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VIP Report:Product Review of Factiva.com

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Product Review of Factiva.com

In-depth, independent review of the products, plus links to related resources

“Factiva.com (Factiva) is a news and business information tool with more than 28,000 sources from 200 countries in 23 languages. Search capabilities are available for both the casual searcher and the seasoned information professional. Sources include regional and industry publications, web and blog content, newspapers, journals, magazines, television and radio transcripts, photos, audio and video...”

November 2010

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspapers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_journal

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magazines

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcript

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photograph

^ Back to Contents | www.vivaVIP.com © Free Pint Limited 2010- 2 -

Contents

Product Review of Factiva.com 4

In-depth review of products by experienced researcher, including screen shots and commentary

Introducing Factiva.com 4VIP’s View 4Audience 5Sources 5 Table 1: Number of Sources 2010:2009 6

Table 2: Sample of Key Sources for the Financial Services Sector 6

Content 6 Table 3: Number of Sources by Language 7

Table 4: Number of Sources by Region 7

Table 5: Number of Sources by Industry Sector 8

Table 6: Languages Crawled for Web Content 8

Table 7: Blog Examples by Category 9

Screenshot Figure 1: Company Snapshot: AT&T 9

Screenshot Figure 2: Results -Type of Publication 10

Search 11 Screenshot Figure 3: Search Example with Field Tag and Intelligent IndexingTM Code 12

Table 8: Field Tags for Custom Searching 12

Search results 13 Screenshot Figure 4: Search Results and Discovery Pane 13

Result Features 14 Screenshot Figure 5: Personal Page on Telecommunications Industry 14

Interface 15 Screenshot Figure 6: Split Screen 15

Screenshot Figure 7: Mobile Search Screen 16

Pricing 16Dow Jones Customer Support 16 Screenshot Figure 8: Dow Jones Idea Share 17

Contact Details 17

Other Products 16

Related VIP Product Reviews

Web Resources 20

Web-based resources relating to company

About the Reviewer 21

Biographical notes about the product reviewer

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Product Review of Factiva.com (ISBN 978-1-907594-35-9) is a VIP Report published by Free Pint Limited.

The opinions, advice, products and services offered herein are the sole responsibility of the contributors. Whilst all reasonable care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the publication, the publishers cannot accept responsibility for any errors or omissions.

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This version of the report was published in November 2010 and was accurate as of that date.

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Disclaimer

Report

About this Report

VIP (http://www.vivaVIP.com/) publishes in-depth reports on products, vendors and user experiences relating to premium content products. The monthly VIP Magazine, available by paid subscription, includes news analysis and highlights from the latest product reviews. Subscribers also receive, as part of their subscription, the full product review reports published each month.

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For further information please contact:

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www.factiva.comEmail: [email protected]

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Factiva.com: VIP’s View

Product Review of Factiva.comBy Heidi Longaberger

Heidi Longaberger View Author Biography

Introducing Factiva.comFactiva.com (Factiva) is a news and business information tool with more than 28,000 sources from 200 countries in 23 languages. Search capabilities are available for both the casual searcher and the seasoned information professional. Sources include regional and industry publications, web and blog content, newspapers, journals, magazines, television and radio transcripts, photos, audio and video. Factiva was founded in 1999 and is fully owned by Dow Jones, a News Corporation company.

Dow Jones also offers a variety of other information-oriented services, including The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, Dow Jones Newswires, and Dow Jones Companies & Executives. Those in financial services are targeted with specialised products such as Dow Jones Adviser, Dow Jones Investment Banker and VentureSource, a venture capital tool.

Factiva has emerged over the past ten years as one of the pre-eminent business news and research resources. The teams at Dow Jones and Factiva have done a nice job of adjusting their solutions, implementing changes and trying out enhancements. They have done an excellent job of including Web content and especially the blogosphere - where breaking news is often found first! The platform additions and upgrades to their mobile access option is a must for on the go information professionals and their social media integration is timely. They have made the offering inclusive, with functionality geared towards sharing amongst other Factiva account holders, and in some cases, the outside world.

I had a chance to speak with David Chivers, Factiva’s vice president of products, and learned that Factiva recognises four distinct trends that will drive the future of their offerings:

� Mastering the deluge of information: Focus on licensing the best possible content that is not available on the ‘free’ Web. Also, maintain attention to monitoring the broader information environment with functionalities such as Alerts, Newsletter creation, Saved Searches and News Pages.

� Increased channels of information distribution: Both the information professional and the end user need to have quick and efficient access to information and news on their mobile and handheld devices, such as the iPad, smartphones, Blackberry and eReaders. Factiva is concentrating on solutions for enhancing the mobilised Web and creating an optimal experience regardless of the device.

� Explosion of social media: Not only offering more web and blog content, but exploring solutions that capture the ‘chatter’, sentiment and conversation within social content.

� Understanding that information is both global and local: Concentrating on adding more local country and regional content and increasing native language offerings.

“Factiva.com (Factiva) is a news and business information tool with more than 28,000 sources from 200 countries in 23 languages.”

