Legal Research

Ozmosys - An E-mail, Website and RSS aggregator

By Ted Tjaden

[Note of disclosure: I do not have have any formal connection or relationship with Ozmosys, the company discussed below. However, while drafting this post I remembered I am part of a LexisNexis Canada advisory group and Ozmosys has partnered with Lexis. Clearly, though, that has not (and would not) influence me and LexisNexis generally invites all types of feedback, whether positive or negative. Despite the foregoing, I thought some SLAW readers might be interested in the product; hence this post.]

Yesterday I hosted for Toronto law firm and law library colleagues a demo at my firm by Ozmosys, a company that describes itself as “specializing in email consolidation and distribution strategies of high-value content.” They are partnering with LexisNexis to license their product in Canada. Their product allows an organization to have free and most “fee” Web news alert-type-content funneled through their service so that your end users get a single, consolidated email in the morning (with an option for an end-of-the-day update as well) that contains all “alerts” in a single email, organized by source or topic. It looked easy to administrate and the “look and feel” of the email that your user would receive was very professional (and could incorporate your firm’s logos and colors). Users could also login to their website to see a (typically) 30-day cache of their alerts and could turn off the emails when they go on holidays, etc. The “email” and its results could also be sent to a page on your intranet.

The premium content they help funnel assumes your organization already has a license to that premium content (e.g., such as a Lexis, Westlaw or BNA subscription). They are in the process of adding more Canadian premium content. For free content, they can easily incorporate RSS feeds and they have the ability to monitor websites and post links anytime there is new info on that site.

A typical daily email might contain - in order (as decided by the user) - stories with the following headings, with relevant links under each heading: Lexis Publisher news stories, BNA Copyright Alerts, SEC Press Releases, Press Releases from ABC Limited (assuming ABC Limited was an important client), etc.

This seemed like a great way to help reduce the feeling of information overload. The product, however, is not free . . . .

They had a related but separate product called “Clipper” that uses the same technology but allowed the organization to customize their own electronic newsletter containing links to free and premium content. The news letter could be done daily or more often and can “self-create” automatically or be set up and reviewed manually.

I assume the poor person’s option is to instead merely incorporate RSS feeds in an Intranet to reduce the amount of separate emails in your user’s inboxes.

Any other products or ideas to help reduce email and information overload? My sense is that a number of users are happy with the free “Canadian law firm newsletter” alert service offered by Lexology. Linex Legal offers a similar “fee” service that includes “law firm content” from many countries. Both are a huge improvement over my “manual” customized Google search of Canadian law firm websites.

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on February 13, 2008 (boomark / email).