I received an very odd call yesterday about Allbusiness.com from a woman who identified herself as a journalist and researcher.
The person I spoke to appeared to believe that Allbusiness.com was somehow breaking copyright law. I’m still not entirely clear who this person was or why they were calling me.
However, a quick look at Allbusiness shows it has a business relationship with Reed Elsevier and Proquest, both major information providers and repackagers who aggregate thousands of journals and periodicals including the Wall Street Journal. Proquest is responsible for ABI-Inform as well as numerous specialty databases. Major companies like Proquest are usually very very careful about copyright infringement.
In addition, I would like to clarify that I received no compensation for reviewing Allbusiness.com on this blog. I put together this blog because it is more expedient than posting resources on the Prospect-L, the researchers’ listserv, and I hope that it will be helpful to people, especially people in the non-profit arena.
The following is a reprint of part of my review.
AllBusiness.com is an online media and e-commerce company that operates one of the premier business sites on the Web. Founded in 1999, the site has received critical acclaim from The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Business 2.0, Fortune, and other publications. AllBusiness.com helps entrepreneurs, small and growing businesses, consultants and business professionals save time and money by addressing real-world business questions and presenting practical solutions. The site offers resources including how-to articles, business forms, contracts and agreements, expert advice, blogs, business news, business directory listings, product comparisons, business guides, a small business association and more.
Allbusiness.com is particularly useful for prospect researchers as it provides a great range of full-text searchable free business periodicals. I found an excellent biography of a potential donor from the October 2001 edition of Inside Business.
You do have to sign up, and make sure you don’t accidently deluge yourself with newsletters, but I think this is a wonderful resource.
Periodicals by title can be found here
http://www.allbusiness.com/periodicals/
And appear to go back quite a bit (for example the ABA Journal goes back to 1989). The search interface isn’t the best, but is adequate.
Enjoy!