“The platform additions and upgrades to their mobile access option

is a must for on the go information professionals

and their social media integration is timely.”

“Concentrating on adding more local country and

regional content and increasing native

language offerings.”

mipan.info

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspapers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_journal

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magazines

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcript

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photograph




“...in 2010 News Corporation invested four times more in Factiva than previously, signalling enthusiasm and support for growth.”

Factiva seems to understand that one can never stop innovating in this frantically changing world of information delivery and content access. Chivers explained that they are more in the business of developing solutions rather than just products, and foresees tighter integration of their suite of offerings, rather than just building separate products. Also, in 2010 News Corporation invested four times more in Factiva than previously, signalling enthusiasm and support for growth.

Along with overall coverage of the sources and content, this year’s review will focus on the workflow functionalities and alternate delivery formats, as well as add-on modules and complements to the main Factiva.com tool.

ü Affordable pay-as-you go option

ü Two unique tools: Concept Explorer is an innovative tool to spark search ideas and the Automated Translation Tool actually translates meaningfully

ü International scope of website and blog coverage

ü Variety of result delivery formats and features will please different audiences (Newsletters, Group Pages, widgets, podcasts etc)

ü Split Screen option (Frames)

ü Mobile access focus

û While the FAQs themselves are helpful, searching through them is tedious, with a limited search function. An indexed, searchable menu would be of value.

û Al though source lists are available within the resource in different areas, there is no way to view a comprehensive catalogue of sources by pulling them into a spreadsheet or easy-to-read format.

û Invalid query message provides no direction. With so many search options, and with complex searches, this error message could be more instructive.

û When in an opened search result, no ability to forward directly to the next search result

Newswires: Breaking news from Dow Jones, Reuters, Agence France-Presse and the Associated Press, as well as PR Newswire, M2 Presswire and other regionally focused and industry newswires.

Transcripts: From BBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and more.Websites: Sites and blogs in more than 20 languages.

Company reports: Customised profiles of public companies from around the world including company and industry research from Investext.

Photographs: From several international agencies.Historical Market Data: Up to 25 years of historical market data from Reuters Investor and SunGard PowerData.

Celex documents: Articles from the official database for the European Union, dating back to 1951.

“Although Factiva provides source coverage for all industries, there is a slight emphasis on consulting, banking, government, media and pharmaceuticals.”

AudienceThe majority of users are professional researchers (info pros, corporate libraries, competitive intelligence professionals, market researchers) or public relations and corporate communications professionals. Although Factiva provides source coverage for all industries, there is a slight emphasis on consulting, banking, government, media and pharmaceuticals.

Sources Factiva content includes more than 28,000 sources including more than 600 continuously updated newswires. More than 2,300 sources are available on or before the date of publication.

Newspapers: Same day and archival coverage, including The Wall Street Journal, South China Morning Post, The Times of London, El Pais—Nacional, Les Echos and Süddeutsche Zeitung, as well as local newspapers.

Magazines: General business titles and the industry publications for knowledge-driven markets, including The Economist, Finanz und Wirtschaft, Satellite News, Computerworld, Oil & Gas Journal and more.

VIP Report: Product Review of Factiva.com | November 2010

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Table 1: Number of Sources 2010:2009

Source 2010 2009Newspapers 2900+ 2,544

Magazines 3500+ 2,450

Newswires 1591 779

Transcripts 380 118

Websites 15,000+ including 3000+ blogs 12,700

Company Reports 32,000+ 31,000

Photographs 10,000+ added weekly from 8 sources 8

Table 2: Sample of Key Sources for the Financial Services Sector

Source Titles

Newspapers Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Financial Times*, Sunday Times, the Australian

MagazinesBarrons, Institutional Investor, Private Equity Analyst, Euromoney, The Economist, Barclay’s Bank International Financial Outlook,

Newswires VentureWire, Interfax English newswires, Dow Jones Newswires, ITAR-TASS, Australian Associated Press

Transcripts CNN, Fox Business News

Websites Economist, The Deal, FT-Chinese, WSJ Blogs, Barron’s Blogs

Company Profiles Globe and Mail Report on Business Financial Profile, Datamonitor

New in 2010:

� Bloomberg acquired BusinessWeek in December 2009. Bloomberg decided to remove BusinessWeek from Factiva and other services after purchasing it.

� Sources in the following languages (other than English) were added in 2010: Catalan, Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.

� Standout sources added in 2010 include The New York Times blogs, The Atlantic, Platts European Gas Daily, Business Spectator, Deccan Chronicle, NewsWire18 and iMoney.

ContentLanguagesSource content is available in 23 languages: English, Bulgarian, Catalan, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.

The interface itself is available in the following languages: English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Spanish, and Simplified and Traditional Chinese, and all interfaces allow non-English free-text search terms.

The Automated Translation Tool, which had its debut in 2009, provides translation from English into Spanish, French, Italian, German, Russian, Chinese Traditional, Chinese Simple. The tool will also translate articles in these languages to English and Japanese. Factiva uses technology from Language Weaver, and I was pleasantly surprised at how effectively this tool translated. Translation technology I have tried in the past (unrelated to Factiva) has been unpredictable.

