BUSINESS INFORMATION ON THE INTERNET

Nice group of links from RBA (Karen Blakeman of Rhodes-Blakeman Associates, Caversham, Berks UK).

Includes: key starting points leaflet, company registers by country, country specific information, day-to-day essentials (currency rates, biographies, maps, post codes), direct marketing, directories, financials & annual reports, government & politics, information brokers,market & industry research, mergers & acquisitions, news, statistics, information by industry sector, stock market & share prices, further reading.

URL: http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/

SOCIAL NETWORKING IN FINANCE

Tip’d is a new “community for financial news, ideas, and tips.” Registered users (free) can submit news stories or tips, vote on stories they like, and comment on others. They cover business, currencies, entrepreneurship, green, private equity and venture capital, stocks, commodities, economy, funds and etfs, personal finance, real estate, and technology. There is also a blog and you can subscribe by RSS or email.

Tip’d was created by “a US-based, privately held company. The founders are Jimmy and Andy (aka Jimandi)—regular businessmen who enjoy discussing the day’s financial news.” As of mid-November 2008, there were 1760 current members, 805 articles published with another 1973 in the pipeline, nearly 24,000 tips, and over 1250 comments.

If you work in the business or finance area, this is definitely worth a try.

URL: http://tipd.com

HAVE YOU SEEN BNET?

BNET, short for Business Networking I guess, calls itself “the go-to place for management.” Their services include news feeds and analysis, special reports on specific business issues, “crash courses” on skills and business topics, podcasts, and executive summaries on trends and events. There is also a business library with “unlimited access” to white papers, tools and templates, and research articles. It is owned by US-based CBS Interactive, they have separate editors for the UK and Australia.
There is a limited (but ample) amount of information available without registration, but since registration is free, why not join and get all of this great stuff. If you’re working with management/business people (and who isn’t), you should at least look at BNET.

URL: http://www.bnet.com

PREFERENTIAL TRADE AGREEMENTS DATABASE

Library Boy blogger Michel-Adrien Sheppard [Supreme Court of Canada, Ottawa] (http://micheladrien.blogspot.com/) called my attention to this database. Its goal is to "provide the text-searchable electronic versions of all the Custom Unions, Free Trade Agreements, and Preferential Arrangements that have been notified to the World Trade Organization's Committee on Regional Trade Agreements, and are in force, plus many that have not been notified to the WTO". The Faculty of Law at McGill University (Montreal, Quebec, Canada) maintains the website.

URL: http://ptas.mcgill.ca/

ORG CHARTS ONLINE—NICE IDEA, BUT NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME

CogMap: The Org Chart Wiki has a great idea, but the execution is shaky. They promise organization charts for companies around the world. There are about a dozen posted, but the only companies I’d heard of are Microsoft, Google, Yahoo! and “United States of America.” They are not complete and there is little detail. Also, it seems anyone can edit them, so who knows how reliable the information is. But they are an interesting read, especially the USA one.

URL: http://www.cogmap.com