Steve,

You've shared a lot of valuable information here. I know I'm not the only one that will find this useful. Thanks so much for sharing this.

Anya.

> Hi Anya,

> Besides just trying to sell, you can use the
> web to do Competitive Intelligence research
> and find out what, how and where your
> competitors are selling. I was asked last
> year to write an article about
> "Competitive Intelligence
> Resources" so if no one minds, I will
> just copy and paste it here. Perhaps this
> will give you an insight into some other
> ideas to improve your marketing. Here is the
> article:

> Competitive Intelligence Resources
> There are all kinds of tools to assist you
> to keep updated with your competitive
> intelligence status. I say status, because
> as far as I see this is a never ending
> process. Not only will you have to look for
> new competitors, you need to stay updated on
> what new things your old competitors are
> implementing.

> One tool you might want to have a look at
> is called Website Watcher . It checks an
> unlimited number of web-sites for updates
> and changes with a minimum of time and
> online-costs. When changes in a website are
> detected, WebSite-Watcher saves last two
> versions to your hard disk and highlights
> all changes in text. This program offers a
> 40 day free trial but must be registered for
> $20.

>
> http://www.webspector.com/downloads.htm#webspector
> Webspector is a similar program you can
> look like. They offer a free download too. I
> didn't download this one to look at so I
> don't know if free download is really just a
> time limited demo or not. I couldn't find
> this information on their site.

> There are some free services and programs
> that can help on a limited basis. Informant
> is a web based service that searches web
> for you based on search algorithms from Alta
> Vista, Excite and Infoseek. Copernic is a
> free software program that can be useful.
> There are more powerful features available
> to paid users, but the free version can
> serve up some useful information as well.

> You might also be interested in having a
> look at Easy Seeker . You can use it to
> search over 100+ search engines and filter
> out duplicates. This software, although free
> is ad supported.

> Further research on the net shows there is
> a lot of places to learn more about
> competitive Intelligence:

> ADLAW Source for information on legal
> developments in advertising, marketing and
> media, including newsletters, cases, a guide
> to legal issues in advertising, and cyber
> law information. Ad Facts Provides
> customized competitive advertising and
> publicity tracking in print media (trade and
> consumer publications) and on the Internet.
> Offers reports on ad spending, publicity
> coverage, media placement, and analysis of
> the competitors' advertising strategies over
> time. Advertising Age Advertising Age,
> known for its top rated coverage of the
> advertising industry, offers this site with
> daily news, archives, plus listings such as
> top advertisers in various categories and a
> variety of lists such as 50 best
> commercials. Advertising Media Internet
> Center AMIC sponsors a vast collection of
> advertising-related websites, including
> links to companies, organizations,
> conferences, research institutes, media and
> the law. Advertising World University of
> Texas offers this abundant, collection of
> advertising and related links to companies,
> organizations, conferences and sports an
> excellent advertising-specific directory of
> topics. Advertising Worldwide Information
> AWI - an international database of useful
> information including: advertising agencies,
> market research companies, conventions,
> professional associations, audiovisual
> producers media resources and rates, legal
> issues, research and universities.
> Advertising and Marketing Publications
> Links to Advertising and Marketing
> publications. Adweek Online
> Subscription-based current, weekly and
> archived advertising-related articles and
> industry updates. Also includes classifieds.
> American Association of Advertising
> Agencies Newsletter, events, membership
> roster, abstracts of publications; some
> available free of cost, others for purchase.
> FindexOnline The worldwide directory of
> market research reports, studies and
> surveys; search and purchase full-text
> market research reports. Internet
> Advertising Bureau IAB events, news,
> membership information and research about
> the use and effectiveness of advertising on
> the Internet. Marketing Lists HTMARCOM
> Marketing lists on the internet. Media
> Central Daily and weekly advertising and
> promotion, marketing, television and cable,
> newspaper and radio news. MouseTracks: The
> List of Marketing Lists An extensive list
> of marketing related e-mail discussion
> groups. The Advertising Research
> Foundation A corporate membership
> association performing research in
> advertising, marketing and media. Their
> website offers information about the
> organization, ARF-sponsored events and links
> to recent issues of The Journal of
> Advertising Research. Web Digest for
> Marketers A free current issue of links to
> marketing-related sites and also a
> searchable, fee-based archive of links.
> Yahoo!'s Advertising News
> Advertising-specific news from Reuters,
> Business Wire, and PR Newswire. Yahoo!'s
> Advertising Sites A useful collection of
> advertising-specific organizations. One
> of the greatest tools for Competitive
> Intelligence is your ability to look ahead
> and see where a competitor may be going. To
> do this you would want to look at such
> things as:

