INTERNET SURVIVAL KIT.

AUGUST IS HERE, AND EVEN IN THE WINTRY CLIMES OF THE Southern Cone they can feel the heat. Budget deadlines are upon Latin America Inc., and corporate chieftains must now play an all-too-real game of justify your existence.

To help, we thought we'd wade through the thicket of Internet sites that purport to offer just the information you need. The helpful graph, the tidbit of data, that breaking news item that illustrates the depth and importance of your mission as head of sales, information boss or chief of finance.

AS IN ANY SURVEY, IT TAKES more guts to eliminate contenders than to finalize the order. We threw out lots of sites for lots of reasons. And we made exceptions when a site compelled us to think differently. In the end, we were after news. numbers and gossip. We punished sites that made any of these three obscure, hard-to-find or uninteresting to read.

First of all, sites that offered repackaged information from other media were eliminated, for the most part. Also sites that tended to get most if not all their data from other sources, or sites that are mostly selling something else but offer data for their clients, like stock brokerages, consultants and business-to-business operations.

A premium was placed, too, on sources that provided quick views of the most useful info in the fewest clicks. If your favorite isn't here, it's probably because we got tired of digging around to find the goods. Some sites weren't that good overall, but if they have one redeeming quality we tell you what that is and how to find it.

Also, we asked lots and lots of our readers and friends, mostly in the fields we selected to highlight, in management, in information technology. in sales and in logistics, for their faves. So, here goes: The best sites for getting your budget in order. Comments? Fire away: [e-mail].