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UltiTech launches CyberAlert online service for fast, easy, comprehensive Internet monitoring

UltiTech, Inc. of Stratford, Connecticut today launched CyberAlert, (http://www.cyberalert.com) an automated Internet monitoring, market intelligence, and online knowledge management system designed for multiple users in corporations and other large organizations. The daily CyberAlert service provides companies with a timely way to identify new postings about the company and its brands just about anywhere on the Internet. The service also enables marketing, public relations, business development, investor relations and competitive intelligence departments to better manage and track the identified online information.

The CyberAlert service identifies, collects or “clips”, organizes, stores, filters and distributes all references to the company and its products that appear in all Internet Web sites, Usenet news groups, listserv discussion groups and major daily news services on the Internet. CyberAlert can also monitor online forums within major services such as America Online.

Identify New Posts Daily
Each day, the CyberAlert service “clips” all newly-identified citations about the company or product, organizes the new citations into client-specified categories or topics, and delivers daily e-mail alerts and an online “hotlist” of citations to multiple individuals within the client company. The daily “hotlist” for each topic or category resides on CyberAlert’s password-protected Web site. Personnel in client companies access the site using Internet Explorer 3.0 or 4.0 or Netscape Navigator 3.0 or Communicator. As a server-based service running on multiple Digital Alpha servers, CyberAlert does not require any special ‘plug-in’ software on the client desktop. The CyberAlert service is designed for any language and is available worldwide. The URL is http://www.cyberalert.com.

“CyberAlert offers the easiest, most time-efficient and cost-effective way for multiple users within a corporation to monitor the Internet for marketing, public relations, investor relations, business development, competitive intelligence and many other corporate functions,” said William J. Comcowich, president of UltiTech. “The CyberAlert service provides fast, easy, comprehensive, and fully customizable monitoring of the Internet. CyberAlert makes it far less time consuming, far more effective and less costly to find, “clip” and manage market intelligence information from the Internet.”

Manage Critical Information
The knowledge management component of the CyberAlert service enables corporate personnel to annotate, manage, share, file, and track citations and full-text articles. Each user of CyberAlert is able to create an individualized file structure and information database to retain and access citations and full-text articles with all graphics. The knowledge database of citations and retained articles is fully searchable.

CyberAlert answers a problem confronted by most corporations and organizations. Critical information about the corporation and its products or services can turn up almost anywhere on the Internet and spread rapidly through cyberspace. Inaccurate information or intentional disinformation on the Internet can influence buying decisions and attitudes of hundreds, thousands or even millions of people, threaten the company’s reputation and ultimately cause serious financial damage. Monitoring what other companies and consumers have to say in cyberspace has become an increasingly important corporate responsibility to track market opinion, to rebut and correct misinformation on the corporation and its products, and to manage brewing problems.

Business Applications
UltiTech expects that the CyberAlert service will be used primarily by marketing and public relations departments in larger corporations to seek out and track all mentions of their corporate and brand names on the Internet. The service can also be used to monitor issues or topics for competitive intelligence. “For people in marketing and public relations, using search engines to monitor the Internet is time-consuming and frustrating when done manually -- and often produces poor results,” Mr. Comcowich said. “A search today may produce 900 citations or “hits” on a company or brand name. A search next week may produce 950. The problem is how to identify the 50 new citations. CyberAlert does that on a daily basis. Each citation is delivered to the corporate desktop only once and all search results are filed automatically for easy future access.”

Subscription Fees
CyberAlert is a subscription service with a fixed monthly fee depending on the number of categories, the number of users, the extent of the automated daily searches, and the amount of hard-drive storage required. The base service with up to five topics and up to 10 users is $1,995 per month. There is no per “clip” charge.

UltiTech, Inc. of Stratford, CT is a four year old, privately-held interactive media company that specializes in design, development and production of custom software, interactive multimedia programs and Internet Web sites for major corporations for marketing and training. The company is publisher of Medicine OnLine, the medical information, education and marketing service of the Internet. Mr. Comcowich, president and CEO of UltiTech is former chairman of the Interactive Multimedia Association (IMA), now part of the Software Publishers Association. UltiTech sales representatives are equipped with videoconferencing systems to provide real-time demonstrations of the online CyberAlert service using Microsoft’s NetMeeting software. Corporations wishing to have an online demonstration should e- mail sales@cyberalert.com requesting a demonstration.

Marketing Alliances
In addition to direct sales to corporations and other organizations, UltiTech is actively seeking to enter into affiliations and strategic alliances with other companies for marketing and private branding of the CyberAlert service. Later in the year the CyberAlert software will also be available for installation on corporate servers for access through the company’s local TCP/IP network.

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