LexisNexis - the web isn't everything
Over the past few days I've had an opportunity to use LexisNexis Professional. LexisNexis is an information database drawn from 11,000 publications and other sources. It reminded me of how much information never goes into Google, a quick search revealed far more of my press releases (though not all of them) than a search on Google would do.
The web front end to it is friendly than I remember Factiva, although the earlier Dow Jones Newswire service that was one of the parents of Factiva has not been bettered. In order to make the most of LexisNexis you have to have a four page cheat sheet of commands, which betray its old school database roots.
The whole process has reminded me how overrated the web is an information source nowadays, especially as media players have partitioned off and price segmented much of the information. Projects like Wikipedia are useful but will only go so far.
Link: a quick rundown of the features and usage of LexisNexis by Sheffield University.
Over the past few days I've had an opportunity to use LexisNexis Professional. LexisNexis is an information database drawn from 11,000 publications and other sources. It reminded me of how much information never goes into Google, a quick search revealed far more of my press releases (though not all of them) than a search on Google would do.
The web front end to it is friendly than I remember Factiva, although the earlier Dow Jones Newswire service that was one of the parents of Factiva has not been bettered. In order to make the most of LexisNexis you have to have a four page cheat sheet of commands, which betray its old school database roots.
The whole process has reminded me how overrated the web is an information source nowadays, especially as media players have partitioned off and price segmented much of the information. Projects like Wikipedia are useful but will only go so far.
Link: a quick rundown of the features and usage of LexisNexis by Sheffield University.
