Dow Jones News/Retrieval

Dow Jones News/Retrieval was an online service offered by Dow Jones & Company beginning in 1973, which greatly expanded its subscriber numbers during the 1980s. It focused on financial information offering access to securities prices including quotes on stocks, bonds, options and mutual funds as well as a news data base with items culled from The Wall Street Journal, Barron's and other sources, as well as sports reports, movie reviews, electronic shopping, and email.^[1][2] Subscriber numbers rose from 11,000 in 1981^[3] to 205,000 by 1986.^[4]

In the 1990s it also provided access to articles from The New York Times^[5] and Westlaw.^[6]

Fees for using the service were relatively expensive. It cost $30 to subscribe followed by a $12 annual membership fee. Additionally, prime-time usage charges were $2.30 per minute^[2] and after-hours access was 44 cents a minute for basic services and general information, and $1.76 a minute for detailed reports such as S.E.C. filings. "Blue Chip" and "Executive" discount plans were available for users who spent a lot of time on the service.^[7]

The service was renamed Dow Jones Interactive in the late 1990s, and later merged into Factiva.

References

1. ^ Review: Dow Jones News/Retrieval, Infoworld, April 30, 1984
2. ^ ^{a b} James C. Condon, Investing: Using Computers to Play the Market, New York Times, March 23, 1986.
3. ^ Stop the Presses, Infoworld, March 30, 1981
4. ^ Beth Krevitt-Eres et al, for UNESCO (1986), A decision-makers' guide to videotex and teletext, p. 56
5. ^ Times News Service on Line, New York Times, December 7, 1993.
6. ^ Dow Jones and West to Link Data Services, New York Times, May 18, 1994.
7. ^ The Executive Computer: Headlines and Stock Quotes on Call, New York Times, November 1, 1987

External links