“Standout sources added in 2010 include The New York Times blogs, The Atlantic, Platts European Gas Daily, Business Spectator, Deccan Chronicle, NewsWire18 and iMoney.”

“Factiva uses technology from Language Weaver, and I was pleasantly surprised at how effectively this tool translated.”

*Access is provided, but requires subscription directly to the FT content licence




New in 2010: Portuguese was made available as the newest language for Automatic Translation and content in Bahasa (Indonesia) will be added by December. Content in Arabic is also planned for early 2011.

Table 3: Number of Sources by Language

Language NumberEnglish 20,754

Russian 1,688

Chinese 1,341

German 960

Spanish 800

French 757

Japanese 429

Italian 417

Dutch 313

Portuguese 222

Korean 180

Swedish 76

Danish 72

Polish 69

Finnish 55

Norwegian 53

Czech 44

Catalan 36

Bulgarian 21

Slovak 18

Turkish 11

Hungarian 8

Country CoverageSources originate from 200 countries across the globe, with particular coverage from the US, UK, Western Europe, Russia, Australia and China.

Table 4: Number of Sources by Region

Region SourcesUSA 10,752

UKI 3,154

France 535

Germany 823

W. Europe 2,167

Russia/CIS 2,000

E.Europe 362

Mideast/Gulf 282

Africa 396

Australia/NZ 1,194

India/S Asia 509

Japan/Korea 776

SE Asia 317

Greater China 1,470

Canada 941

Lat AM 750




Industry ConcentrationThe content provides a good breadth of industry coverage, which is valuable. An information professional often needs to find data outside of their specialty. For example, in venture capital or investment banking, an information professional is often asked to find data on a variety of industry verticals and emerging markets.

Table 5: Number of Sources by Industry Sector

Industry Number of SourcesHealth / Pharma 1210

IT 1560

Accounting/Consulting 549

Media 735

Banking 604

Investing 662

Telecom 471

Energy 522

Sports 367

Construct/Real Estate 532

Leisure and Arts 417

Advertising/PR 424

Chemical 372

Food/Drinks 401

Legal 297

Agriculture/Forestry 317

Autos 347

Transport 282

Aerospace/Defense 282

Environment 341

Consumer Goods 292

Manufacturing 226

Insurance 222

Metals/Mining 191

Retail 168

Hospitality 177

Paper/Packaging 96

Clothing/Textiles 169

WebsitesFactiva currently crawls 15,733 websites and over 4,000 blogs in 23 languages, keeping a 90-day archive. Rather than aiming to crawl the most sites, Factiva intentionally targets only the sites that will complement the Factiva archive. The goal is to pull articles from the Web that are not otherwise available in Factiva, and eliminate as much duplicated content as possible. These sites include companies, newspapers, industry publications, government sites and trade associations. Factiva’s editorial staff select entire sites or certain parts of sites to crawl, applying Dow Jones Intelligent Indexing™ codes to the entire sites or entire sections of sites (more on the codes later). Factiva links out to blog and web content, so some sites may require site registration to see the content.

Table 6: Languages Crawled for Web ContentBulgarian Hungarian

Catalan Italian

Chinese – Simplified Japanese

Chinese – Traditional Norwegian

Czech Polish

Danish Portuguese

Dutch Russian

English Slovak

Finnish Spanish

French Swedish

German Turkish

Blogs Blog categories include Corporate, General News, Industry, Media-Affiliated, Non-Governmental Organisations and Political. In other words, your cousin’s travel blog on the trip through the Himalayas will not be featured!

“Factiva’s editorial staff select entire sites or certain parts of sites to crawl, applying Dow Jones Intelligent Indexing™

codes to the entire sites or entire sections of sites...”

“In other words, your cousin’s travel blog on the trip through the Himalayas will not be featured!”




Table 7: Blog Examples by Category

Category Blogs

Media-Affiliated HDTV UK, MSNBC World, NPR: Blog of the Nation, The Times: Asia Exile

NGOs Better Business Bureau, Doctors Without Borders, GreenPeace International

Industry TechCrunch, Tax Research UK, The Budget Fashionista, Car Blog

Company Amazon, BT Broadband Office, iLounge

Political Naked Politics, The New Republic, BBC News: Open Secrets

New in 2010: Factiva says it is looking to increase the frequency of updated web content and expand the blog content over the next 6 months, but did not want to provide specifics at this time.

Companies/Markets

� Industry - provides the two latest analyst reports from investment banks via Investext

� Company - provides an extensive, customisable snapshot. Includes a Discovery Pane for related news topics and the ability to save the profile as an Alert or save to a Company List for quick retrieval

� Charting - provides customisable charting and comparison features for specific tickers and indices

� Quotes - current and historical stock analysis and the capability to create a Quote List for repeat, quick retrieval.

