Kiplinger Brings Its Letters Online (2024)

Volume 17, Number 3 • March 2000

• DatabaseReview •
Kiplinger Brings Its Letters Online
These two new services show that more elite sourcesare moving online
by Mick O’Leary

On the other end of the spectrum, expensive and exclusive types of informationhave made their way to the Web much more slowly and hesitantly. This includesthings like forecasting services, advisory newsletters, and market researchreports, which have an air of insider status, even mystery, about them.They purport to give you an edge that the masses do not have, to providesecret tips that will advance your fortune or your status. They are expensive,on the notion that you get what you pay for. They are usually not availableon newsstands or in libraries. Their publishers have typically been waryof the open, unruly Web, which runs counter to the elitist, exclusive naturesof their products.

Leading Advisory Letters
But the Web is like a black hole that sooner or later sucks everythinginto it. Some of the most prominent insider publications, The KiplingerLetters, are now on the Web, in fine form. Kiplinger has taken its venerableadvisory newsletters and adapted them into a state-of-the-art Web service,with links, interactive departments, and other slick Web tricks. The newproduct, entitled the Kiplinger Special Service (http://www.special.kiplinger.com),is also closely integrated into the Web itself, with links to hundredsof external sites.

Kiplinger is perhaps the most prominent and well-known name among advisorynewsletters. The first title, The Kiplinger Letter, appeared in1923 with news, commentary, and predictions on business, political events,and trends. Later other Letters were added, covering taxes, agriculture,retirement, and California. (There must be a lot of subscribers there.)The company also publishes books, videos, and Kiplinger Personal Finance,a mass-market magazine covering personal finance and money management.

Among advisory newsletters, the Kiplinger publications are actuallyon the conservative side. They are not stock pickers, oracles, or fortunetellers.They don’t imply that you’ll become a millionaire in 6 months if you buytheir stock recommendations or otherwise follow their advice. Instead,they provide thorough reporting and reasonable forecasts based on well-informedextrapolation from current trends. They are written in a plain, directstyle that abstains from literary or journalistic flourishes.

The Letters’ reputable stance and no-nonsense presentation probablyaccount for their longevity and large circulation, as does their relativelylow cost. The weekly Kiplinger Letter is $76 per year, and the othersrange from $56 to $73.

KSS Bundles Kiplinger Content
The Kiplinger Special Service (KSS) bundles The Kiplinger Lettersinto a single, integrated, full-text database. It isn’t arranged by magazine,but instead is in eight broad categories: Economy, Population, FederalFinances, Legislation, Regulation, Strategic Planning, Employee Relations,and Business Resources. Each of these is further subclassified into itsmajor sectors. Economy, for example, is subdivided into Output, Inflation,Consumers, Money, Trade, the Stock Market, etc. It is a logical arrangement,and it demonstrates the wide range of Kiplinger’s interests, from laborforce projections, banking regulations, and consumer spending patternsto budget deficits, business climate forecasts, and market outlooks. Eachsubcategory contains numerous articles, arranged by date, and extendingback about 1 year. The category/subcategory format allows for easy browsing,or users may search the entire database by section, subject category, orkeyword.

Just having an online, full-text, searchable database of Kiplinger’scontent would be nice, but it’s not spectacular. However, Kiplinger hastaken great advantage of the hypertext capabilities and vast data richesof the Web to make its site a deep and powerful research resource.

Each article is well supplied with links to related Kiplinger articlesand to companies, organizations, associations, and government agenciesthat are mentioned in the text. Most articles also have a Tables and Chartsappendix, which contains 1 or 2 dozen links to relevant statistical datasources. The tables and charts are valuable supplements to the reportingand forecasts in the Letters themselves. They represent a great deal oflabor in scanning the Web for statistical time series and forecasts sources,and then linking them extensively throughout hundreds of individual articles.

Most of the data come from the standard federal sources: Census Bureau,Bureau of Labor Statistics, Commerce Department, Federal Reserve Board,etc. The rest come from a large, diverse set of trade association, publisher,and other .com and .org sites. For some forecast series, where the producer’sdata don’t look far enough ahead, Kiplinger has supplemented the informationwith its own forecasts. Table and chart links are, thankfully, to the specificpage where the data appear rather than just to the site’s home page.

The Rest of KSS
KSS also has current news and a few interactive sections. KSS usesReuters to provide the current day’s business news stories, which are updatedcontinuously. Such a sparse, unadorned news section is disappointing, especiallycompared to the careful work that’s been done elsewhere in KSS. We wouldlike, at least, to have news stories sorted by broad category, importantgeneral news stories, market reports, and perhaps a few days’ retrospectivecoverage.

An Ask KIP query department enables members to submit questions. It’shard to assess the volume or quality of this service because most of thereplies are not posted. Those that are published appear to be complete,thought-out responses.

Overall, KSS is logically and cleanly designed. Screens are clearlyand attractively laid out, navigation is simple, and links among pagesand sections are amply provided and clearly positioned. As a fee-basedservice, there are also no ads to divert your attention. KSS has flat-rate,unlimited pricing based on the number of simultaneous users. There aretwo schedules: for corporate and academic/public library clients. Corporatepricing starts at $1,995 for one user, $2,995 for five users, and topsout at $9,745 for 50 users. Academic/public pricing is 10- to 40-percentlower at $1,795 for one user, $2,635 for five, and $5,944 for 50.

Kiplinger at No Cost
If you don’t want to spend any money at all, you have an attractivealternative in Kiplinger’s free site, Kiplinger.com (http://www.kiplinger.com).This is a Web version of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine,and it shares some of KSS’s virtues, including much proprietary Kiplingercontent, excellent external Web links, interactive sections, and good design.

Unlike KSS, which is a business and management tool, Kiplinger.com isfor personal finance: money management, investments, insurance, taxes,retirement planning, etc. (There’s a lot on retirement; Kiplinger’s readersmust include a lot of seniors living in the Sunbelt!) There are 11 sectionsrepresenting broad personal finance topics. Each contains numerous full-textarticles from the magazine. Useful here are the Basics articles, whichare short, introductory primers on finance topics. Content is browsableand searchable.

Each section has numerous links to relevant, well-chosen external Websites. For example, the Investment sections have links to stock quotes,stock screening services, market reports, mutual fund profiles, etc. Eachalso has a good selection of interactive calculators and worksheets. Altogetherthere are almost 100 of these, covering every personal finance topic.

So whether you’re charting your company’s future or just trying to figureout what kind of tires to buy, Kiplinger’s has a Web site for you. Fromexclusive forecasting to everyday advice, KSS and Kiplinger.com will betrustworthy research assistants. They provide information and advice that’sbeen proven worthy by the long success of their print counterparts. Theyare intuitive, up-to-date, and well organized. They’ll provide information,forecasts, statistics, and planning tools for nearly every company or personalfinance topic—especially if you’re a senior who’s interested in retiringto California.

Mick O’Leary has been using and writing about online informationfor over 15 years. He is the director of the library at Frederick, Maryland,and a principal in The Data Brokers, an information consultancy. His e-mailaddress is 71735.2041@compuserve.com.