> Academic publications Help-wanted ads
> Access to Information Act Industry
> regulators Annual reports to
> stockholders Industry research reports
> Business school cases Media quotes
> Company home pages Patent filings
> databases Court cases Press
> announcements Directories Securities
> and Exchange Commission Environmental
> Protection Agency Financial analyst
> reports Government filings (10Ks, 8Ks)
> State Uniform Commercial Code Trade
> Press Trade associations You would
> also want to keep abreast of the news. By
> keeping abreast of your competitors
> involvement in things like:

> Community meetings Professional
> meetings Financial analysts meetings
> Trade shows and exhibits Government
> hearings Professional meetings This
> information you can use to your benefit and
> by employing strategies to study and learn
> more about your competitors, you can be far
> ahead of the competition. One government
> site claimed that:

> Canada and the United States have very
> different CI systems from these countries.
> In Canada, no university offers a degree in
> CI; existing legislation prevents the
> sharing of strategic information; and our
> culture focuses on information as power with
> the hoarding of it seen as a way of
> differentiating the individual -- we do not
> share. Canada's intelligence service (CSIS)
> is not mandated to collect commercial
> intelligence, in fact, the service's mandate
> prevents it from doing so. CSIS is not
> allowed to share findings with Canadian
> companies should commercial intelligence be
> uncovered. At the executive level, few see
> the value of an integrated competitive
> intelligence system and North Americans
> certainly do not devour information in the
> same way that others do.

> As for the United States, despite a growing
> number of university and executive programs
> in CI, the country is still far behind the
> rest of the world in CI. A study by the
> New-York-based Conference Board reveals that
> fewer than 5% of US corporations had
> full-fledged intelligence systems in place,
> only a marginal improvement of the 1988
> findings of 3% I guess we are a little
> too relaxed in North America. This attitude
> is NOT reflected across the entire globe.
> For example, Sweden is among the world
> leaders in CI. Collaboration among banks,
> academe, associations, government, and
> industry has helped create an impressive CI
> infrastructure with a large percentage of
> Sweden's top 500 firms having world-class CI
> departments. At the educational level,
> universities offer courses and degrees in
> CI, and there is even a high-school CI
> course that has been given to students
> throughout Europe. Within the Swedish
> business environment, there is much
> information sharing, and Sweden has relied
> on cartels, mergers, personal relationships,
> and so forth to maintain this system.
> Intelligence is gathered through tightly
> linked government, banking, business, and
> association networks around the world.

> If you need some studying material
> off-line to pursue this topic a little
> further you can find all kinds of books on
> data mining at Amazon.com .

> There is another free web based service
> offered by Excite that you can use to sort
> and filter through more than 300 online
> newspapers for late-breaking articles. Among
> these 300 or so, includes searches through
> Asia Week, Economist, London Evening
> Standard, Los Angeles Times, Forbes Digital,
> Advertising Age, and Russia Today.

> I'd like to point out before this article
> goes to much further that although a lot of
> information and software ideas are being
> presented to you here, that you REALLY have
> to be prepared to do your homework. You will
> need to set up a system on your computer and
> really study this information and plan your
> intelligence process. You are not going to
> be able to rely solely on software or web
> based services...

> Cambridge, Mass.-based constancy Fuld
> & Co. published a study, titled
> "Intelligence Software Report
> 2000."

> Fuld reviewed more than 170 software
> packages for the competitive intelligence
> market. Of the 170 products reviewed, only a
> dozen were found to offer enough
> functionality to warrant immediate
> consideration -- and none of those provided
> complete support for a company's competitive
> intelligence program, according to Fuld .
> And part of the problem that lies with the
> small entrepreneur is that a lot of these
> software packages are designed to pull
> information from major databases on the web
> about companies that sell stocks and are
> traded publicly. Interesting to note though,
> that once you have a strategic plan, much of
> what you may wish to discover can be done on
> your own. William E. Rothschild said,
> "Most major companies have developed
> World Wide Web sites to communicate
> directly, inexpensively,and efficiently with
> their customers, investors, suppliers and
> the public. In doing so, they inadvertently
> provide strategic and operational
> intelligence to Net-surfing
> competitors." In an article he wrote
> you can read how one of his clients, was
> able to use the Web listings of a key
> competitor...