Fig. 1: Company Snapshot: AT&T

Pictures and MultimediaContent is also available in the form of photographs from sources such as Reuters Pictures, Australian Associated Press and the South China Morning Post. Audio and video comes from sources including The Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch, Fox Business and Barron’s Video. Picture and multimedia search results can be chosen from the listing of content types across the upper left of the screen above the Discovery Pane and Search Results. This also includes ‘All,’ ‘Publications,’ ‘Web News,’ ‘Pictures,’ and ‘Multimedia’.




Fig. 2: Results -Type of Publication

Add-On ModulesMedia Monitor: Offers Factiva users the ability to conduct research and do-It-yourself (DIY) media analysis of breaking news and emerging trends using traditional and web content from Factiva and social media content, including blogs, boards, YouTube and Twitter. It also allows the user to save interactive charts to personal dashboards, accessible from the new navigational tab ‘Analyze’. However, I was unable to test this functionality during the course of the review.

Although not considered to be add-ons, Dow Jones has introduced a number of persona-based offerings that utilise the Factiva content. Those that could enhance the specific persona capabilities deserve a brief mention:

Dow Jones Consultant: This features the ability to focus content per project, opportunity or region of practice, along with information on 36,000 business executives and a customisable dashboard.

Dow Jones Investment Banker: A suite of customisable components that includes opinion and analysis from a dedicated team of columnists and writers with experience as investment bankers, fund managers and industry consultants. These specialists hand pick coverage from more than 2,000 journalists across Dow Jones sources.

Dow Jones Supplier & Risk Monitor: A news-based service designed to help Procurement and Supply Chain professionals monitor real-time events and identify potential disruption to their supply chain.

Other Dow Jones & Factiva ProductsThese products do not have the full Factiva capabilities, but are offerings aimed at those who may require different functionality.

� Factiva Reader: This solution allows others in your organisation to read copyrighted Factiva content only. Staff can receive newsletters and alerts - a useful tool for sharing content without investing in the full solution.

� Factiva iWorks: Provides web personalisation options such as setting up a homepage with your favourite news sources and easy to access alerts.

� Dow Jones Companies & Executives: With more than 19 million private and public companies and a database of over 36,000 executives, DJCE provides a global collection of filtered news alongside rich company, executive and industry data, so customers can know first and act fast on risks and opportunities.

� Wall Street Journal Professional: “Pairs the most trusted name in news, The Wall Street Journal, with Factiva, the No.1 business information service. Curated by the Journal’s editors, it efficiently delivers the most important news of the day – for 25 industries and 102 sub-industries along with personal alerts, powerful business search and custom news features.” (North America Only)

“Although not considered to be add-ons, Dow Jones has introduced a number of persona-based offerings that utilise the Factiva content.”




SearchUnder the Search feature, Factiva provides access to a collection of more than 28,000 sources in 23 languages from 200 countries in addition to 4,000 key websites in Search.

The search functionalities are set up to appeal to the casual user as well as the seasoned professional. From the sales person wanting some local news on a territory, to the corporate librarian tasked with finding competitor profile data, various options exist.

Simple Search: This allows you to set a date range, choose from several source categories, and input your keywords into a text box. Source categories include:

� All Sources

� All Publications

� All Web News

� All Pictures

� All Multimedia

� Dow Jones Newswires

� Major News and Business Publications

� Press Release Wires

� Reuters NewsWires.

Search Builder: For more advanced searching, two options exist, Free Text Search or Search Forms. These options include Dow Jones Intelligent IndexingTM, a proprietary coding system implemented universally across the entire Factiva content set, providing greater detail in areas of interest. The following topics can be used to target a search:

� Source: Search with a specific source in mind or choose from a user created ‘Source List’ which can easily be done under the Tools in the upper right of the screen.

� Company: The same as Source - input a specific company of interest or choose from an already created list.

� Subject: There is an eclectic grouping of subjects to choose from which, frankly, seems a bit random. Choices range from Financial Market News, Economic News, Content Types, Corporate/Industrial News, Pol-Econ Organisations, Political/General News, Sports/Recreation and Editor’s Choice. The latter being sources that Factiva deems as most relevant. All of these topics include the Intelligent IndexingTM feature.

“The search functionalities are set up to appeal to the casual user as well as the seasoned professional.”

� Industry: Choose from a selection of 29 broadly indexed industry groups and their sub-groups.

� Regions: As with industry, a selection of 16 indexed world regions that can be further narrowed into sub-regions.

� Look-Up: Provides a simple text box to look up the above variables with one search entry.

� Language: Here the user chooses the preferred source language from the list of 23. This will search only those publications in the selected language. This does not automatically incorporate the translation functionality.

� More Options: Provides additional capabilities like sorting, search within a specific section of the article or types of sources to exclude.

Advanced Search FunctionsSome methods for advanced searching are available. These include searching via Field Tags, which help to narrow in on specifics while searching across selected content. For example, if a user wants to search beyond the Factiva industry choices, then SIC or NAIC codes can be used with the Field Tag DE (descriptor) and the SIC code. Factiva recommends combining Field Codes with relevant Intelligent IndexingTM codes, because Field Codes may be supported by a limited number of sources or, in this example, only those sources that happen to include SIC or NAIC codes in their original indexing. So (DE=517 or in=i7902) will search the NAIC for ‘telecommunications’ and the Intelligent IndexingTM code for the same.

