• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, May 3, 2007

BusinessWeek magazine is extending its brand reach. It is partnering with Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's, to launch a Company Insight Center hosted on the magazine's Web site. The new online content area will triple the size of the BusinessWeek site. Information and analysis will cover companies, industries, markets and leaders.

Roger Neal, general manager of BusinessWeek.com, said: "With up to 33 pages of information per company and a wealth of other information on competitors, industries and performance, the CIC will provide insights and perspectives that will allow users to understand the "story" of each company or individual. We are confident the CIC will quickly become an invaluable resource for business professionals all over the world."

The content, drawing on Capital IQ's extensive databases, will include detailed information on 42,000 public companies, 322,000 private companies and over 1 million executives and directors who run them. It will document mergers and acquisitions and financial transactions, and will provide constantly updated market data drawn from the world's largest stock exchanges--over 50 in all. The CIC will allow users to compare a specific company's performance in different exchanges.

The new site will leverage BusinessWeek's editorial expertise by placing news about companies and industries in context, including its implications for peers, competitors and investors. A function called "Degrees of Separation," which sounds somewhat like LinkedIn and other professional networking sites, describes how executives are connected to each other and various businesses.

The site also promises to increase corporate transparency with detailed information describing each company's board of directors and the membership of various company committees. Finally, the new site will allow users to compare the "wisdom of crowds" with individual Wall Street analysts when it comes to investment. In essence, it helps users determine who has a better track record for predicting stock movements for various businesses and industries.