPrimer.html),
as well as good HTML editors (for instance, HotMetal Pro
http://www.softquad.com/products/pc-hmp4.htm). Offer plenty of
opportunities for feedback, including structured response forms and
e-mail. Respond to e-mails quickly - this will give you an edge over
larger organisations with internal bureaucracies.
The key assets you have as a small business are flexibility, speed of
response, and a personalised identity. Use the Internet to make the
most of these.
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Matt Moore is an Information Specialist with Information Research
Network (IRN), an independent market research consultancy
(http://www.irnxxx.co.uk). He is responsible for the Interstat
broking service - providing clients with statistical research - and
the development of Webstat - a web-based statistical resources site.
IRN offers a full range of market research and analysis services.
Areas of specialist expertise include travel and transport, leisure,
business information, manufacturing and IT. IRN can be contacted at
irnxxx@easynet.co.uk.
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Signed football shirts for auction! Every UK Premier and Nationwide
League team, including England, has donated signed shirts to The
Guide Dogs for the Blind Association in their 'Put your Shirt on a
Dog' promotion. Professionally framed, the shirts are being auctioned
through telephone bids to raise funds for the charity. Find more
information at www.gdba.org.uk under the 'What's new' banner or by
telephoning: 0930 122 822. Lines are open until 18 July and winners
will receive their shirts at Wembley Stadium on 12 August.
(Registered Charity No: 209617)
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FREE PINT FACT
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involves sending 300MB of emails!
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FEATURE ARTICLE
"Statistical Information on the Web"
by Lynne Clitheroe
There is a great deal of statistical information on the Internet.
However, users need to be confident that the information is reliable
and comes from a reputable source. For economic and social
statistics, the national statistical offices of individual countries
are good places to start.
In the last two years the amount of statistical information available
at the web site of the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS)
(http://www.ons.gov.uk) has greatly improved and is continuing to do
so. This article looks at the developments that are taking place at
the ONS and how the site now compares with other national sites in
terms of the amount of free statistics available and the range
offered through paid services.
Improved access to statistics in the UK
The ONS was formed two years ago with the merger of the Central
Statistical Office (CSO) and the Office of Population Censuses and
Surveys (OPCS), with the aim of a single government agency providing
a comprehensive picture of economic and social life in the UK. The
establishment of the ONS has been accompanied by various product
developments and marketing initiatives aimed at improving external
access to official statistics.
The ONS has developed a number of information booklets and guides to
direct users to sources and to explain the statistics in more detail.
For example, the Guide to Official Statistics provides brief details
of economic and social data and their availability. The third and
much improved edition was published in 1996 and is also available at
the ONS site. However, the guide is now to be superseded by a more
sophisticated system for the retrieval of data and one that will be
regularly updated.
StatBase
At the recent Business Information Show in Islington, hosted by the
ONS, several national statistical offices had stands promoting their
services including Internet developments. The ONS itself had a stand
devoted to StatBase, "the unique new information database giving you
direct access via the Internet to the huge range of official
statistics available from the Government Statistical Service".
Access to StatBase will be via the GSS home page:
http://www.statistics.gov.uk and the ONS site: http://www.ons.gov.uk.
The idea of StatBase is that it will provide not only a comprehensive
catalogue of GSS statistics, but also a route to the statistics
themselves, which will be presented in a consistent format, making
comparisons across data sets and time series easier.
StatSearch will be the catalogue, containing information on censuses,
surveys, publications, information sources and also details for
further information and advice. It will provide a directory and
keyword search facility to find out what information is available.
StatStore will be the part of the database that holds all the
statistics available on the system and will have the facility to view
or download statistical data online, into spreadsheets if
required. There will also be access to Navidata 2, the software tool
that enables the manipulation of time series data into charts and
maps. The ONS says that key economic and social statistics will be
available from July 1998 and further phases will extend the range of
data and facilities.
How does this compare with the web sites of other countries?
Many sites of national statistical offices offer some free
statistics, such as press releases on economic indicators and a
snapshot of the country with the title of Spain in Figures,
(http://www.ine.es/), Italy in Figures, (http://www.istat.it),
Hungary in Figures, (http://www.ksh.hu), etc. Likewise, on the ONS
statistics page, there is a link to UK in Figures, the online version
of the free booklet from the ONS giving basic economic data for five
years.
StatBase will also offer free access to a range of key statistical
information, as well as to definitions and descriptions of data.
However, charges will be made for access to other statistics and the
ONS emphasises that it would not be possible for the entire range of
statistics to be available.
Statistics Netherlands has more ambitious plans with the launch of
StatLine, an English version of which will be available at the end of
this year. StatLine databases are composed of publications so you can
search or browse in related publications as you would in a library.
StatView is the program designed to access StatLine and can construct
tables, charts and maps. StatView 2.0 is to be released in
Summer 1998. All the information will be available free of charge.
Statistics Netherlands say that the web version of the Statistical
Yearbook will contain more data than is currently available in the
hardcopy version (http://www.cbs.nl/indexeng.htm).
Reliability and up-to-date information are promoted as the assets of
a news service run by Statistics Finland, that follows the economic
development of 50 countries around the world. It gives a complete
overview of key economic indicators and trends in Western and Eastern
Europe as well as in the Pacific region. The IBSNews service
(http://www.stat.fi/ibs) publishes news items that include economic
indicators, GDP, employment, trade, etc. on the Internet. The news is
edited at Statistics Finland from press agency sources, economic
publications, statistical agencies and research institutions. There
is a search engine and historical information can also be located in
the databank. The service operates on a subscription basis and is
available in English.
