Methode Electronics goes live with Press Releases By Type and Event Chart

Through our new partnership with PrecisionIR, today Methode Electronics (NYSE: MEI) went live on their IR website with our "Press Releases By Type" and "Event Chart" pages. See the links on the navigation bar here: http://www.ir-site.com/methode/corporateprofile.html

Keyword Search Added to PR Cycle!

Last week we added another great enhancement to PR Cycle that has been received very positively by users. In addition to querying our news release database by ticker, portfolio, industry, category, subcategory, and date range, you can now also refine your search even further using keyword search! As an example, if you search for all Products and Services releases(category) for New Product releases (subcategory), for 2007 for the Computer Communications Equipment industry the results show 247 news releases. However, if you then use the keyword "security" it refines the results down to only 14 releases.

Another great example: if you are looking for releases that use the keyword "guidance" instead of simply all Financial releases, you can easily find the 552 news releases YTD in 2008 that have to do with guidance. Or by choosing a specific industry (for example, Semiconductors and Related Devices) you can find the 21 press releases YTD in 2008 from this industry that have earnings guidance.

So what? Here's the "so what": by using typical keyword search you cast a net too wide that comes up with too many results. Our news release database allows users to find VERY relevant information, VERY quickly. Enjoy!

iMiners, Inc. Launches PR Cycle..........

LIVERMORE, Calif., May 19, 2008 -- iMiners, Inc. announced today the availability of PR Cycle, the industry's first-and-only Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution for PR and IR professionals to quickly research and draft quality press releases. PR Cycle subscribers will save significant time doing research by having access to an iMiners proprietary reference library of nearly half-a-million categorized press releases issued by over 6,500 companies and growing at about 750 releases daily. Each press release is categorized and indexed for search into one of 10 major categories and 69 subcategories including Awards and Recognition, Corporate, Conference Call and Meetings, Customer and Partnerships, Financial, Industry Events, Legal, Management Changes, M&A, and Products & Services. The reference library can be searched By Category, By Subcategory, By Company, By Portfolio, By Industry, and By Date Range. Relevant, high-impact press releases can be found within seconds, eliminating the need to visit multiple websites or search engines during research. PR Cycle has a built-in word processing editor that enables the author to draft a press release securely online, save an encrypted release, export to Word or PDF, and then distribute to others for review, edit or compliance.

"It is not uncommon for a PR or IR professional to be tasked with quickly drafting a sensitive press release announcing a management change, legal issue or an M&A. Using PR Cycle, with one click you can now search for all management changes, legal, or M&A related press releases issued by peers in your industry, or all 6,500+ companies. You can do very specific searches, such as for all press releases issued in 2007 by all companies that are new product announcements, FDA Approvals, SEC investigations, charity and educational giving, or class action lawsuits. PR Cycle is an innovative new solution that saves a significant amount of research time, and allows PR and IR professionals to write high quality first drafts quickly," stated iMiners, Inc. President and Founder Jnyaneshwar Prabhu.

PR Cycle is available free of charge for one month to all first-time users. Please visit http://www.primenewswire.com/newsroom/ctr?d=143005&u=http://www.prcycle.com for more information and to take advantage of this risk-free offer.

About iMiners, Inc.
iMiners, Inc. is a technology company that maintains an index of categorized press releases issued by over 6,500 companies into 10 major categories and 69 subcategories. Since 2005 iMiners has been providing innovative solutions for public relations, investor relations, and the investment community, all powered by iMiners' proprietary database of nearly half-a-million categorized press releases growing at a rate of about 750 every day. iMiners' products include PR Cycle, a SaaS solution that helps PR and IR professionals quickly draft high quality press releases; PR Interactive, an innovative module that powers content on Fortune 1000 IR websites; and iMiners Data Feeds, an XML solution providing categorized news feeds for financial portals.

CONTACT: iMiners, Inc.
Michael C. O'Brien
925-984-2078
mobrien@iminers.com

Spike in Food Prices Taking a Toll on Restaurant Industry

The cost of eggs, cheese, wheat, and (most recently in the news) rice is going up and up. The effect is taking a toll on the restaurant industry, where profits are being squeezed at a time when middle-class America is cutting back on dining out. The fast food eateries are holding up better, since many people who had been frequenting mid-priced chains are now going to fast food. But for mid and high price restaurants, the hurt is on.

