Productive Products for Particular Professionals
Jinfo Blog

By Robin Neidorf

Abstract

A flurry of product reviews goes live, and Director of Research Robin Neidorf solicits your input for additional products to add to the review pipeline in 2013.

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There's been a flurry of articles and reports -- and more to come -- regarding product reviews since the last issue of Information Content Newsletter. Connie Crosby gives you a good taste of one of my personal favourites from previous career incarnations in marketing and PR: the latest from Cision. Dale Moore shares the results of his testing of Perfect Information's recently released Private Company Data. 

Both products reflect trends in product design: Cision towards tighter workflow integration of content with the details of a particular job functions; PI with the need of many researchers to get at a particular kind of hard-to-find information in a particular way.

Very shortly this month, we'll be publishing our annual review of Factiva, which tackles both those trends and more besides (end-user focus, mobile content delivery and more). In the meantime, of course, Factiva-watchers can learn from Anne Jordan's monthly overview of content changes in Factiva (and Nexis and other aggregators -- this month EBSCO's changes are covered).

Just yesterday, I was asked by a prospective subscriber how we select products for coverage. I found myself giving a lengthy answer:

• Suggestions from readers
• Press releases and announcements from vendors
• Our own reading of trade publications
• Exhibitor and speaker lists at industry events
• Monitoring social media
• Reviewing gaps in our own online Buyer's Guide in categories we know to be of interest

But of these, our best source is definitely suggestions from subscribers like you. There are far too many products for us to even dream of covering them all, and your input helps us narrow a constantly growing field. Is there a product you have your eye on you wish FreePint would review? Are you looking for alternative products to solve a particular research challenge? Please contact us with your suggestions for products to review in 2013, and we'll get the ball rolling.

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