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FreePint Newsletter No.358
6th September 2012
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 If you put a frog in a pan of boiling water, it hops out right away. If you put a frog in a pan of water and slowly bring it to a boil... poached frog.
In other words, it's hard to notice even important changes when they're taking place slowly, all around you.
That's one reason why global events like the Olympics provide a useful framework for seeing the impact of incremental changes over time. The 2012 London Olympics were the first games to be covered comprehensively by social media. In fact, some elements of the Games were directly affected by social media, as James Mullan points out in his recent article. It's a marked contrast to coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, in which social media played a minor if any role at all.
The impact of new tools and technologies on research, news coverage and media monitoring is dramatic and comprehensive. Yet from the perspective of a busy desktop, it's hard to sort out what's important and what's merely noise. FreePint Subscribers get the benefit of three new reports published last week:
Amongst them, these three reports provide 130 pages of guidance and perspective - a chance to step back from the day-to-day and consider the wider impact of incremental change on our profession.
FreePint Subscribers have immediate access to these and other articles and reports to help them keep track of their fast-changing environment, and avoid discovering themselves in hot water.
If you're not yet a subscriber, start the process by asking "How Can FreePint Help?" I personally review every submission, and I look forward to hearing from you.
By Robin Neidorf
Director of Research, FreePint
robin.neidorf@freepint.com
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My Favourite Tipples
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 By Rachel Bates Wilfahrt
I'm a creature of habit, with my morning ritual of processing email, crafting a to-do list and looking at a few key sites as I drink my first Diet Coke. In addition to news resources, the following are central to keeping a streamlined and informative current awareness routine.
- LinkedIn Today is my starting place for daily industry news and to see trending content. It's essentially a curated portal of top Web sites tailored to the industries I follow, making it a huge timesaver and resource for the topics I'm interested in.
- Instapaper is invaluable for saving and sorting articles of interest. I use it to save longer articles I don't have time to read instantly, or resources I will use at a later time.
- On the bottom left corner of Feedblitz, you can subscribe to any website or blog for free. Now, content is delivered to my email with a rule delivering it to my Read folder, the counterpart to my Instapaper account.
- One feed I have delivered is Penelope Trunk's blog. Best known for her startup company Brazen Careerist, I always find her posts on career advice, self-management and entrepreneurship intriguing, even if I don't agree with her.
- Nylon Magazine's Good Listener is the perfect end to my workweek, being published most Friday afternoons. This collection of five songs has been my best resource for new music since its inception.
Rachel Bates Wilfahrt, MLIS, is a Colorado-based information professional.
In addition to performing prospect research for the University of Denver, she is Owner of Rachel Bates Wilfahrt, LLC, an independent information practice focusing on competitive intelligence and information management projects. Rachel is also involved in leadership positions with the Special Libraries Association and the Association of Independent Information Professionals. She can be reached at rachel@rachelbateswilfahrt.com, LinkedIn (http://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelbateswilfahrt), and Twitter (http://twitter.com/rbateswilfahrt)
Would you like to submit your Favourite Tipples suggestions to the FreePint Newsletter? Find out more »
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 What do we mean by "excellence"?
A webinar discussion for buyers and sellers of information content products
Content vendors want to create excellent products. Content buyers want to purchase and use excellent products. But do we all mean the same thing by the word "excellent"?
Join this free webinar to exchange ideas with buyers and sellers of content products on this very topic. Our panel includes buyers and sellers, who will describe:
- The product development process: striving for excellence
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- Evaluation: did we achieve it?
Sponsored by the Content Division of the Software and Information Industry Association, this free webinar will provide both buyers and sellers with shared vocabulary and understanding of what "excellence" in our industry can look like.
Register now »
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 FT Web App hits two million users
Just 10 months after launch, the Financial Times' Web App has surpassed two million users and was recently awarded the Global Mobile Award for Innovation in Mobile Publishing.
The web app ensures that FT corporate customers can access our content anytime, anywhere, with one login and one subscription payment.
With an FT corporate subscription, you get unlimited access to FT's global news, video, comment and analysis across multiple devices and 3rd party platforms.
Find out more about how your organization can benefit from an FT corporate license, register for a free trial here.
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FreePint Features
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 FreePint Features offers the latest commentary on trends, issues and opportunities in the information world, as well as examples of how organisations use FreePint resources to raise the value of information.
Selection of the latest FreePint Features articles:
- What Is Hidden Will Be Revealed
By Scott Brown on Tuesday, 4th September 2012
As researchers, we are continually learning about new tools, exploring new topical areas and finding new sources of information - subscription, free, or otherwise. Traditionally difficult-to-find information is increasingly becoming accessible.
