| Company
Sleuth, a free service of Infonautics, created quite a stir
over the past week, amid headlines about a major corporate acquisition. Company Sleuth was
reviewed in last February's issue of the WF Newsletter. On May 25, Company Sleuth notified its clients
who were sleuthing MCI Worldcom that the company had applied for a domain
name of:
The newsgroups and message boards (such
as, Yahoo! and Raging Bull) buzzed, causing the SkyTel stock to rise 7%
on a volume over three times normal. As reported in the WSJ on the next day, MCI WorldCom
executives responded by blaming 'an overzealous employee trying to protect the company
from domain-name squatters." They added that "the action is not an indication of
any official company intention."
Guess what? Three days later, MCI
Worldcom announced its intent to acquire SkyTel with a $1.3 billion dollar stock deal.
It was a great publicity coup for
Infonautics, achieving front page of the second section in the May 26 WSJ. Josh Kopelman,
EVP at Infonautics, was quoted as saying that his service "scours the Web and finds
clues." The WSJ continued with ". . .Internet addresses and other crumbs of data
scattered around the Web are becoming important -- and often unintentional -- indicators
of companies' business plans."
The story continues with the New York
Times reporting on June 3 that some investors feel misled by MCI WorldCom statements with
a possible liability for their losses.
The Infonautics people could not contain
their excitement. In their Company Sleuth reports this week, they added at the top of
their reports: TOLD YOU SO!
Of course, web-sleuthing works both
ways. Last week, Infonautics secured the following domain names. Wonder what Infonautics
is planning?
- PATENTSLEUTH.COM, REALESTATESLEUTH.COM, PRODUCTSLEUTH.COM,
TRADEMARKSLEUTH.COM, Y2KSLEUTH.COM, TRAVEL-SLEUTH.COM, POLITICSSLEUTH.COM,
RESEARCHSLEUTH.COM, NEWSSLEUTH.COM, SUBMITJOBS.COM, RECRUITINGSLEUTH.COM,
POLITICSLEUTH.COM, PERSONSLEUTH.COM, SHOPPINGSLEUTH.COM
It will be increasingly difficult to
avoid making tracks in webspace, as a company plans their new initiatives in their
industry. This example is a solid endorsement of Web Farming as a critical component in
future business intelligence systems.
- Richard Hackathorn |
