For the bookmark: Web sites worth knowing about - Brief Article

American Demographics, Dec, 1998

www.mediamark.com/mri/docs/toplinereports.html

Marketers and researchers looking for demographic data on magazines, cable TV or 53 different product or service categories should visit Mediamark Research's new Top-Line Reports site. Product and service categories include accessories, alcohol, appliances, travel, trucks, and vegetables. Top-Line Reports breaks down cable TV networks according to viewers' age, sex, median age, and income. Magazines are listed by total audience, circulation, readers per copy, median age, and income. MRI also added its technical guides to its Web site, which include definitions and tables that explain the company's research methodologies.

www.companysleuth.com

Looking for inside information about a company? Company Sleuth is a free service offered by Infonautics Corp. that automatically scans financial, regulatory, investment, and business information. The service then delivers the data via daily e-mail reports to users who query certain topics. For example, it uncovered that Coca-Cola had filed for the trademark "JAVALAIT" in the frozen-coffee beverage category. The service also discovered that, last July 13, online bookseller Amazon.com registered domain names "amazontv.com" and "amazontelevision.com."

www.synergos-tech.com

Synergos Technologies site has added a service called Business Crossroads that provides links to more than 200 restaurant chains, 300 grocery chains, 80 mass merchandisers, and 80 shopping centers. Besides links, the site also offers corporate profiles, stock quotes, and recent news clippings from retail companies. Synergos uses its geographic information systems to allow users to narrow a search of retail companies by national or regional focus. The "daily" section offers news, weather, classifieds, maps, and other information from a number of sites, including The Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post, while a government section provides links to government agencies, including the Department of Commerce.

www.mshb.com

Marketers offering their products through the Web need to keep tabs on tax liabilities as they appear at the state, federal, and even international level. The Certified Public Accounting firm of Markle Stuckey Hardesty and Bott provides a free e-commerce tax newsletter that offers news and analysis about government's look into taxing the Web. Recent stories tackled subjects such as "Final Rules for International Software Transactions," "Texas Imposes Use Tax on Out-of-State Software Licensor," and "Sales Taxation of Downloaded Software." The firm's clients include Internet merchant sites, Internet service providers, software companies, and Internet content providers. The site also provides links to e-commerce industry associations, such as the Software Publishers Association and the World Intellectual Property Organization.