How to mine the web like a journalist.

By

I recently had the opportunity to sit in on two webinars aimed at journalists. One was sponsored by the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism, titled “Beyond Google: Mining the Web for Company Intelligence.” The other was a “LinkedIn for Journalists” training session, which is offered frequently by Krista Canfield, senior manager of corporate communications at LinkedIn. Both proved to be well worth my time. I thought I might share some of the best suggestions I picked up that are applicable for many researchers, journalists or not.

Competitive intelligence expert Sean Campbell, and member of Investigative Reporters & Editors (IRE), presented the Reynolds Center webinar. This webinar is posted on the site and available to anyone for self-guided training.

The goal of web mining, he says, is to uncover “actionable insights.” He covered mining social media such as Twitter for insights on a company’s recent missteps, successes, and future intentions. He noted that many people in a company tweet things that perhaps they shouldn’t, especially product managers or directors (CEOs or VPs may stick to the party line in their communications). He mentioned organizational tools, such as TweetDeck and HootSuite, and directory/search tools, such as Listorius and WeFollow. One particularly helpful tip for finding problems is to search #companyname fail.

A useful site for website information is QuarkBase. It provides the details on people, traffic data, similar sites, social comments, description, and social popularity. For the historical website record on a company, check the WayBack Machine from the Internet Archive.

SlideShare is a site I’ve used on numerous occasions to retrieve a specific presentation. Campbell says it’s his favorite tool and now it will be one that I will check more routinely. He says that many companies inadvertently give away details of their roadmaps by not taking the time to delete key slides before posting a PowerPoint deck. Presentation pitches from companies can frame their solutions well and provide industry/analyst data, product comparisons, and a wealth of information on partners, tradeshows, etc.

Campbell recommends mining HR-oriented sources for company intelligence, such as job postings aggregated on Indeed.com (check postings to see where a company is going with its products) and the reviews, interview commentary, and salary information posted by participants on Glassdoor.com. For company financials, he reminded me to use Seekingalpha.com for transcripts of earnings calls.
http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/Spotlight/Mine-the-Web-Like-a-Journalist-78008.asp


Beyond Google – Mining The Web for Company Intelligence: Self-Guided Training:
http://businessjournalism.org/2011/05/20/beyond-google-mining-the-web-for-company-intelligence-self-guided-training/