Web watch: surfin' CEO.When Bell & Howell chief executive James P. Roemer needs to track information on the Net in a hurry, he usually lets either his own company's on-line information service, ProQuest Direct, do the surfing, or he turns to PointCast push technology. Running a $900 million information-access and mail-procesing company is a handful, says Roemer, and it leaves little spare time for random Web wandering. "I read these articles about people who surf for four hours a night and wonder what kind of jobs they have," Roemer says. His surfing time? Maybe three hours a week including visits to WineSpectator On-Line. Michael Mullins, CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. of Comtex Information Systems, a subsidiary of the $1 billion Norrell Corp., says he's logged on for as many as 10 hours a week. But he, too, relies on such tools as PointCast to save time. This cautious approach to Internet information hunting is understandable. Tools have only recently been refined to allow more efficient searches through endless haystacks Haystacks can be:
The Internet is growing up and being transformed from a playground of undergrads This article is about the television show. For the educational term, see undergraduate education. This article or section does not cite its . You can Wikipedia by introducing appropriate citations. , hackers, and nerds into a serious business tool. And that, in turn, is starting to draw the attention of CEOs. Long noted for their personal aversion to hands-on computing, senior managers are, in fact, starting to join the legions of Web surfers: A recent American Management Association poll found that 64 percent of executives and managers use the Web for more than three hours a week; by 1999, more than 80 percent say they expect to be logged on for more than seven hours a week. CEOs who watch the Web are finding that there is simply more and more to see. To be sure, a lot of the sites out there are ads, personal pages, and junk. But an increasing percentage offer real business information of interest to executives. Getting connected to the Web is relatively simple. If you do not have a connection through the company network or you just want to get set up at home, it's easy to Fred service providers and starter kits with the necessary browser software that lets you dial M and surf. When you're exploring the Web, remember that pages typically include graphics - some of them quite elaborate-which means they may take some time to appear on your screen. So, it's best to have a high-speed line in your office or, if you're on the road, a fast modem, such as a 33.6 Kbps or even a 56 Kbps model, if your on- line service supers it. Another approach Just set your browser to skip the graphics and give you text-only versions of the page. It may not be as appealing, but it can avoid some excruciating delays. The following set, on is designed to give you a sense of the breadth and depth of what's out there. Consider it a starting point Noun 1. starting point - earliest limiting point terminus a quo commencement, get-go, offset, outset, showtime, starting time, beginning, start, kickoff, first - the time at which something is supposed to begin; "they got an early start"; "she knew from the for an interesting and worthwhile journey. Workforce Online www.workforceonline,com Sponsored by the 75-year-old Workforce magazine (which for most of those years was known as Personnel Journal), Workforce Online provides a high-level look at the world of human resources The fancy word for "people." The human resources department within an organization, years ago known as the "personnel department," manages the administrative aspects of the employees. . For example, a collection of Winning Ideas offers profiles of award-winning companies that provide a valuable glimpse into innovative HR tactics, from free massages and ice cream at Ben & Jerry's to TQM (Total Quality Management) An organizational undertaking to improve the quality of manufacturing and service. It focuses on obtaining continuous feedback for making improvements and refining existing processes over the long term. See ISO 9000. at L.L. Bean and job-knowledge testing at FedEx. These case studies not only provide benchmarking-type views of HR best practices, they also make for some genuinely interesting reading. For more tactical information, visit the Workday Digest, where you'll fred a daily "survival tip" and a humor section that offers true-life Tales From the Trenches. CEO Exchange CEO Exchange is a television program featuring conversations between the host and two CEO guests, often from related industries. It is currently hosted by Jeff Greenfield of CNN. The show is broadcasted by PBS and distributed by WTTW. www.ceoexchange.com The CEO Exchange strives bring executives together for virtual interaction around the theme of growth - how to achieve it and how to deal with it. A Dilemmas section describes a real problem facing a real executive and invites comments, advice, and commiseration from other CEOs. Discovery houses thoughts sent in by executives on subjects such as "How To Get the Most from Your IT Professionals" and "The Compleat CEO - And How to Become One." And in "Dialogue," you can discuss topics presented by the powers that be at CEO Exchange, such as "life after downsizing (1) Converting mainframe and mini-based systems to client/server LANs. (2) To reduce equipment and associated