- FreePint Report: Monitoring and Mining Social Media and News
By Aileen Marshall on Thursday, 30th August 2012
The rise of Web 2.0 has opened virtual gold mines of new forms of data that can be mined and analysed for an organisation's purposes. The days when almost all the sources analysts could rely on were one-way sources, from the creator to the consumer, are over. The articles in this report examine the implications and impacts of this change on organisations, analysts and their work.
- Expanding the borders of information access and analysis
By Rachel Bates Wilfahrt on Wednesday, 29th August 2012
Twice a year, FreePint publishes a compendium of articles supporting different areas of information work. This report collects six months' worth of articles tagged with the category of research. Our guest editor Rachel Bates Wilfahrt looks at the spectrum of research topics, with a particular eye to emerging information sources.
- Unique content, big content
By Scott Brown on Tuesday, 28th August 2012
What challenges do unique content and "big content" create for us as information professionals? This issue of the Information Content newsletter looks at a review of Thomson Innovation, a patent research tool, and rumours of a Dun & Bradstreet sale.
- How Vendors Reach for Excellence in a Changing World
By Robin Neidorf on Thursday, 23rd August 2012
We often comment on how information practitioners adapt to a changing world of new tools and technologies influencing their work. Vendors of content products also have to contend with the speedy evolution of their environment, or risk becoming irrelevant. Recent FreePint Reports offer two examples of vendors successfully incorporating new expectations of functionality and content sets. But would buyers and users consider them successful? FreePint also takes on and contributes to industry dialogue on what any of us means by "product excellence", in this editorial for the current FreePint Newsletter.
- Benchmarking on Information Services: Methods and Participants
By Robin Neidorf on Wednesday, 22nd August 2012
How are information services configured in today's organisations? Who "owns" work relating to information? How do organisations manage and support different priorities with regard to their information strategies? What principles drive spending of content budget? These are large questions in our industry, but they can be answered by conducting one interview at a time. This introductory article explains the background, methodology and respondent pool of FreePint's Benchmarking on Information Services, with more in-depth chapters to be found in the FreePint Subscription.
- Getting to know private equity sources
By Perrin Kerravala on Wednesday, 22nd August 2012
Like many information-intensive industries, the private equity industry offers a range of sources, with a range of price tags -- from free to costly. This is a short version of a longer FreePint Subscription article on the same topic.
The longer article provides more detail on specific suppliers and how to vet them; identifying the best tool for a particular task; and developing skills for creative approaches to PE research. FreePint Subscribers can login to view the article now.
- ... More ...
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We've made a lot of enhancements to the FreePint Subscription this summer. If you're curious to learn how we support the value of information in organisations like yours...
Register to join a product tour:
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Can't make those times? Complete our online form, "How can FreePint help?" to tell us a bit about your needs, and we'll schedule a custom tour.
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Nothing Fits Quite Like A NewsEdge Solution!
We specialise in crafting a custom fit of our NewsEdge services into your workflow. The end result is a powerful real-time news management solution tailored for how your end users need their information.
Whether you need to deliver current news to an intranet, alerts to a mobile device or custom newsletter to your executive staff, NewsEdge will make you look good. We are not a "one size fits all" solution. It's our tailoring that makes all the difference!
Let us show you more with a tailored demonstration fit just for you.
Find out more at www.newsedge.com. Follow us on: Twitter - Facebook
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FreePint Subscription
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Articles and reports included in a FreePint Subscription provide customer organisations with practical insight to support information practice, content purchasing and usage, and strategic planning.
Subscribers can click any link to login and view the full item. If you have not yet purchased a FreePint Subscription, learn more about the benefits now.
Selection of FreePint Subscription articles and reports:
- "Just a few moments of electronic idiocy"
By Tim Buckley Owen on Tuesday, 4th September 2012
When is it safe to rely on big data and automated analytics, and when should you trust to your insights? Hopefully we can learn a lesson from Knight Capital, which admitted that it had lost millions at the start of just one day's trading because new software had sent into the market a number of erroneous orders.
- Putting information on the map
By Dean Mason on Monday, 3rd September 2012
According to an article in Technology Review earlier this year, we are very much in the midst of the "indoor positioning era". GPS has permeated its way in into our day-to-day lives by allowing us to effectively navigate and add value to the outside physical space. It was inevitable that at some point someone would ask the question: why can't we do the same with indoor space?
- Mendeley's app platform - a vindication of open access data?
By Penny Crossland on Friday, 31st August 2012
Mendeley, the self-styled "Wikipedia for academic data" also described as "science's iTunes", has recently reached a milestone, according to the company's blog. The crowd-sourced database, containing around 65 million scientific papers, was set up to liberate research from behind entrenched paywalls. Over 100 million queries per month now come from 240 different apps, with a sharp increase between January and July this year.
