Does your organization sell data? Does your organization have information stored in an internal database that could be of value to your customers?

The traditional method of getting the data to customers has been to either have you provide the customer the data on an as-needed basis or to publish reference books, periodicals, listings or other printed materials. Both of these methods have several major drawbacks. They are cumbersome for the customer and expensive for you to maintain.

Printed materials rapidly become out of date, requiring frequent reprinting. In the meantime, the only information available to the user is incomplete, or worse, incorrect. Also, the information is difficult to cross-reference and search.

Putting such information on a database-driven website, however, generates enormous advantages. Probably most significant is that only this one set of data needs to be maintained, since all users come to the same source. Changes to the information appear rapidly, and so the content is fresher and more accurate for all users. Since everyone is viewing the data dynamically, it is easy to make use of the power of the database management system to allow the user to query the data to obtain exactly what they are looking for.

Generally, this is not difficult to do, because the data is probably stored and catalogued in a database already. User interfaces to allow custom inquiries are simple to build and adapt to user experience. It is possible to control information delivery according to user privilege, if desired, and to charge for access in numerous ways. For the Department of Public Safety, for instance, the Sex Offender site is available to anyone for free, while the full criminal history search system charges a small fee for each search. Several real estate information sites built for Hass Publishing Company provide information about new homes in different geographic areas to realtors only, which means access to the site is controlled by a password. Similar access control can be used if the system is intended for any limited audience, say on an organization’s intranet.

Key Benefits

Reduced Publishing Expense
Since printing is eliminated, and physical delivery of the materials is no longer needed, cost savings are likely and often are dramatic.

Improved Information Accuracy and Timeliness
Changes to information appear quickly, so the user always gets the latest version of the information.

Greater User Satisfaction
Access to information is more tailored to the user’s needs, since custom queries are not so simple, greatly enhancing the value of the data. More powerful insights can often be gained since the information is more easily cross-referenced.

More Frequent User Contact
Frequent data updates often bring your users back to the site to obtain new data, resulting in more frequent contact with your users.

Enhanced Opportunities to Enhance Service
It is easy to obtain user feedback and opinions while they are using the site. This can be used to quickly improve the service the site delivers in ways specifically targeted to your users' wishes.