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Personalized Knowledge: Dialog Launches Dialog NewsEdge Service

'Personal Business Information Service' combines global content with customized editorial guidance

"Most advanced service of its kind available anywhere"

CARY, N.C., USA — September 3, 2002 — Dialog, a Thomson (NYSE: TOC; TSX: TOC) business and a leading worldwide provider of online-based information services and integrated information solutions, announced today the launch of a major new product called Dialog NewsEdge - an industry-specific, personalized current awareness and news alerting service for corporations. Dialog NewsEdge combines up-to-the-minute news, analysis and research culled from thousands of global sources with customized editorial relevance ranking, personally managed by highly experienced editors specializing in their industry sector.

Dialog NewsEdge may be customized first by the subscribing organization and then by individual users and departments utilizing the service. Enterprise-wide customization options include selecting content feeds according to industry sectors. For example, companies in the telecom and pharmaceutical industries may choose a mix of content sources most relevant to their markets. Departments and individuals may then further refine content choices in order to drill down into specific areas of responsibility.

Subscription prices are determined by the number of individuals within an organization authorized to use the Web-based service.

"We are marrying Dialog's traditional strength of deep, rich content with the news refining prowess of NewsEdge to offer what we think is the most advanced service of its kind available anywhere," said Clifford M. Pollan, Dialog executive vice president, strategy and alliances and formerly president and CEO of NewsEdge. "For knowledge-dependent decision-makers within subscribing organizations, Dialog NewsEdge will be a powerful tool to create their own personalized business information service to stay abreast of what's impacting their businesses."

The Dialog NewsEdge service is backed by a team of editors who constantly monitor the flow of information - news reports, media announcements, recently released analysis and opinion and more - to select the most relevant and impactful developments. Those editorial picks are distributed via updates through the workday.

"It's as if users had their own personal editors monitoring their industries for them, quickly alerting them to the most important events of the day," Pollan added. "We're offering personalized knowledge for decision-makers."

Other features of the new Dialog NewsEdge service include:

• Access to Real-Time News. Users may easily track industry-specific real-time news as it is distributed (and sometimes, prior to publication) by newswires and industry reporting services.

• Direct Database Research. Dialog NewsEdge comes with information databases, containing previously published articles, reports and research drawn from more than 2,000 global sources relevant to targeted industry sectors, through which users may search and electronically retrieve documents as needed.

• Fast Knowledge Sharing. Users within a subscribing corporation may share articles delivered through Dialog NewsEdge, with the value-added ability of including their description for relay on to selected colleagues. That ability creates new opportunities for enterprise collaboration.

• Automated Relevance Ranking. In addition to the personalized editorial services offered by Dialog's editors, Dialog NewsEdge also incorporates advanced information filtering technology to automatically prioritize news and information by its importance to the user.

• Easy Set Up & Management. Dialog NewsEdge has been designed so that individual executives and professionals within subscribing organizations may directly manage their specific feeds, with easy set up and management of individual profiles.

"Our customers and friends in the information industry no doubt have wondered how the integration of NewsEdge into Dialog would be manifested," Pollan said. "The launch of Dialog NewsEdge represents the first of what we expect will be a series of significant innovations stemming from the combination of our two great companies.

"The logic of meshing our companies was to better position us to offer more to our combined customers," Pollan added. "Dialog NewsEdge underscores the progress we're making in delivering on that promise."

For a free trial offer to Dialog NewsEdge, please visit our web site and complete the request form. Or, call 800-255-3343 from the United States or Canada, or (U.S.) 781-229-3000 from the rest of the world.

- Ends -

About Dialog
Founded in 1972 by Dr. Roger K. Summit, a pioneer in developing the technology behind electronic information retrieval, Dialog is the world leader in providing online-based information services to organizations seeking competitive advantages in such fields as business, science, engineering, finance and law.

Today, Dialog's online services - offered through the Dialog®, Dialog Profound®, Dialog DataStar™, NewsEdge and Intelligence Data brands - give users the ability to precisely retrieve data from more than 1.4 billion unique records, accessible via the Internet or through delivery to enterprise intranets. Searchable content includes articles and reports from thousands of real-time news feeds, newspapers, broadcast transcripts and trade publications, plus research reports and analyst notes providing support for financial decision-making, as well as in-depth repositories of scientific and technical data, patents, trademarks and other intellectual property data.

Corporate librarians, knowledge managers, other information professionals and end-users at more than 25,000 business, professional and government organizations in more than 100 countries prize Dialog services for their depth and breadth of content, precision searching and speed.

Headquartered in Cary, N.C., USA, with direct operations in 31 other countries worldwide, Dialog is a business of The Thomson Corporation. For more information about Dialog, please visit www.dialog.com. Or, please call (U.S./Canada) 800-3-DIALOG or (U.S.) 919-462-8600. Dialog's London office may be reached at (44) (0) 207-940-6900.

About The Thomson Corporation
The Thomson Corporation (www.thomson.com), with 2001 revenues of US$7.2 billion, is a global leader in providing integrated information solutions to business and professional customers. Thomson provides value-added information, software applications and tools to more than 20 million users in the fields of law, tax, accounting, financial services, higher education, reference information, corporate training and assessment, scientific research and healthcare. The Corporation's common shares are listed on the New York and Toronto stock exchanges (NYSE: TOC; TSX: TOC).

All designated trademarks used herein are the property of The Dialog Corporation or its subsidiaries. Registered marks are registered by The Dialog Corporation or its subsidiaries with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. All other marks are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

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