costs by switching to a less-expensive system. (jargon) downsizing " or "the most challenging aspects of growing your company." Institute of Management and Administration www.ioma.com The Institute of Management and Administration is a commercial venture that publishes an away of electronic monthly newsletters on subjects ranging from human resources management to pay for performance and inventory reduction. Articles provide "practical, actionable information." Titles include "What You Should Know Before Building A Benefits Intranet," "U.S. Contractors Could Miss Most of the World's Jobs in the Next Five Years," and "Is CEO Compensation at Big and Small Companies Really Out of Control?" A fair number of sample articles are free; subscription prices vary, but most of the newsletters are about $200 a year. The institute also maintains an on-line business directory with more than 600 links to associations, research groups, consultants, and so on. Innovation Line www.innovationline.com Innovation Line is an electronic newsletter designed to "help you stay abreast of new management practices." When you subscribe, Innovation Line will show up in your e-mail five clays a week, with each "issue" containing a handful of brief, easy-to-digest reports on management research, new technologies, and the global business environment. In addition, you can sign up to receive regular updates on management statistics, quotations from business leaders, and a biweekly interview feature that focuses on authors of recent business books. MIT MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology Organizational Learning Organizational learning is an area of knowledge within organizational theory that studies models and theories about the way an organization learns and adapts. In Organizational development (OD), learning is a characteristic of an adaptive organization, i.e. Network learning.mit.edu The MIT Organizational Learning Network is the on-line home of the school's Center for Organizational Learning, which aims to "discover, develop, and integrate multiple theories and practices of leading, learning, and working together." That's just what's going on What's Going On is a record by American soul singer Marvin Gaye. Released on May 21, 1971 (see 1971 in music), What's Going On reflected the beginning of a new trend in soul music. in the Idea Exchange, where deep thinkers are encouraged to submit 200-word essays on topics such as knowledge management and Organizational design. To make things even more interesting, readers are invited to rate those ideas electronically on a stole of 1 to 10; recent hits include 'The Boundaryless Organization" and "The Continuous Reinvention of the Organization." For more in-depth information, visit The Practice Field, which offers a tour of learning-organization concepts, a case study of learning at Shell Oil, and an exercise in "Drawing Forth Personal Vision," among other things. Finally, make a quick stop at the Learning Lexicon, a simple little dictionary Noun 1. little dictionary - a dictionary that is small enough to carry in your pocket pocket dictionary dictionary, lexicon - a reference book containing an alphabetical list of words with information about them that provides a deeper look at words such as "teams" and "vision" that have become ubiquitous in today's business Today's Business is a show on CNBC that aired in the early morning, 5 to 7AM ET timeslot, hosted by Liz Claman and Bob Sellers, and it was replaced by Wake Up Call on Feb 4, 2002. jargon. Agility Forum www.agilityforum.org The Agility Forum is a nonprofit organization Nonprofit Organization An association that is given tax-free status. Donations to a non-profit organization are often tax deductible as well. Notes: Examples of non-profit organizations are charities, hospitals and schools. based at Lehigh University Lehigh University, at Bethlehem, Pa.; coeducational; chartered and opened 1866 by Asa Packer. It has undergraduate colleges of arts and science, business and economics, and engineering and applied science, as well as several graduate programs. that aims to help companies be more, well, agile - that is, more responsive and competitive in changing global markets. For starters, there is an Agility Tutorial section that offers video clips (or transcripts for the less patient) on the basics of Agility. For those who want to dig deeper, there is also an Agile Edge newsletter, an Agile Talk discussion area, and a guide to the Agility Forum's consulting services, assessment tools, and other products. And, to help you get motivated, you can download a set of interactive quizzes titled, "Can my company survive to 2000?" American Productivity & Quality Center www.apqc.org The non-profit American Productivity & Quality Center (APQC) refers to itself as the "international benchmarking clearinghouse," and it offers a wide range of information (much of it for sale) on what companies are doing to improve performance. Resources are organized in five key sections: benchmarking, knowledge management, measurement, customer satisfaction, and productivity and quality. In these sections, you'll find articles and reports on subjects such as "Taking Inventory of Your Knowledge Management Skills," "Organizational Change: Managing the Human Side," and "Shareholder Value-based Management." Of special interest: "inPRACTICE," a series of case studies looking at best practices at companies such