All the News That Fits You

In business, success depends on knowledge, on news and information that keep you ahead of the competition. Too bad 99% of the information that comes your way each day -- from TV, the Net, or the corporate research department -- is utterly useless.

Fortunately, that fact has not gone unnoticed by some of the pioneers in electronic publishing. Walter Bender, who directs the News in the Future consortium at the MIT Media Lab, says modern telecommunications "is leading to the smallest news product imaginable: the personalized newspaper, whose content has been tailored to meet an individual's needs."

Personal news is technology's version of the paperboy delivering "The Daily You." Forget editors. Its contents are compiled by database technology that acts on your behalf, searching out articles from online news sources and sending them to your computer.

It's not new. Personal news services have been around since the 1980s. The earliest versions were essentially electronic clipping services for large corporations. In the past six months, though, a collection of flashy Net startups and established publishing companies have launched news services for individual users.

"It's a hot new segment of the business information market," says Julie Chapman, president of the Infoworks Group, a media consultancy based in Bethesda, Maryland. "You get high-quality information at a reasonable cost, delivered incredibly fast."

This first wave of personalized services features a wide range of visual formats, news sources, and delivery media (e-mail, dial-in, or the Web). They save time; they keep you up on events that matter to you; they help you become an active participant in news delivery. Of course, there are a few glitches. If you aren't specific enough about which subjects interest you, the personal-news service will bombard you with worthless information. If you're too specific, you'll miss out on must-see news in other areas.

But if you're swamped by news you can't use, read on. We've customized your search for customized news.

How do you choose the personal news service that's best for you? Look for the means of delivery that's most convenient: e-mail, dial-in, or the Web. Check each service's list of news sources to make sure that they match your interests. The price tag, of course, is also a factor. But don't obsess on cost. It's hard to predict the return on investment from signing up for personal news. Often, the practical applications of e-news are quite different from what you might expect, as the following businesspeople have learned.

The Tracker

Use: Early warning system to track competitors.

User Profile: Leslie Evans, 30, is a marketing communications specialist for Ridgefield, Connecticut-based Bristol Technology, which develops programming tools for software companies. It's her job to help position Bristol as a market leader in an intensely competitive niche business.

E-News Service: IBM infoSage. Following Evans's preselected preferences, infoSage e-mails her twice a day with 30 headlines from 2,000 sources. News alerts arrive several times a day.

Search Words: Operating system, porting, cross-platform

Favorite Reading: Evans arrives at work at 8:30 AM First thing, she logs on to her e-mail. Today, infoSage sends an alert -- a Business Wire story on a software engineering firm's decision to move into the UNIX market. The company is a potential client. "We've been talking with them off and on, and we thought they might get into UNIX," she says. "This story confirms it."

Evans forwards the article to an account manager, who uses the alert to get in ahead of the competition and demonstrate Wind/U, Bristol's UNIX cross-platform development software. "They'll take about three to six months to evaluate," says Evans. "Being first in, we have a better chance of making the sale."

Again at 5:30 PM, Evans checks her e-mail to see if there's any news on Bristol's five direct competitors. She's relieved when they don't turn up. "Sometimes," she sighs, "the less news, the better."

Original Attraction: Evans signed up to beta-test infoSage when she saw that trade publications she reads regularly -- Dr. Dobb's Journal, UNIX Review, Computerworld -- are listed as sources. She finds infoSage a faster, more efficient way to get news from these and other publications.

Wish List: "More news sources. I'd like to use infoSage as a real clipping service that can track every mention of my company and competitors."

Coordinates: Leslie Evans, (lesliee@bristol.com)