twURL Web Briefs - Benefits, Types, Costs

Comparison of twURL vs Traditional Web Search and Collection

Research Outlet and Integration has developed an infrastructure of web tools and processes that increases coverage of web topics, improves quality of selections, adds analyses and profiles, yields multi-targetted and truly webbed HTML products, all while working more productively than normal web searching.

Tasks	Traditional web searching	twURL web collection process
Search Engine Querying	Sequential queries to selected search engines, e.g. Altavista, then Fast, then ... Typical collection: 10-50 URLs	Use powerful desktop meta-searchers, WebFerret and Bullseye, to collect URLs from more than a dozen search engines, concurrently. Typical Collection: 100-2000 URLs
Filtering duplicates and duds; Qualifying URLs relevance and authoritative	Selecting a few URLs with good descriptions, viewing pages, building a list of URLs	Using meta-searchers to double-check queried terms; twURL triage (keepers, losers, unsure) iteratively to sort, filter, rate URLs; off-line browsing of downloaded web pages for rapid viewing and authentication
Categorizing URLs	Text templates, questions, cut-and-paste of search engine result pages	Keywords from controlled vocabularies for concept clustering, links among pages to show most popular, hubs and authorities; Internet domain and site ordering to see distributions and types of content; outline and graph presentations of distribution data
Generating Reports	Annotated results of categorization	Multi-linked HTML pages with URL thumbnails, pie-chart and tables for navigating sites, keyword indexes to URLs
Updating and managing collections	Databases, text lists, HTML pages	URL bases that can be merged to produce unions or intersections of topics, audit trails of rating and selection decisions for repeated searches; expansions of URL bases by adding linked to URLs

Summary of twURL benefits over non-automated, traditional web searching

Better coverage through multi-querying more search engines with increased control over quality using twURL's decision support facility
Defined semi-automated process, permitting estimation of time and cost-benefit trade-offs
Audit trail of decisions for due diligence and repeated searches
Insight into features and trends of the whole collection, e.g. distribution of URLs in .com vs .gov, most linked-to URLs, clusters by keywords from multiple views (e.g. genre, organizational types and roles, special discipline terms)
Versatile HTML reports organized as a true web, more than just lists of URLs

Types of services using our twURL process

Our services and information products are designed for business researchers, journalists, technology marketing and investment analysts, legal searchers, and others who need extensive, qualified, and/or packaged web searches and topic collections, such as:

Company backgrounders, including an outline of the company's website, online reviews and articles about the company and its products and services, additional corporate information found on the web.
Sample: Corpedia Training Technologies
Book-webs, including expansions of topics, webliography, author background, reviews and references.
Sample: "web farming for systematic business intelligence using data warehouses" by Richard Hackathorn
Technology scans, including descriptions of theory and implementations; research completed and in progress; companies, universities, non-profits, trade associations, and government agencies with interests in the technology; link analyses to identify most influential web presences
Industry catalogs, including annotated lists of company URLs; identification of trade publications and associations; relations to regulatory and sponsoring government agencies; link analyses to investigate alliances and rivalries.
Sample: "machine tools" industry
Global trends and policy issues, including identification of interested parties, hot spots for discussion and media coverage; technologies and organizations causing problems and/or providing solutions
Sample: "information warfare, computer security, and U.S. critical infrastructure"
Personality and cultural profiles, including books and articles, reviews, interviews
Sample: "Techno-culture ala Ellen Ullman"

Costs

Our rates are $80-$100/hour, depending on the degree of accuracy and quality assessment required. A typical company brief or top level collection on a topic will likely produce 100 or more annotated URLs with added search engine, link, Internet domain, and keyword profiling.

Time required is usually 3-8 hours, depending on amount of filtering required, search engine and net behavior, and parameters of report generation. Further refinement and quality assessment, including reading all web pages off-line, development of effective keyword categories, and analysis of trends may run from 2-5 days and may be negotiated at a project rate.

Deliverables include:

URL Base, an open text version of URL details, including title, preface, headings, links, keywords. Usually 500KB or more of text
HTML reports, organized by Internet domain, controlled vocabulary keywords, and search engines. Usually 1MB or more, including HTML tags and pie-chart navigation jpg
(Additional cost) Our summary of the content, using an existing template such as: company details, product and company reviews, web presence, website highlights

We prefer to deliver content as zipped files by FTP to your site. If space is available, we may provide download from our website. Alternatively, zip or floppy disks may be shipped at mailing and material costs.

To order a twURL Web Brief or inquire about additional web searching and collection services, contact Susan Gerhart, Research Outlet and Integration, 281-486-8480 Houston, Texas.