The Prospector

416-621-9348 cgreaves@chrisgreaves.com
Home Site About Services Products

The Prospector

"The Prospector" is a subscription service (pay in advance) based on my WVain ("Weather Vain") engine. Weather Vain is capable of going to a web site to obtain critical data in a rules-based sense, and harvest valuable data from pages linked from the original web page.

Of course, there is an extensive try-before-you-buy deal; typically over one calendar month of free use before you need to make a decisions ....

Can you find yourself here ?

1: The Prospector – Daily Constraints

2: The Prospector – Daily Keywords

3: The Prospector – Archive Analysis

4: Miner

5: URLer

Example 1

Take a look at Canada News Wire . From this page ("All Yesterday's") we can use the mouse to navigate to each web page linked in what appears to be "column2" of the index page.

Now try searching Canada News Wire to find something useful.

It is near-impossible.

cgreaves@chrisgreaves.com 416-621-9348

The Prospector

Feature	CNW	The Prospector
Emit a single email with 100% perfect hits to satisfy YOUR search criteria.	No	YES!
Provide infinitely adjustable constraints using AND/OR/NOT logic to fine tune your requirements	No	YES!
Monitor every one of your clients and contacts by business name; receive notification when they appear in the news.	No	YES!
Monitor individuals by establishing a search for their names. Want to call him/her direct but don't have a referral? You soon will have one!	No	YES!
Duplicate any given search exactly one week prior to the current date.	No	YES!
Duplicate any given search looking backwards in time until a hit is made ("Find most recently available hit")	No	YES!
Report a count of occurrence of any word or phrase backwards for a given number of days or months	No	YES!

Example 2

Try looking at the last 6 month's press releases on Canada News Wire and determine how many press releases contain the phrases "hired, fired, appointment, new appointment, appointed, departure, resigned, last role, joined, joined the Company".

Bet you can't do it in 10 minutes without making a mistake!

Here's my result:

Word/phrase	Count
hired	111
fired	93
appointment	681
new appointment	13
appointed	719
departure	177
resigned	129
last role	3
joined	642
joined the Company	15

Armed with these figures you can make an informed decision for your initial search constraints.

cgreaves@chrisgreaves.com 416-621-9348

Direct Line to the President

Prospecting itself becomes much easier when you are armed with yesterday's press release, a word or phrase relevant to the services you provide, and a direct line to the president; no secretaries, no gatekeepers, and a hot topic of conversation:

http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/January2010/06/c6531.html

Here's How My Conversation Goes:

CG> Good morning Mister Atkinson; My name is Chris Greaves; I got your name and number from yesterday's press release, and I was wondering if you could tell me who I could send an email to?

HA> What's this about?

CG> Mister Atkinson, I {have developed custom ETF applications for mobile devices} for the past four years.

HA> You should get in touch with {Joe Bloggs}; I'll give you his email and phone number

(he does so)

CG> Thank you Mister Atkinson; would it be OK if I CC'd you on the first email so you can see what this is all about?

HA> Yes, that would be very good.

CG> Thank you Mister Atkinson. (hangs up phone)

I now get to call Joe:

CG> Joe? My name is Chris Greaves. I was just chatting with Howard Atkinson and he suggested I give you a call.

You can hear their chair creak as they sit up straight.

cgreaves@chrisgreaves.com 416-621-9348

Want to read more ?

Toronto and Mississauga, Monday, August 16, 2010 6:55 PM