Looking in iMiners press release database we can see the recent news being put out by companies in the Retail-Eating Places industry. Companies like Yum Brands and CEC Entertainment (Chuck E. Cheese) are holding up well. Mid-priced eateries like Ruby Tuesday are not (see stock chart for CEC: http://www.iminers.com/pressroom.php?varwhichpage=3m&symbol=cec&page=chrt.php vs. stock chart for Ruth's Chris: http://www.iminers.com/pressroom.php?varwhichpage=3m&symbol=ruth&page=chrt.php)
Even Starbucks is getting hammered as more people make their coffee at home rather than paying $3.50 for a latte. See Starbucks 90 day chart: http://www.iminers.com/pressroom.php?varwhichpage=3m&symbol=sbux&page=chrt.php

Where will it take us? Follow the news and find out...

Joining a Bay Area startup

This is the inaugural post of my blog about moving my family to the Bay Area, joining a company called iMiners, and the lessons learned working at a startup. In August, 2007 I moved my family from Massachusetts to the East Bay, CA town of Danville. We moved 3,000 miles to get away from the snow, ice, and cold of New England winters, and for the challenge and opportunity for me to work at an early stage company in the most dynamic, exciting place in the world for entrepreneurship. I joined iMiners, Inc. (http://www.iminers.com) as VP of Sales and Marketing at the end of August, and when I joined we had two paying clients, Nvidia and Sigma Designs. Now we have four clients, but in the last week announced a new joint marketing agreement, launched a new product line (iMiners Data Feeds), and are planning to launch another major new product in March. This blog will focus on the ups and downs, and lessons learned of working for a Bay Area early stage startup. What does iMiners do, you might ask? Here's an introduction to the business problem(s) we have identified, and how we plan to make an impact:

How many times have you gone to a financial website like Yahoo! Finance, MSN Money, or any brokerage site, to do research on a company and come away frustrated at the time it took to find relevant information? For example, go to any popular financial portal and type in a company ticker and attempt to review the company’s most recent news releases relating to management changes, M&A, legal issues, product announcements, and/or customer partnerships. What you will most often find is simply a chronological listing of the company’s news releases, interspaced with blogs, magazine articles, and other non-company issued information. The problem gets worse if the news you are looking for was released 6 months ago! iMiners, Inc. (http://www.iminers.com/) a technology startup based in Livermore, CA, is changing the rules in search for how investors access relevant information, quickly.

iMiners was founded in June 2005 by Jnyaneshwar Prabhu & Sandesh Prabhu, specifically to help investors find relevant information quickly when researching a company. iMiners has categorized every press release issued since April 1, 2006, by every US public company trading on the NASDAQ, NYSE and AMEX, into one of ten major categories (Awards & Recognition, Conference Call & Meetings, Corporate, Customer & Partnerships, Financial, Legal, Management Changes, M&A, Industry Events, and Products & Services) and 69 subcategories. iMiners’ proprietary database currently contains over 325,000 fully categorized releases issued by over 6,500 public companies and is growing by about 1,000 releases each day. iMiners provides a set of easy to use, visual tools including news by type, interactive charting, and a targeted search engine, in an attempt to provide deeper context and insight into how news may impact stock price. Investors can find relevant information they are looking for quickly within seconds vs. scrolling through volumes of data.

In early 2007, iMiners launched a free portal at http://www.iminers.com/, and made available all its tools, and access to its proprietary database. Today, any visitor can type in a stock symbol and research a company either through news by category, its stock chart, custom search, and even set email alerts when that company announces news in a certain category of interest. Then in mid-2007, iMiners began providing hosted interactive press rooms, productized as "PR Interactive", on a subscription basis to public companies that want to improve the user friendliness and productivity of their stakeholders. Today, cutting-edge companies such as Nvidia and Silicon Image have deployed iMiners services on their IR sites. Most recently, on January 30, 2008 iMiners and Comtex, a leading provider of economically useful electronic real-time news, announced a joint marketing agreement to provide categorized news via XML data feeds to all of Comtex’s clients. The service, called iMiners Data Feeds, is available to Comtex clients, or any site that wants to drive more traffic, keep visitors longer, and keep them coming back because of a positive user experience. iMiners Data Feeds can be fully customized based on the specific needs of a portal including full market, industry specific, or company specific. Data Feeds are a natural step towards standardizing the categorization of releases for investors. For more information, or to subscribe to a data feed visit: http://iminers.com/datafeeds.

Later in 2008, iMiners will launch products that will continue to leverage its growing proprietary database of categorized releases. These plans include launching a comprehensive institutional investor portal that will provide access to unique tools, and proprietary algorithms for event impact, correlation, and prediction. Information is power, especially on Wall Street, and iMiners will continue to revolutionize the search process for relevant actionable information akin to finding the proverbial "needle in the haystack." We look forward to having you along with us for the ride!