PR Toolbox: ITDatabase, media database with analytics

July 8, 2009

A few months ago I was approached by Travis Van, a founder of ITDatabase, who offered me a trial of his new product designed specifically for public relations professionals in the technology industry. At first I thought it will be just another database and I approached the trial with a bit of skepticism, but after a few days I realized this database is different than anything I’ve used before.

Yes, you get the same things you get from other databases: names, emails and phone numbers, but with ITDatabase you can also see the journalist’s recent articles and the topics he or she has recently covered and also get basic analytics of the coverage.

Unlike with other databases, ITDatabase allows users to search for contacts by searching the content of their articles. That means you can do a lot of the research within the application itself and if you look up a journalist you immediately see what they cover, how frequently, what companies they are mostly interested in and who else covers similar topics.

ITDatabase is also constantly updating its contacts. “When an author is searched for (that is not in our db) we are alerted and add them,” wrote Travis in an email.

I had two complaints about ITDatabase: it doesn’t provide direct phone numbers and it does not have bios. In response to that Travis wrote: “It was a business decision for us to focus on the authors’ content rather than constantly harvesting direct #’s.” Regarding the bios, he said: “If you search on an author’s name in our system, the results page shows you the titles of the content they wrote, the themes they have been discussing (this themes dashboard & our tech taxonomy is still being tuned), the vendors they have been discussing – i.e., much more than any bio tells you about an author. “ I understand Travis’ points but I still find direct numbers and bios useful.

Will this replace your current database? I don’t think you should use it as a replacement to your existing databases, but as an addition, because ITDatabase covers only tech journalists and even for tech companies there will be many times, you need to reach out to business press, broadcast, etc.

How much will it cost you? $2000 per year for all users in your company. If you are a BusinessWire customer, you get 50% off the annual price.

And what can you look forward to? Travis writes: “There are many really cool “semantic” directions that we are pursuing as well.  All of the things that we are working on re. new features are very closely tied to specific use cases that tech industry marketing and PR pros face every day – from spotting trends in coverage, to competitive research, to prepping for interviews, etc.”

Some features that I would like to see: incorporating twitter feeds and LinkedIn and Facebook profiles.

Overall I was impressed with ITDatabase, and after adding some additional features this will be quite a powerful tool.

Follow ITDatabase on twitter: @itdatabase.

Tags: analytics, database, ITDatabase, tech, toolbox