To include an Intelligent IndexingTM code in the search, simply click on the blue pyramid beside the code. This feature can be enabled in ‘Preferences’ under Tools. Clicking the ‘circled i’ beside the code will provide a detailed description.




Fig. 3: Search Example with Field Tag and Intelligent IndexingTM Code

Table 8: Field Tags for Custom Searching

Field Name Field Tag DescriptionAccession Number AN Unique number assigned to documentAuthor BY Author’s nameArt ART Captions, descriptions of graphics, etc.Column CLM Column NameContact CT Contract name for additional informationCorrection CX Area to describe or append correctionsCredit CR Credit informationDescriptors* DE All DescriptorsDow Jones Ticker Symbol* CO Company ticker symbolEdition ED Edition of PublicationFactiva Company Codes** FDS Factiva Company codesHeadline HD HeadlineHeadline Group HL Includes HD, SE, CLMHeadline/Lead Paragraph Group HLP Includes HD, SE, CLM, LP, CXIndustry Code IN Industry codesLanguage Code LA Document LanguageLead Paragraphs LP First two paragraphs of a storyPage PG Page of a publicationPublisher Name PUB Publisher of a publicationNotes/Reference RF Notes associated with an articleRegion Code RE Geographic Region codesReuters Instrument Code* RIC Reuters CodesSection SE Section nameSource Restrictor Code RST Publication source codeSource Group Restrictor Code RST Publication group codeSource Name SN Publication nameSubject Code NS Subject codesText TD Text of article after lead paragraphsVolume VOL Volume and/or Number of publicationWord Count WC All words found in the Headline and Text groupsGroup Name NGC Publication Group Name




Two other unique features deserve to be highlighted: De-duplication of Articles and Concept Explorer (beta). The de-duplication function notifies the user of similar or virtually identical search results, or can be turned off. Concept Explorer allows the user to double click any word in the free-text box to show semantically related words. The user can then select the related words to add to a search. This even has an option to show the user a related term in the context of an article or sentence, and is a great idea for those of us who may not be overly creative in formulating a search string!

Keep in mind that Boolean is fully supported, including truncation, wildcard and date ranges. Special rules do apply, such as six punctuation marks or characters and all currency symbols are not searchable characters, while four other symbols are reserved for search functions.

Search ResultsResults are listed with the headline, source and a brief abstract and can be displayed as Full Article, Keyword in Context, Full Article plus Indexing, and Headline/Lead Paragraph plus Indexing, or a Custom creation.Upon display, there are several interesting options:

� Listen to Article: If available, text to speech capability is provided by ReadSpeaker, or the audio can be downloaded. This is available in English, German, Italian, Spanish and French.

� Translation Tool: Provides translation from English into Spanish, French, Italian, German, Russian, Chinese Traditional and Chinese Simple, and from these languages to English and Japanese.

� Related Dow Jones Intelligent IndexingTM: Provides industries, companies, subjects etc. that are related to those in the article.

� More Like This: Provides a linked list of related articles.

The Discovery Pane along the left side is a useful tool for viewing search results through a set of filters, which can be dragged and dropped into an order that is most beneficial to the user. If you find the Pane distracting, it can be collapsed in its entirety, as can each filter. Filter topics are Subjects, Companies, Industries, Dates, Sources, Keywords, News Clusters and Executives. Simply click on a variable to view the related articles.

� Sources - filter displays the 10 most common sources represented in your results

� Date - filter allows you to view your results in weekly increments for date ranges less than 6 months, or in monthly increments if you select a date range of ‘In the last 6 months’ or more

� Companies - filter displays the 10 most common companies found in the Dow Jones Intelligent IndexingTM Company category associated with the articles in the search results

� Subjects - filter displays the 10 most common subjects found in the Dow Jones Intelligent IndexingTM Subject category associated with the articles in the search results

� Keywords - filter is populated using text mining technologies to examine the first 100 articles in the results to extract the most frequently used terms and phrases related to the search

� Industries - filter displays the 10 most common industries found in the Dow Jones Intelligent IndexingTM Industry category associated with the articles in the search results.

“Concept Explorer allows the user to double click any word in the free-text box to show semantically related words. The user can then select the related words to add to a search.”

Fig. 4: Search Results and Discovery Pane




It should be noted that results are further segmented by type along the upper left of the screen. Choose from All, Publications, Web News, Pictures or Multimedia.

Result FeaturesFactiva offers several productivity and workflow tools to enhance search functionality and provide content delivery options.

Alerts - a news alerting service that continuously updates based on the user’s search criteria. Source type for Alerts includes only publications and/or web news - no multimedia or pictures. Alerts can be created from the Simple Search, Search Builder or under Manage Alerts via the Alerts tab at the left top of the interface. Alerts may be sent via RSS, Widgets, or email and can be sent to the appropriate mobile device. Group Alerts, for sharing pertinent news with a specific department or group within a corporation, can also be created by the database Administrator. Alerts can be viewed under the Alerts tab, from News Pages, or under Tools.