as Saturn, Dell, Monsanto, and USAA USAA United Services Automobile Association USAA Urban Superintendents Association of America USAA United States Achievement Academy USAA United States Arbitration Act of 1925 USAA United States Axemen's Association USAA United States Air-Table-Hockey Association . F.E.D.net www.fed.org The Foundation for Enterprise Development's Web site is based on the simple premise that employees perform better when they are involved in ownership and decisionmaking. F.E.D.net's on-line monthly magazine, Leading Companies, looks at topics such as "Using Employee Ownership to Facilitate Federal Privatization privatization: see nationalization. privatization Transfer of government services or assets to the private sector. State-owned assets may be sold to private owners, or statutory restrictions on competition between privately and publicly owned Initiatives" and "Governance and the Power of Ownership" at United Airlines, and runs a regular "Business Leader of the Month" profile. The F.E.D. calls this the e-zine for high-performance companies, and its format is tailored to those who are pressed for time, with content broken down by subject for quick skims. The site is also notable for its Resource Library of more than 250 articles, speeches, and case studies of companies from Avis and Amgen to Starbucks and Southwest Airlines This article is about the American airline. For the former Japanese airline, see Japan Transocean Air. For the British airline, see Air Southwest. Southwest Airlines Co. . Hoover's Online www.hoovers.com Hoover's provides short capsule descriptions of some 11,000 private and public companies and in-depth profiles of 2,700 companies reports that are lively and, yes, entertaining. You can also get 10-year historical financial data on thousands of firms or see who's headed for Wall Street in IPO (Initial Public Offering) The first time a company offers shares of stock to the public. While not a computer term per se, many founders, employees and insiders of computer companies have found this acronym more exciting than any tech term they ever heard. Central. Also of interest: Who's On Top, a sort of master list of lists gathered from publishers, analysts, and government agencies. It's a great place to find both the expected - rankings of the biggest companies, the top 10 salaries, and so forth - and the less-obvious, such as "50 American Corporations with the Largest Unfunded Pension Liability." There's a charge for some areas, but a mere $10 a month is all it takes to get access to the whole site. Quote.com www.quote.com Quote.com provides one-stop shopping for those who like to go by the numbers. Here. you can find quotes, P/E ratios, 52-week highs, markets, options, bonds, five-minute and 15-minute charts, Morningstar Mutual Fund Reports, and market indices such as the Dow Jones Industrial Average Dow Jones Industrial Average The best known U.S. index of stocks. A price-weighted average of 30 actively traded blue-chip stocks, primarily industrials including stocks that trade on the New York Stock Exchange. and the NASDAQ Composite The Nasdaq Composite is a stock market index of all of the common stocks and similar securities (e.g. ADRs, tracking stocks, limited partnership interests) listed on the NASDAQ stock market, meaning that it has over 3,000 components. It is highly followed in the U.S. . The site has ticker-symbol and company-name searching, and data on major industry groups, such as Internet Stocks, Computers, and Biotechnology. To help keep track of key companies. you can also create a customized portfolio of up to seven securities. For a modest monthly fee, you can get additional features, ranging from global weather reports anti accompanying commodity recommendations to expanded portfolio tracking, customized charting, foreign exchange data, and full-text news reports. Annual Report Gallery www.reportgallery.com The Annual Report Gallery lists nearly 200 companies in alphabetical order, from Aetna and Allied Signal to Wendy's, Whirlpool, and Xerox. For each company, just click on the words "annual report" to see an on-line version of the company's flagship investor publication. or click on "Home Page" to be whisked to their Web site. Simple, but effective. The site also highlights a handful of outstanding reports, provides links to a sister site housing reports from Japanese companies This is a list of companies from Japan. Note that 株式会社 can be (and frequently is) read both kabushiki kaisha and kabushiki gaisha (with or without a hyphen). See that article for more details. , and lets you order printed reports on-line. CorpFiNet www.corpfinet.com The Corporate Finance Network, or CorpFiNet, provides current news in areas such as Corporate Transactions, a weekly review of major M&A activity, and Wall Street Wired, which looks at corporate banking and finance activity on the Internet Interviews include discussions with such Internet/finance luminaries as SEC Commissioner Steven Wallman Steven Wallman was Commissioner of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) from 1994 to 1997, for which he was appointed by Bill Clinton. He founded FOLIOfn, headquartered in the Tysons Corner, Virginia suburbs of Washington DC in 1998. , Michael Bloomberg Michael Rubens Bloomberg (born 14 February 1942) is an American businessman, and the founder of Bloomberg L.P., currently serving as the Mayor of New York City. He was