> When and if you do try to compile data
> yourself, information on other environmental
> trends such as industry trends, legal and
> regulatory trends, international trends,
> technology developments, political
> developments and economic conditions are
> important considerations. The relative
> strength of the competitor can be judged
> accurately only by assessing it with respect
> to the factors listed above. It's no secret
> that all the dot.com lay-offs, and the
> increasing knowledge of "proven to
> fail" business models is going to
> increase the interest in gaining accurate
> and reliable information about those
> competitors who have established their
> successes.

> One of the best places to start your
> research is at Siteowner's . Use
> Siteowner's free services to find out how
> popular your competitor's sites are and how
> the search engines rank them. If you feel
> your searching skills need to be updated you
> can take a tutorial that will show you how
> to research companies online. There is also
> a CI Resource Index where you can read
> lots of articles about Competitive
> Intelligence.

> While looking for more software that might
> be able to offer some assistance I ran
> across a demo product from Answer Chase .
> The software demo is only enabled for 60
> days, but that should be long enough to
> learn how to use it to your benefit. For
> pricing it appears that the price is about
> $30 per month or $1 per day to keep using
> it.

> I would have liked to download it and try
> it before I reported on it, but I am limited
> to the amount of time I can afford to spend.
> Time is a precious commodity. This product
> promises to free some of YOUR time.

> One handy little tool I found that doesn't
> help a whole lot with compiling any type of
> intelligence reports but it does allow you
> to monitor competitors websites for changes
> in URL's at URL's you specify is called C4U.
> Here are some of the things it can do:

> Example 1 ? Let?s say you?re a
> Cardiologist, a Doctor of the Heart, and you
> wish to keep updated with the recent
> developments in the new research after the
> causes of Heart Attacks orchestra ted by Dr.
> John Smith in Washington DC. All you have to
> do in this scenario, is add the main page of
> http://www.medicalmag.com/ to your C4U
> Page List, and type in the keywords ?Heart
> AND Research OR Dr. Smith AND Washington? .
> The next time an article with these words
> will appear, C4U will let you know of it,
> and present it to you in an accessible
> convenient way.

> Example 2 ? You?re looking for a date on
> the Internet, and you?re checking out a
> dating service site. The problem is that
> you?re very selective, and you want a person
> who?s at least 5?11 or has green eyes,
> however, you?ve yet to find the right person
> in the current lists, and you?re waiting for
> new entries to show up In this case all you
> have to do is add the Web Page where the
> list appears, and if necessary, add a
> password and a username, and set C4U to
> detect new text and links in this page. The
> next time a new person comes along, you will
> be the first to know before he or she is
> already taken.As C4U will alert and keep an
> eye open for more people with added to that
> list.

> Example 3: Using Internet Search Engines
> ?You?re a great fan of Elvis, The King, and
> you wish to keep track of fan sites added to
> Yahoo!. All you have to do is look for
> ?Elvis? in Yahoo! and add the ?Results? to
> your C4U Page List. When you do,make sure
> you check the options to notify you when a
> link is added or text is added, and that
> way, the next time Yahoo?s collection of
> Elvis Fan sites is expanded, you will surely
> be the first to know.

> Example 4 ? Interested in the latest news
> for PCs and World Computing? Add
> www.pcmag.com to your C4U Page List and ask
> C4U to let you know if Text or Graphics have
> been added to the main page. If you?re
> anticipating a review of recent software of
> hardware, simply type it in as a keyword,
> and C4U will let you know when the PC
> Magazine personnel will review it.

> You can download this freeware tool from
> C4U A similar and free web based service
> can be found from NetMind .

> A free service I use and recommend is
> available from Tracer Lock . It monitors
> the Web for sites matching your interests,
> and sends you email when it finds a new
> match. A recent upgrade in this service made
> some improvements to the format of the
> TracerLock notification emails. Now, when
> TracerLock emails you a list of URL's that
> match your search query, it also looks at
> the contents of each URL and includes the
> portion of the Web page text that matches
> your query. This makes it easier to tell
> whether a given match is actually relevant,
> without having to view each Web page and
> look for your search term.

> Best Regards,
> Steve MacLellan PS:
> Keep in mind I wrote this article over a
> year ago, so some of the links may not work.

>