� Direct Link - can be used in an email message or on an intranet to notify users that Subscribable Alerts are available.

Workspaces - this feature will hold results in Factiva indefinitely, maintain up to 25 Workspaces at a time and store up to 100 pieces of content in each. Once the limit of 100 items is reached, a user must manually delete content to make room for new items. Workspace results can be sent to other Factiva users via RSS feeds, Widgets or Podcast.

� Widgets - Factiva Widgets let you post your relevant news to a company portal or team site so everyone can benefit from it. Use this tool to post to multiple websites for a visual display of headlines

� Podcast - Currently in Beta, it will send the feed URL to your audience.

News Pages - this allows the user to scan all personalised information quickly in one place.

� Personal Home Page - provides instant access to the Alerts folders, selected publications, selected websites and Editor’s Choice content

� Personal Pages - a central repository of current information that’s most important to the user, and a way to access all of the other key content areas of Factiva

� Group Pages - set up by the Administrator only, with the same capability as the Person Pages, yet designed for a department or work group

� Factiva Pages - News Pages created by Factiva Editors which cannot be revised by subscribers. Each Factiva Page provides news relating to a specific topic. There are industry, regional and news subject pages available.

“Group Alerts, for sharing pertinent news with a specific department or group within a corporation, can also be

created by the database Administrator.”

Fig. 5: Personal Page on Telecommunications Industry




Newsletter - The Newsletter Builder lets you share Factiva content throughout an organisation.

� Content - content can be added to a newsletter by running a search, accessing an Alert or from a Workspace. Additionally, a user can access Alerts and Workspaces content while editing a Newsletter by using the Select Content pull-down menu in the left margin. A user can edit by adding executive summaries, comment on individual articles and rate the importance of articles. Links to other articles or websites can be included.

� Distribution - if available on a user’s account, Newsletters may be legally redistributed outside of an account to clients, partners, investors and distributors. This is a nice feature and a way to keep communication flowing to a user’s larger sphere of influence.

� Format - newsletters can be created in:

� RSS - send the URL to colleagues for use in their preferred RSS reader.

� HTML

� Embedded HTML emailed by Factiva - use this option to send formatted Newsletter via email to one or more recipients. Note: This option is supported for use with Outlook 2003 only.

� RTF

� PDF

� Mobile and Mobile (Headlines Only)

� Widget

� Podcast [Beta]

Search OutputSelect search results of interest by checking the box next to the headline or abstract. Selected articles can be viewed or emailed to ‘permitted users,’ formatted for saving or printing, or downloaded in PDF, HTML or RTF. Two other convenient features include saving to a WorkSpace or adding to a Newsletter.

Interface

The Factiva interface is very simply laid out and easy to navigate. Search functionalities, along with Alert, News Pages, Companies/Markets and Administrator tabs are the first to catch the eye on the left side of the screen. The menu along the upper right of the interface includes pull-downs for Dow Jones Idea Share, Languages (options for the interface only - language content choices are available under Search) , Support and Tools. The latter pull-down menu offers access to capabilities such as Newsletter, Workspaces, Lists and Preferences. Tools also present shortcuts to some administrative functions, such as Usage Reports, Client Billing and Profiles.

The screen is customisable to some extent, with the ability to collapse the Discovery Pane, or view the list of search results and the article itself in a split screen by clicking the ‘Frames’ option in the upper right of the results screen.

“The Newsletter Builder lets you share Factiva content throughout an organisation.”

Fig. 6: Split Screen

“The Factiva interface is very simply laid out and easy to navigate.”




Browser SupportThe full administrative capabilities of Factiva are supported by the following: Microsoft Internet Explorer for Windows versions 6.0+ (including IE 7.0+) under Windows XP, 2000, 98, NT or 95; Firefox version 3.0 or higher; and Safari 2.0+ (which requires and is included in Mac OS X operating system).

When I opened Factiva in Firefox version 3.6.10 on both a PC (Vista) and laptop (Windows 7), I received the message that ‘We have detected that you are using a browser that does not support full administrative capabilities’. I used IE 8.0 to use and review Factiva on these operating systems.

Apparently, although some administrative capabilities are available via Firefox, the following are not supported: Group Manager, Custom Billing, Account Support, and Factiva Editor Administration.

Factiva MobileFactiva Mobile is available to any Factiva subscriber and does not require an additional fee. Articles within the past 90 days are available. Best supported by Blackberry and iPhone devices (and optimised for iPad), with other devices experiencing ‘a slight variation in performance’. The user can create their own Personal Pages and receive Alerts. Factiva Mobile is currently available in English, French, German, Russian and Spanish interfaces. Factiva content is available in 23 languages. Non-English language content can be viewed if a user’s mobile device supports display in that language.

