CompuServe Thread

#PhoneDisc & Prophone

5 messages in this thread
#31748From: Arnie GoetchiusNov 26, 1992 10:10 AM
From reading some of the previous messages, I take it your with DDA. I'd like to mention a need I have to see if you have a product or do custom work to fill the need. I do market analysis and am interested in counts of businesses by SIC by area of geography. I don't need the names, addresses or telephone numbers. For example, when I do F4 to change index and select business type, I get a count of the number of businesses by SIC for the total USA. For example, SIC 8111 (legal services) shows a total of 208,782. If I select 8111 and limit (F2) my search to zipcode 07733, F9 gives me a count of 14. The next step is to group the zipcodes by a unit of geography. Well, you can only enter 5 zipcodes at a time so that means multiple passes if the unit of geography covers more than 5 zipcodes. The current unit of geography I'm interested is Yellow Page directories. Using a Macro program, I can create a script that will combine zipcodes into a subset of a yellow pages directory. By adding up the subsets, I can get the count for the total yellow pages. However, it all takes time. If I could use more than 5 zipcodes at a time, it would help. Better yet, if there was another line on the limit screen for yellow pages directory, I wouldn't have to go through all of these contortions. To the extent that some of your sources may have been yellow pages, you may already have this information readily available in some other form. If so, I'd be interested in hearing about it. Keep in mind that I'm looking for counts, not name, address and telephone number.
#31793From: Rich Bowers/OPANov 26, 1992 9:54 PM
Arnie: Pardon my ignorance, but can't you get the info you seek from "County Business Patterns"? Rich Bowers
#31834From: Arnie GoetchiusNov 27, 1992 9:37 AM
Rich Yes you can and I have the CPB disk. However, it is 1987 data and I'd like to get more recent data. Arnie
#31879From: Rich Bowers/OPANov 27, 1992 10:11 PM
That's understandable. Shouldn't the new CPB be out soon, if they keep to their normal publication schedule?
#31925From: Arnie GoetchiusNov 28, 1992 7:20 AM
Well, it's every 5 years so it should be based on 1992 data. It would think it would be end of 1993.