Internet data mining (data collection)

Hello, We need to collect information about roughly 100 companies operating in a specific niche of the software industry. The information we need contains basic facts, such as description, office addresses, establishment date and so on. Most of that data can be collected from their pages or Wikipedia. Some elements will require a little more digging than others. Most (if not all) of these companies will have a significant web presence and finding information about them shouldn't be a problem. Second part of this assignment is slightly harder - you will need to collect information about some of their products (roughly, 300 of them). We will be looking for things such as technology platform, industries in which it is strong and weak, client examples, number of clients, pricing, product focus, product modules and features. We will provide you with a specific format for data collection, examples and even some data (so that you will have to only validate it, rather than searching for things from scratch). ## Deliverables * * *This broadcast message was sent to all bidders on Sunday Jul 22, 2012 5:54:38 PM: Thank you for your interest. To gauge whether this project is something you are interested in and for us to understand whether your level of details will be enough, please complete a sample search. We will need to see an example of: 1. Two completed companies 2. Two completed products The sheet that you will be working with is posted here: [login to view URL] There are four sheets in this document: #1. A complete list of companies that you will need to research #2. A sheet where you will collect information about these companies #3. A sheet where you will collect information about products #4. An example of a completed product sheet (not in exact format as we need to collect data in - this is just an example) Information about companies should be as detailed as it is here (a sample of a single company): [login to view URL] Description of a given company should be taken either from their Website or Wiki. DO NOT copy [login to view URL] - plagiarism from their site will disqualify you from participating in this project - we will not accept copies from their site. In case when it is unavoidable - for instance, Panorama's description is identical to the vendor's home page, it is OK to have matching information. Information about products should be as close in details to the "example" page in the example documents as possible. Information cannot be a big mess of things - it should be organized as neatly as it can be. The best example of what we are looking for can be found here: [login to view URL] Please do not copy 180 system! Again, plagiarism will disqualify you from participating in this project. We are looking for original research. That’s been said, you can use 180 system as a starting point, validating their information along the way through other sources. The format for Companies and Products is provided on the sheet #2 and #3 in the [login to view URL] document. Please note that there can be more than one product for a given company - you will need to find what they are and collect information for all of them to the best of what can be found on the web. * * *This broadcast message was sent to all bidders on Monday Jul 23, 2012 11:49:24 AM: Hello everyone, For the purposes of the sample data collection, please do one company and one product. No need to do two of each. Please provide your response ASAP. * * *This broadcast message was sent to all bidders on Tuesday Jul 24, 2012 8:02:46 AM: Reminder for everyone who is willing to bid on this project: please complete a sample search for 1 company and 1 product of that company (or other company from the list). The format for the search is posted here: [login to view URL] The list of companies is on the first sheet ??" pick any you like. The company information will be output to on the second sheet, using the provided format. The product information will go on the third sheet, using the provided format. An example of what the complete product may look like can be found here: [login to view URL] Please note the description on top ??" we will need at least a full paragraph, not just one sentence. An example of several complete products can be found on the fourth sheet within the attached document. At this point, you don’t need to list all available functions, but everything else is mandatory. We will use this sample to judge your thoroughness and attention to details for hiring purposes. We will hire a worker based on quality of data they provide, not on price.