a general partner at Salomon Brothers before founding the financial software service company in 1981. , and Eric Nee, Upside magazine's managing editor. In addition to such original content, the site also provides a roundup of in-depth financial stories from other Web sources, such as CNET (body) CNET - Centre national d'Etudes des Telecommunications. The French national telecommunications research centre at Lannion. , American Banker American Banker is a daily newspaper covering the financial services industry. Founded in 1835 and based in New York, American Banker's 70 reporters and editors in six cities monitor developments and breaking news affecting banks. and The Economist. Salon www.salon1999.com An e-zine with a slightly-on-the-edge view of culture and politics, Salon offers reviews of books, movies, and TV, as well as columns by regulars such as political consultant James Carville James Carville (born October 25, 1944) is an American political consultant, commentator, media personality and pundit. Known as the Ragin' Cajun, Carville gained national attention for his work as the lead strategist of the successful presidential campaign of then-Arkansas and David Horowitz
n. 1. An original model or type after which other similar things are patterned; a prototype: "'Frankenstein' . . . 'Dracula' . . . 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' . . . lounge lizards Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, anti the rest of the Rat Pack rat pack n. Slang A closely knit group of people sharing interests. rat pack n (Brit) (inf) → journalistes mpl de la presse à sensation . GolfWeb www.golfweb.com The golf news here is extensive and round-the-clock, but it's just one small part of GolfWeb. A section called Your Game gives you e-mail access to experts. offers the complete rules of golf and golf etiquette Golf etiquette refers to a set of rules and practices designed to make the game of golf safer and more enjoyable for golfers and to minimize possible damage to golf equipment and courses. . anti includes a little "biorhythm biorhythm or biological rhythm, cyclic pattern of changes in physiology or in activity of living organisms, often synchronized with daily, monthly, or yearly environmental changes. calculator" that lets you see if you should play golf today. Other areas to check out: The library, with articles on course design anti video clips of "The Greatest Moments in Golf"; On Course. a guide to some 21,000 courses in nearly a dozen countries; and discussion groups where you can weigh in on topics such as golf rules, the U.S. Open The term U.S. Open is applied to "open" United States national championships in a particular sport, in which anybody, amateur or professional, American or non-American may compete. These include:
Epicurious Traveler travel.epicurious.com Planning a trip? Try the "Cities to Dine For" interactive tool that lets you choose a city and a cuisine, and then suggests where to go. Or, try the Beach and Island Finder, which asks you to rank priorities, such as temperature, region, or cost, to narrow' down your choices. You can also explore by theme - Great Escapes, for example, points you to healthy vacations, from rock climbing rock climbing Sports medicine An 'extreme sport' in which the participant climbs rock formations, with or without ropes Injury risk Fractures, abrasions, death. See Extreme sports. to spas that pamper pam·per tr.v. pam·pered, pam·per·ing, pam·pers 1. To treat with excessive indulgence: pampered their child. 2. . Or, you can simply browse through the site's catalogue of 500 destinations. If you can't get away, take a spin through the Play section, where you'll find travel books and maps, or flip through Decent Exposures, a gallery of photos from Conde Nast Traveler magazine. d-comm www.d-comm.com Data communications data communications, application of telecommunications technology to the problem of transmitting data, especially to, from, or between computers. In popular usage, it is said that data communications make it possible for one computer to "talk" with another. is esoteric, complex, and baffling baf·fle tr.v. baf·fled, baf·fling, baf·fles 1. To frustrate or check (a person) as by confusing or perplexing; stymie. 2. To impede the force or movement of. n. 1. - and an increasingly critical part of everybody's business. Hence, d.comm, an electronic journal that takes an engaging, business-oriented took at the "converging worlds of communication and information technology." The d.comm site offers a largely European perspective on daily and weekly news and longer, thoughtful features that often strive to provide a glimpse over the horizon. Recent articles examined teleworking, voice and video on the Internet, and predictions of a slowdown in technological innovation. BusinessTech businesstech.com BusinessTech provides an insider's look at information technology, with pieces contributed by corporate executives, consultants, and industry analysts. The tone here is down-to-earth and a bit iconoclastic i·con·o·clast n. 1. One who attacks and seeks to overthrow traditional or popular ideas or institutions. 