 FreePint Report: Information Services Management Monthly Update (August 2012)
Published on Friday, 31st August 2012
This monthly update collects the current content relevant to those responsible for information service management, information strategy and content procurement in a convenient PDF package for download and offline reading.
- Winning the social media Olympics
By James Mullan on Thursday, 30th August 2012
With the Olympic Games just finished and the Paralympics just starting, it would seem remiss to not take a look at the big winners and losers at what are being described as the first social media Olympics. So which social media tools won gold, silver and bronze at London 2012, and what were some of the lessons learnt?
 FreePint Report: Monitoring and Mining Social Media and News
Published on Thursday, 30th August 2012
The rise of Web 2.0 has opened virtual gold mines of new forms of data that can be mined and analysed for an organisation's purposes. The days when almost all the sources analysts could rely on were one-way sources, from the creator to the consumer, are over. The articles in this report examine the implications and impacts of this change on organisations, analysts and their work.
- Paywalls and intelligence gathering
By Dean Mason on Wednesday, 29th August 2012
Paywalls have implications for those involved in press monitoring and intelligence gathering. 10 years ago it was possible for users to search comprehensively across content using a single third-party service, but what has changed?
 FreePint Report: Research - Part 1 (Information Practice)
Published on Wednesday, 29th August 2012
Twice a year, FreePint publishes a compendium of articles supporting different areas of information work. This report collects six months' worth of articles tagged with the category of research. Our guest editor Rachel Bates Wilfahrt looks at the spectrum of research topics, with a particular eye to emerging information sources. This first report includes all the articles from the "Information Practice" section of FreePint -- the nuts-and-bolts of performing information work.
- FreePint Report: Research - Part 2 (Information Content)
Published on Wednesday, 29th August 2012
This second report includes all the articles from the "Information Content" section of FreePint -- research and commentary about the tools and sources we use for research.
- Knowledge Graph extends outside the US, with regional variations
By Penny Crossland on Tuesday, 28th August 2012
The US launch of Google's Knowledge Graph in May this year was hailed as a significant step towards the semantic web, and Google searchers elsewhere were looking forward to experiencing this new tool. Now those in other English-speaking countries can do so.
- BYOD security -- it's not all high tech solutions
By Tim Buckley Owen on Monday, 27th August 2012
The Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) movement in the workplace continues to gather momentum, while at the same time presenting new security challenges. It also presents an opportunity for information professionals carving out a risk and security role for themselves in their organisations.
- A Step Too Far with Collaboration
By James Mullan on Thursday, 23rd August 2012
Most of what is written about collaboration is positive: Collaboration within an organisation can break down silos and connect people who might otherwise never work together. It can also increase productivity and potentially save organisations money. But collaboration has many hidden dangers and barriers to implementation, which is why so many potential collaborators remain skeptical or get frustrated. Learn about the dangers and how you can overcome them.
- A round-up of private equity and venture capital industry information sources
By Perrin Kerravala on Wednesday, 22nd August 2012
The private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC) industries are information intensive, generating numerous data on companies, funds, investment firms, and investment performance. These data are typically available on a subscription-basis, and sold to industry participants for due diligence, competitive intelligence, analysis, and business development purposes. Several publishers and industry associations also provide market information for free. This article outlines what information professionals can find from subscription and free sources, as well as a short look at a new social networking site for the PE industry.
- Benchmarking: Information Structure
By Robin Neidorf on Wednesday, 22nd August 2012
Every organisation takes a slightly unique approach to defining what it means by "information services", and yet in every organisation the same information-related jobs need to get done. This analysis of staff size, supported headcount, and arrangement of duties shows several important differences based on industry.
- ... More ...
Latest FreePint Subscription content »
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 The latest FreePint Report: Buyer's Guide on Competitive Intelligence
Request your free copy today
One of the most common topics covered by FreePint, competitive intelligence is a discipline that you never stop learning about. Whenever companies find new ways to share information, CI professionals have new potential sources of insight.
Buyer's Guide reports combine FreePint articles with information about vendors that provide products and services for the discipline.
In this issue:
- Mini Review: Northern Light Discovery Portal
- Essential resources for competitive intelligence research in biopharma
- Competitive intelligence on a budget
- LinkedIn buys SlideShare - a boost for CI researchers
- And more...
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- Evaluating Information Industry Services and Vendors
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About FreePint
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The FreePint Newsletter (ISSN 1460-7239) is published by Free Pint Limited. FreePint is a registered trademark of Free Pint Limited, registered in England and Wales. Registered Number: 3754481. Registered Office: Delaport Coach House, Lamer Lane, Wheathampstead, Herts, AL4 8RQ.
Copyright Free Pint Limited 1997-2012
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