Links to other sites
These are just three examples of developments at national statistical
sites. To discover what is available at other sites, it is worth
exploring the links offered from the ONS site. Approximately 70
statistical organisations are listed, including those of some of the
more difficult countries on which to obtain statistical information.
In general, a wider range of statistical information is available in
the native language, but many sites have the facility to view the
data in English.
It will be interesting to see if Statistics Netherlands continues
with its plan to publish very detailed statistics completely free of
charge. Most national statistical offices are now offering
subscription services for access to a greater range of official
statistics. The UK is now following this trend with the launch of
StatBase.
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Lynne Clitheroe has recently set up Lynne Clitheroe Business
Information Service, providing a range of services that includes a
rapid response enquiry service, confidential telephone research and
in-house training courses on statistical information.
Before setting up and managing an enquiry service in London for three
years, Lynne was an Information Specialist at the University of
Warwick Business Information Service. She is a regular speaker at
business information seminars and writes articles for business
publications.
Further information: Lynne Clitheroe Business Information Service, 25
Ashley Court, Morpeth Terrace, London, SW1P 1EN. Tel. +44 (0) 171 630
6535. Fax. +44 (0) 171 828 7047. E-mail:lclitheroe@easynet.co.uk.
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FREE PINT FEEDBACK
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Subject: Free Pint Feedback
From: Alex Bienkowski
Date: 7th July 1998
Mr. Hann,
I subscribe to Free Pint, read each issue carefully, route the
printed item, suitably marked to my colleagues and keep the returned
issues in my office, for what purpose I am not exactly sure. I have
learned a great deal about online information systems and, writing
as I do from the Gulf Coast of Texas, I find the European and
especially the UK perspective very interesting and refreshing.
Please continue to produce this highly valuable document as long as
it is possible for you to do so.
I particularly enjoyed Dr. Enriquez Harris's survey of the Biosci
Info scene and I ask you to forward my thanks to her. I have added
two links from her recommended list to my bookmarks and am planning
to forward notification of several others to persons on the
Biochemistry and Human Genetics department here. So, the seed is not
falling on stony ground.
With good wishes
Alex Bienkowski
Reference Librarian
University of Texas Medical Branch
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Subject: Question: software for checking URLs?
From: Mark Hepworth
Date: 16th June 1998
Hi Free Pint,
Is there software that one can use to check automatically whether the
URLs on a Home Page are still functioning i.e. no error message and
gets through to a Home Page? Checking whether it is the same Home
Page as originally referenced may be either too difficult or not
necessarily useful. An updated and hence changed page may still be
relevant.
Best wishes,
Mark Hepworth, Division of Information Studies,
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Rex Cooke replies:
Can any of our other readers help Mark out on this one? If you have
a suggestion or answer then please send it to Free Pint Feedback
by email to feedback@freepint.co.uk. We will pass your letters
on to Mark and summarise useful responses here in future issues.
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Subject: Half Pint
From: Lynn Robertson
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998
Dear William,
Congratulations on the birth of your daughter (Free Pint #16)! BUT
why no update on Half Pint in #17!!! As the Mum of 5 mostly
Full Pints, who's only an Info Professional in my second career,
occasional pintlet news is of interest! And, of course, we Free
Pinters are sort of family anyway! [10,000 Courtesy Aunts and
Uncles!!! All those electronic First Birthday cards next year!!!]
Great mag - keep up the good work - even technophobes like me find
a lot of useful stuff in Free Pint and I don't hesitate to recommend
it to everybody.
Lynn Robertson, Aberystwyth University
William Hann replies:
Thank you for your kind note. I apologise for not keeping you all
informed of our Half Pint Imogen's progress. She is doing very well
and is almost managing to smile ... quite a feat for a four week old!
Watch this space for occasional Half Pint progress reports!
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If you have a comment, suggestion or letter then we would love to
hear from you. Why not email the Managing Editor William Hann
directly to william@freepint.co.uk. Please note, if you write to
us we will not publish your letter if you do not wish us to, and
cannot guarantee a reply to all letters. Letters may be edited for
content and length, and contact details will be withheld.
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ANAGRAM
"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."
Neil A. Armstrong
is an anagram of
"A thin man ran; makes large stride, left planet,
pins flag on moon! On to Mars!"
[Thank you Eric O.]
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FREE PINT FUTURE
Issue #19 - "Tourism & Leisure" & "UK Search Engines"
Issue #20 - "News Aggregation" & "Trade Association Resources"
Issue #21 - "Local Newsgroups" & "Legal Resources"
[Subject to change]
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Thank you for reading Free Pint. We hope you will forward this copy
to colleagues and friends or ask them to visit our Web site soon at
http://www.freepint.co.uk/
See you in two weeks!
Kind regards,
William Hann, Managing Editor
william@freepint.co.uk
(c) Willco 1998
http://www.willco.co.uk/
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CONTACT INFORMATION
William Hann, Managing Editor
Email: william@freepint.co.uk
Tel: +44 (0)1784 455 435
Fax: +44 (0)1784 455 436
Rex Cooke, Editor
Email: rex@freepint.co.uk
Tel/Fax: +44 (0)171 681 1653
Alison Scammell, Account Director
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Tel: +44 (0)181 460 5850
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Free Pint (ISSN 1460-7239) is a free email newsletter for anyone who
uses the Internet to get information for their work in any business
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how they find quality and reliable information on the Internet.
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- Publication Date: 8th July 1998
- Plain text
- Link: https://www.jinfo.com/go/newsletter/18
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