2. One who destroys sacred religious images. - all in all, it feels like a much-needed reality check in a world that's flooded with hype about technology. In addition to articles, editorials, and interviews with the likes of Michael Hammer Michael Martin Hammer is one of the founders of the management theory of Business process reengineering (BPR). Career An engineer by training, he is the proponent of a process oriented view of business management. He earned BS, MS, and Ph.D. , Peter G.W. Kean, and James Champy, you'll fund an Ask the Experts feature that draws on the experience of a network of executives, consultants, and technologists; reviews of methodologies used by leading consulting finns and case studies of re-engineering and systems initiatives. Some stories and resources are available for free, but full access to the site is $99 a year. BRINT (Business Researcher's Interests) www.brint.com This self-described meta-site and "searchable knowledge map" is a kind of navigational aid A navigational aid or Navaid is any sort of marker which aids the traveler in navigation; the term is most commonly used to refer to nautical or aviation travel. Common types of such aids include lighthouses, buoys, fog signals, and daybeacons. for the Web. It focuses on business, technology, and information management, providing access to hundreds of articles academic papers, magazines, reviews, and summaries of books, as well as a host of other IT management-related sites. Information is organized into categories such as Business Process Re-engineering See reengineering. (business) Business Process Re-engineering - (BPR) Any radical change in the way in which an organisation performs its business activities. BPR involves a fundamental re-think of the business processes followed by a redesign of business activities to , Knowledge Management, Virtual Corporations, and so on. There aren't a lot of bells and here - the emphasis is on information, plain and simple. But it's a tremendous resources if you want to get a feel for the state of thinking on key business technologies. Computer News Daily www.nytsyn.com Computer News Daily gleans technology-related items from newspapers around the country and abroad. A front page displays a handful of headlines, but you can quickly drill down to find dozens of current articles. The site also features a Hot Topics section, with categories such as Telecom, Tech Stocks, and New Products. There's even a section devoted to the musings of Bill Gates (person) Bill Gates - William Henry Gates III, Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft, which he co-founded in 1975 with Paul Allen. In 1994 Gates is a billionaire, worth $9.35b and Microsoft is worth about $27b. , who answers questions as diverse as "Will India be a software superpower?" and "How do you handle the pressure?" to "Did you ever write a virus?" Emmerce www.computerworld.com Targeted at "electronic commerce strategists," Emmerce is a spin-off of the well-known Computerworld IT weekly. However, it's relatively free of technical jargon and provides comment and commentary that can be useful to the generalist as well as the specialist. Articles look at a range of electronic commerce topics, such as the auto industry's use of EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) The electronic communication of business transactions, such as orders, confirmations and invoices, between organizations. Third parties provide EDI services that enable organizations with different equipment to connect. , electronic commerce at Federal and new payment systems that are coming to the Web. For those who like to back up their arguments with facts, a statistics section provides the latest data on Internet ad revenues, the amount of venture capital going into electronic commerce ventures, and other such timely information. International Herald Tribune International Herald Tribune Daily newspaper published in Paris. It has long been the staple source of English-language news for American expatriates, tourists, and businesspeople in Europe. www.iht.com It calls itself "The World's Daily Newspaper," and, like its Paris-based print counterpart. this site covers a lot of ground in a concise and thoughtful manner. In addition to Daily News - which can be reviewed in summaries or full-length form - the International Herald Tribune offers regular dispatches from locales such as London. Brussels, and Singapore, and special reports on subjects such as telecommunications and private banking. For a change of pace, there's also an archive of Patricia Wells's famous columns on dining in Dining in is a formal military function for members of a company or other unit. The practice is thought to have begun in 16th Century England, in the monasteries and early universities. Europe. EBN EbN abbr. east by north Noun 1. EbN - the compass point that is one point north of due east east by north Interactive www.ebn.co.uk Created by Dow Jones Dow Jones the best known of several U.S. indexes of movements in price on Wall Street. [Am. Hist.: Payton, 202] See : Finance Broadcasting Europe, EBN Interactive starts with a front page of headlines, and lets you pull up the full story or, if you like, hear it read over your computer's speaker. A Markets section offers up-to-date figures on stocks, currencies, bonds, and commodities from around the world. Downloadable audio features are divided into sections such as Style Care (the fashion business), Future File (new business technologies) and 2000 Ideas on "How To Survive the New Millennium." For fun, take a look at Virtual Investing, a game that lets you compete against hundreds of other players in managing a stock portfolio. This technologically sophisticated section uses