This sampling of business-related sites on the World Wide Web was gathered by Richard Drezen of The Washington Post News Research Center. Richard is News Research’s specialist in business news, and is a frequent contributor to stories by The Post’s business reporters as well as an invaluable resource for the Financial copy desk He has helped develop several databases on corporate information that are available to the entire newsroom.
Some of these Web sites are sources for detailed corporate information that requires a little experience to use to the fullest, but others offer more general-interest information tailored to those with less background knowledge. Some offer basic financial information and a guide to business and economic terms. Others are simply online press-release wires; they are valuable as sources of corporate earnings reports or merger announcements, not the usual drivel of company press releases. Others are compilations of business-related Web sites, such a Michigan State University’s "International Business Resources on the WWW." Still others, such as megaconverter, could be useful tools in editing a business story, making it possible to figure currency translations and other matters.
Overall, these are Richard’s picks for the sites he has found most useful in day-to-day attempts to understand what’s happening in business and economics. There are surely hundreds more to be explored, with the usual cautions about credibility.
Vince Rinehart
National copy desk chief
formerly Business copy chief
1. The Securities and Exchange Commission (http://www.sec.gov/ on the Web): For editors looking for company information, access to the Edgar database might be the most important facet of this site. Edgar is the online repository for all the filings that publicly held companies -- those with stock traded on the market -- make about their financial health and plans.
2. MSU-CIBER, or Michigan State University Center for International Business Education and Research (on the Web, it’s at http://ciber.bus.msu.edu/busres.htm ): This is basically a directory of business-related Web sites maintained by MSU-CIBER, organized into a variety of categories, with links to sites.
3. Visual International Business and Economic Sources (on the Web at http://www.uncc.edu/lis/library/reference/intbus/vibehome.htm ): more than 1,300 links to Internet sources of international business and economic information. This is maintained by University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
4. Hoover’s Online (http://www.hoovers.com/ ): Hoover’s is a longtime source of company profiles and other information about publicly held companies. There’s a lot of history along with the current news. This isn’t entirely free, however.
5. CorpTech’s database of 45,000 high-tech companies (http://www.corptech.com/ ): This also appears to cost something, but offers corporate profiles and a database of 160,000 corporate executives.
6. Fedstats (http://www.fedstats.gov/ on the Web): Very popular site where more than 70 federal agencies provide statistics to the public. Lots of economic reports available.
7. Census Bureau (at http://www.census.gov/ on the Web): Lots of economic, social, demographic information.
8. PR Newswire (at http://www.prnewswire.com/home.shtml on the Web): This is where a lot of corporate earnings releases and other statements appear first -- along with a lot of the usual press release dreck. Good to have for checking numbers in company profits stories, and the rest is to be viewed the way all press releases should be viewed.
9. Business Wire (at http://www.businesswire.com/headlines.shtml on the Web): See preceding.
10. Price’s List of Lists (at http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~gprice/listof.htm on the Web): Designed to be a clearinghouse for lists of rankings of different people, organizations, companies, etc. Everything from Census rankings of countries by population, to Forbes’ list of richest people, to various objective and subjective lists of companies and entrepreneurs.
11. Internet Prospector, Locating U.S. Corporation Records Online (at http://w3.uwyo.edu/~prospect/secstate.html on the Web): This is a directory of state Web sites and contact information for state secretaries of state. This is where states keep information on companies based within those states, as well as information on nonprofit groups, charities. etc. It’s also where to look for information about state regulation of business.
12. megaConverter (at http://www.megaconverter.com/_Conv/cv_home.htm
on the Web): From the site: "megaConverter.com is an ever-growing set of
weights, measures and units
conversion/calculation modules. megaConverters allow users to discover
things like how
many seconds old they are, the difference between a gallon in the
USA and a gallon in
the UK, how many nanometers in an inch, how many quarts in a chaldron,
and what the
heck a nebuchadnezzar is." Of course, you could do currency conversions
and many other calculations, like finding how many barrels of oil make
up a metric ton.
13. ProfNet (at http://www.profnet.com): Probably well known to just about everyone, this is a link to 5,100 flacks at colleges and universities, companies, think tanks, national labs, medical centers, nonprofit groups and PR agencies who are supposed to provide quotable experts on anything.
14. How far is it? (at http://www.indo.com/distance/ on the Web): This service uses data from the Census and a supplementary list of cities around the world. You can figure the distance, as the crow flies, between any two locations on Earth, and the latitude and longitude of the two places. And you can get a map showing the two places, using the Xerox PARC Map Server.
15. The History Channel’s site (at http://www.historychannel.com/thisday/ on the Web): Beyond general "this day in history" information, you can get "this day in Wall St. history."
16. Library of Congress Experimental Search System (at http://lcweb2.loc.gov/catalog/ on the Web): An experimental public retrieval system that lets you search for titles, authors, subjects and notes.
17. Acronym finder (at http://www.mtnds.com/af/fr-top.asp on the
Web): Find what ASCAP or DARPA or anything else stands for.