New in 2010: The mobile version of Factiva was overhauled in early 2010 to include a more streamlined interface, new homepage, a Company Search shortcut for profiles and automatic removal of duplicated articles. Factiva has plans continually to enhance the mobile optimised web with longer term plans to build native mobile applications for key platforms (iOS/iPad, Blackberry, etc).

Pricing Factiva offers three types of pricing plan subscriptions: enterprise, individual, and custom for Factiva.com.

� Enterprise Flat Fee Subscriptions: designed for organisations, such as banks, consulting firms and government agencies with large numbers of information workers and individual departments in an organisation, including corporate and government libraries, corporate communications departments, etc.

� The Individual Subscription: aimed at small businesses and occasional researchers. For an annual fee of US$69,00, Factiva’s entire database can be searched, with each article accessed costing US$2.95

� Custom Solutions: designed for customers using Factiva’s growing range of integration products, consulting and taxonomy services and role-based applications where text mining and visualisation technologies are utilised. Pricing for these is inevitably ‘non-standard’ and based on a customer’s individual requirements.

Dow Jones Customer SupportThe customer support page is rife with options:

� Phone - availability 24/5, check your world region for specific opening and closing hours.

� E-Form Questionnaire - response within an hour

� Web Chat - throughout the business week

� Call Me – customer service will contact you within 10 minutes.

The page also provides a FAQ search by product area, a Learning page with tools for both new users and advanced, and tabs for Billing, Access and Administration.

“Apparently, although some administrative capabilities are available via Firefox, the following are not supported: Group Manager, Custom Billing, Account Support, and Factiva Editor Administration.”

Fig. 7: Mobile Search Screen

“New in 2010: The mobile version of Factiva was overhauled in early 2010 to include a more streamlined interface, new homepage, a Company Search shortcut for profiles and automatic removal of duplicated articles.”




I did find the FAQ search feature a bit frustrating, and going through the results tedious. I felt as if I were missing some of the possible results because the search function is limited. I would appreciate a rigorously indexed, searchable menu of FAQs or contents, rather than relying on my own search terms while not knowing Factiva’s specific terms. However, the FAQs themselves were very detailed and often linked to related FAQs. It was also helpful to have FAQs implanted on various pages within other parts of the resource for quick answers.

The Content Watch page deserves a mention. The user can find updates on content and source deletions or additions for the month or year, search for specific sources by a variety of factors, subscribe to an Email Alert on new source additions or set up an Email Alert for notification of status or delays to favourite top sources. This is a handy page to consult and provides a good overview of the geographic and content scope of sources in Factiva. My one complaint is that sources are not downloadable in a format that is easy to read and all-encompassing, such as into a spreadsheet.The Dow Jones Idea Share page is a place to express any opinion on product features, functionality or enhancements, and communicate with other users and the Factiva developers. I’m sure this is key to sparking many of the ideas for improvements and changes.

New in 2010: The addition of FAQs and Self Help Wizards into certain pages of Factiva for more instantaneous help, rather than having to go to the Customer Support page.

Contact DetailsDow Jones Corporate New York

Dow Jones & Co. 1155 Avenue of the Americas

7th Floor New York, NY 10036Tel: +1.212.416.2000

Dow Jones Corporate LondonAdmiral House, 66 – 68 East Smithfield

London, E1W 1AW United Kingdom

Tel: +44 207 842 9900

Commodity Quay East Smithfield

London, E1W 1AZ United Kingdom

10 Fleet Place Limeburner Lane

London, EC4M 7QN United Kingdom

“I would appreciate a rigorously indexed, searchable menu of FAQs or contents, rather than relying on my own search terms while not knowing Factiva’s specific terms.”

Fig. 8: Dow Jones Idea Share



The following products reviewed by VIP may provide comparable coverage:

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Content was accurate as of the date of publication (listed).

Eureka.ccReview published August 2010: http://web.freepint.com/go/shop/report/1692

ü Deep coverage of Canadian and French sources including a number of Canadian exclusive titles.

ü Whilst it does not offer the same high number of sources as the larger aggregators, Eureka.cc still provides a good selection covering important sources of news, general business and economic subjects, and industry sectors.

ü Allows media monitoring to be set up in various ways for different individuals and user groups, with a high level of customisation.

ü Different subscriptions are available to a wide range of customers, from large organisations down to personal users, who can pay per article or use entry-level monthly subscriptions.

û Whilst strong in French and English sources, it has very little coverage of other languages.

û A total of 14 ‘Keys’ can be used for searching sections including Lead paragraph, Subject, Byline etc., but only 8 are listed in the drop-down menu. There is no link to other Keys – the user has to know they exist to find them in the Online Help manual.

û The truncation operator is an unlimited wildcard and cannot be used to restrict by number of letters, although in some instances the declination operator could be used in its place.

û Although there is some indexing available for more efficient searching, it is weak in geographic searching and there is currently no structured company coding.