a tool developed by Dow Jones that draws on live data feeds to let you visualize your portfolio's performance at any given moment. Asia, Inc. www.asia-inc.com Edited "by Asians and Asian specialists," Asia, Inc. provides an inside look at business in a rapidly changing part of the world. Much of the site follows a familiar magazine format: Recent stories have looked at the future of Taiwan, Asia's 50 most competitive companies, the arms trade in Asia, and currency trading in the new Hong Kong Hong Kong (hŏng kŏng), Mandarin Xianggang, special administrative region of China, formerly a British crown colony (2005 est. pop. 6,899,000), land area 422 sq mi (1,092 sq km), adjacent to Guangdong prov. . Regular departments include The Connected Executive, a guide to Internet business, and Asia Abroad, which covers Asian business people who have succeeded in other parts of the world. The site also has a reference library, closing prices from Asian markets, and a "Who's Who Who’s Who biographical dictionary of notable living people. [Am. Hist.: Hart, 922] See : Fame in Asia." EXEC! THE EXEC!UTIVE ASSISTANT www.execmag.com Scan the Web for General Motors using a typical search engine, and you'll find more than 27,000 references. A search for re-engineering will turn up some 20,000 items. And so on. The point is, the Web's great strength - a wealth of information - is also one of its great handicaps, because there is more there than anyone can get a grip on. Exec!, an on-line journal published by Unisys, is addressing that problem by providing upfront screening on behalf of executives. The concept for the site is based on two facts, says James Kerr
The name James Kerr can refer to:
Remove this template after wikifying. This article has been tagged since and hard to get value out of," says Kerr. "Number two, more senior executives are coming to the Web." The idea behind Exec! is to help executives save time by functioning as a sort of editor, looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. relevant, accurate information and presenting it in a meaningful, useful fashion. Exec! is divided into two broad areas: An e-zine and a CxO (with the x standing in for the host of new chief officer titles now available) Resources section. The e-zine portion runs original content that is designed to be useful for executives and at the same time enhance the Unisys image in the marketplace. "The editorial content is generally linked to our positioning as an information management company, addressing themes such as information technology, knowledge management, and intellectual capital," says David Curry David Maurice Curry (born June 13, 1944) British politician. He is the Conservative Member of Parliament for Skipton and Ripon. David Curry, the son of a teacher, was educated at the Ripon Grammar School where he was head boy in 1962, and then at Corpus Christi College, , vice president of public affairs Those public information, command information, and community relations activities directed toward both the external and internal publics with interest in the Department of Defense. Also called PA. See also command information; community relations; public information. for Unisys. The CxO Resources section provides concise abstracts of articles and other resources available on the Web, complete with links directly to the full article or resource itself. These into categories such as Human Capital, Managing Technology, and that a growing number of core business publications were taking steps to present themselves on the Web," says Curry. "So we tried to fashion a tool that will let executives get at those publications and other Web content effectively." To sort through content, Exec! relies on the most fundamental of information management tools. "We do this with the human brain, finding and reading and evaluating articles - as opposed to automated search engines, which turn up a lot of hits but not much context about whether something is important, says Kerr. Each week, Exec!'s editorial staff reviews dozens of publications and regularly explores the Web for new material. "There is simply no way that an executive could get his or her arms around all this without some kind of gateway," says Kerr. "That's what That's What is one of the more idiosyncratic releases by solo steel-string guitar artist Leo Kottke. It is distinctive in it's jazzy nature and "talking" songs ("Buzzby" and "Husbandry"). we're trying to provide." HAIL FROM THE CHIEF THE WHITE HOUSE HOME PAGE TOUR A web site typically consists of many individual "pages," and foremost among these is the Home Page, which acts as a kind of entry point and guide to the information contained throughout the site. From the Home Page, you can click on highlighted words and images, or "hypertext links," to be sent to other pages. In addition to offering additional information, these pages provide links to other pages, which will, in turn, provide links to yet more - and on and on, in a virtually endless string of pages. There is no correct order or beginning and end to this process - think of it as a self-guided, non-linear tour that lets you explore layer upon layer of information. A good business Web site takes advantage of that ability to provide stakeholders and other readers with a variety of information in a variety of formats. For example, a site - yours or the ones you're surfing - can: Promote the product with descriptions, photos, spec