Electronic Clipping Service Launches A Wide-Ranging Business News

Individual Inc. has unveiled a service that allows financial professionals to keep tabs on breaking business news stories.

Yosi Amram, president the Burlington, Mass.-based company, said the service, known as First Company Tracker, is designed to give companies with trading operations access to a wide variety of news feeds from around the world.

"First Company Tracker allows professionals to keep up to date with the marketplace without having to read or subscribe to every publication on the market," he said. "It gives subscribers a competitive advantage, because it allows them to receive pertinent information from sources that otherwise would not be available."

The system is based on a news data base consisting of electronic feeds from over 500 sources and contains 15,000 articles daily. The information is delivered through electronic mail, fax, or Lotus Notes to subscribers before 8 a.m. daily.

"The service allows a company to keep on top of the competition and know exactly what their customers and competitors are doing," said Mr. Amram.

"It will allow investment advisers and money managers to get up-to-the- minute information and make business decisions faster and more accurately."

Subscribers can receive either full-text stories or abbreviated versions, consisting of headlines and a summary of the article.

Subscribers to the abbreviated text service can order the full text of any article.

The company has been offering high-tech clipping services since 1990. Its initial product was called First and is primarily used by companies that want to follow a specific industry or topic. The product is marketed as a tool for competitive analysis.

"Our new service allows the subscriber to look across all industries without boundaries," said Mr. Amram. "It gives them a complete picture of what is going on."

On average the service costs $3,000 a year for 10 users, with a limit of 40 news items a day.

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