Newsdesk 4Review published November 2010: http://web.freepint.com/go/shop/report/1734

ü Real-time content

ü Authoritative news sources

ü Comprehensive social media sources

ü Ability to search across all media types

ü Good range of languages

ü User-friendly interface

ü Excellent filtering leads to targeted results

ü Useful email and newsletter facilities

û It is not currently possible to exclude paid-for content

û Comprehensive help pages, however the portal would benefit from on-screen help menu listing search operators.

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Newsedge.comReview published October 2010: http://web.freepint.com/go/shop/report/1728

ü Using the Publisher function, a librarian or information professional can easily produce custom professional- looking reports for senior management or clients.

ü NewsEdge.com provides a variety of tools that make it very easy to push timely information to many sets of users.

ü Being able to share actual searches easily with users helps librarians and information professionals educate their users to do simple, ongoing searches themselves.

û This product has a lot features that appear similar and it can take some time efficiently to take advantage of the differences. For example, the My News feature is very similar to the Front Page feature. Front Page is where users can browse the news and My News is where users can take their saved searches and use the NewsEdge Refinery feature.

û Sample searches with Boolean hints in each search type would be useful.

û The content only goes back six months. If you need to do more historical research, you would have to have another database that goes back further, or purchase and add on a database to integrate with the NewsEdge.com content set.

NewsEdge.com is an outstanding product for managing and distributing timely news information to small or large user groups.

NexisReview published November 2009: http://web.freepint.com/go/shop/report/1527

ü Huge amount of detail available on individual companies, markets and people.

ü User friendly, intuitive interface, accessible for both end-users and information professionals

ü Excellent coverage of English language sources, and Nexis remains the leader in US sources.

ü For audio and video clips Nexis also provides the full transcript, which in some instances can be more useful than listening to/watching the clip

ü My Delivery Documents allows users to use a range of searches, select document through the research process, then review, arrange the order, and download in a file with a useful list of contents

ü Flexible Results Group filtering, offering the option to view one or multiple groups, and the ability to sort items by number of hits or alphabetically.

û Although there are large Group source files such as All News, All Languages (covering around 4,500 sources), there is still no ability to search all sources on Nexis

û Currently no de-duplication option – although this is being developed and will be launched in early 2010

û No contents list within Downloaded Delivery – although this is also under development. Scheduled for late 2009

û Delivery folder documents expire after only 24 hours

û No ability to pay for usage on an ad hoc basis by credit card.

It is encouraging to see that several of the Cons highlighted in last year’s review have been addressed by the vendors. Factiva has added the ability to go back to previous pages as well as forward when reviewing the search results list, and keywords are now highlighted in the results display. Nexis is currently developing a de-duplication facility, which will be launched in early 2010.

LexisNexis update

Looking at its news offering, LexisNexis considers the launch of NexisDirect the most significant addition of the year. This was in beta testing at the time of the last review and has since been reviewed in the March 2009 edition of VIP Magazine. NexisDirect is a new interface to Nexis content, aimed at increasing accessibility for business users who are not necessarily trained researchers.



Other Products

In the core Nexis interface, it is now easier to edit favourite sources and relevancy scores have been added to the results format. The development team is currently working on a new de-duplication facility which will be released early in 2010. Other enhancements scheduled for release later in 2009 or early in 2010 include:

� The ability to hide search forms at user level

� The ability to edit content on search forms via Client Admin Tool

� Source management improvements - improving work flow between the Find and Browse Sources tabs

� Delivery improvements - making ‘List of Included documents’ the default delivery style.

Since the last review, content has expanded in the following areas:

� UK regional content

� Business & trade titles

� Emerging markets coverage in the English language

� Company and executive information.

An essential part of LexisNexis’ developments is the feedback the company gains from emails, surveys and its Customer Advisory Board, which has been running in its current format in the UK since the beginning of 2009. Similar panels are organised by LexisNexis in other local markets. The aim is to make sure there is a strong customer voice to provide feedback and input into the decision-making process via quarterly meetings.

Dow Jones Companies and ExecutivesReview published September 2008: http://web.freepint.com/go/shop/magazine/535

ü Excellent coverage of online people databases

ü Alerts enable easy monitoring of management changes at target companies

ü Company snapshots are a useful briefing tool

ü Ability to search by job function avoids anomalies in job titles

û The link to LinkedIn profiles needs to be extended to all named execs

û Coverage of companies in Europe could be more extensive.

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This report was published by VIP in November 2010 and was accurate as of that date. Reprinted with the permission of Free Pint Ltd. All other rights reserved.

For further information please contact:

www.factiva.comEmail: [email protected]

Dow JonesCommodity Quay,

East Smithfield,London E1W 1AZ

Dow Jones4300 North Route

1 Monmouth Junction, NJ 08852

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Heidi Longaberger, M.L.S, has over 15 years of business research experience, having worked in corporate information centers and as part of due diligence teams in the broadband, telecommunications, cable, media and venture capital industries. Heidi provides research and analysis on a vast range of technologies, competitors, markets and strategic planning initiatives. She established her own independent research business, Longaberger InformationWorks, in 2010, where she continues to work with the telecommunications and private equity industries, amongst others. Heidi can be reached at [email protected]; and LinkedIn.

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