sheets, etc.. Help customers navigate through the organization, providing a guide to services, contact numbers, etc. Provide background/history on the organization, key personnel, and the industry. Enhance customer relationships by providing information that is not directly related to the product, but of value and interest to customers. Support positioning efforts with white papers, reports, speeches, etc. Provide regular updates. Web pages can be revised with relative ease, allowing you to add breaking news, product announcements, and the like as they happen. Target specific customer segments. Individual Web pages within a site can be tailored to key groups. Gather feedback from customers. E-mail links allow customers to send comments and demographic data to your company instantly. TECHNOLOGY SEARCH ENGINES There are literally millions of Web pages out there. That's nice if you just want to surf aimlessly aim·less adj. Devoid of direction or purpose. aim  less·ly adv.aim , but it's overwhelming if you want to find something specific. To impose some degree of order on that chaos, companies provide a number of search engines that index and catalogue Web sites and allow you to search for information by typing in a few words or phrases. These search engines are free for users. You just enter the engine's Web address into your computer and when the site appears on your screen, follow the instructions and type in words describing what you're looking for. Here's a sampling of the more popular searching tools: Yahoo - www.yahoo.com Yahoo is easy to use, making it a good choice for the novice. Each reference, or "hit," provides a short description of, and a link to, the site in question. You can also track things down through a "logic tree," which subdivides information into smaller and smaller categories (i.e., Business, Internet, or Asia.). Yahoo is a good place to start if you have a broad topic and want to narrow it down, or if you just want to browse. Infoseek - www.infoseek.com Infoseek provides concise summaries and links and prioritizes its findings by how relevant a site is to your request - a list of 10 sites, for example, might have percentage rankings from 96 percent to 83 percent. It also tells you how large a site is, allowing you to shy away from Verb 1. shy away from - avoid having to deal with some unpleasant task; "I shy away from this task" avoid - stay clear from; keep away from; keep out of the way of someone or something; "Her former friends now avoid her" those that are going to take a long time to bring up on your screen. Excite - www.excite.com In addition to links, well-done summaries, and relevancy ratings, Excite offers a "more like this" option. That means that if you find a document that is on target, you can ask it to go back and find similar references; the system will use the document you choose as an example to guide its search. Excite is especially useful when you want a small number of useful hits, rather than a broad range of references. MORE SEARCH ENGINES Alta Vista See AltaVista. (World-Wide Web) Alta Vista - A World-Wide Web site provided by Digital which features a very fast Web and Usenet search engine. As of April 1996 its word index is 33GB in size. - www.altavista.digital.com Alta Vista searches the Web and Usenet newsgroups, where people post opinions and advice on various topics. Web search results are ranked with the most relevant appearing first, but relevancy percentages are not provided for your comparison. In addition to links and page descriptions, Alta Vista also tells you when a page was last updated - a nice touch, because the Web has a surprising number of outdated pages. Alta Vista covers a lot of ground efficiently and is most useful when you have a fairly clear idea of what you want, such as a specific article. MetaCrawler - www.metacrawler.com MetaCrawler takes your search terms and feeds them simultaneously to several search engines, such as Yahoo and Alta Vista. When those search engines respond, MetaCrawler collates the results and eliminates the redundant sites. A nice option: MetaCrawler lets you specify how much time you're willing to wait for results - "fast" or "complete" - as well as restrict the geographic area of your search. It's a good way to come up with a broad overview of what's available on the Web. Webcrawler - www.webcrawler.com Webcrawler is a user-friendly tool that lets you do some simple customizing of searches (i.e., whether to show summaries with titles of sites, how many search results to show per page, etc.) and lets you browse by category, such as Business or Entertainment. It also has a lot of extras that can be helpful, such as city maps, a service for looking up e-mail addresses, and weather reports. Lycos - lycos.com Lycos features an especially large database of Web sites; to make it easier to home in on information, searches can be customized or run via category, such as Kids Government, or Science. This site also offers extras such as reviews of Web sites, a tool for finding pictures and sounds, a directory that lets you look up the phone numbers and e-mail addresses of individuals, and guides to more than 800 cities in North America North America, third largest continent (1990 est. pop. 365,000,000), c.9,400,000 sq mi (24,346,000 sq km), the northern of the two continents of the Western Hemisphere. , Europe, and Australia. |
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