Dow Jones to launch "professional edition" of WSJ

Shira Ovide of The Wall Street Journal writes that the newspaper’s parent company announced Wednesday an online venture that combines The Journal’s Web site with Dow Jones’s business-to-business news service and databases.

Ovide writes, “The targeted users are businesses and individuals who need more specialized information about energy or corporate bonds, for example, than is available from WSJ.com, but aren’t the large companies targeted for costlier services by Dow Jones Newswires or Bloomberg L.P.

“The service, called The Wall Street Journal Professional Edition and costing up to $49 a month, has been under discussion for much of the year. Dow Jones, which is owned by News Corp., publishes the Journal and owns Dow Jones Newswires and the Factiva news database. The new service is one of the company’s first efforts to blend these products, which have largely been aimed at different audiences.”

Ovide later adds, “WSJ Professional allows users to set up the Web site with custom feeds of news, information and alerts for the markets and industry sectors they care most about, as well as to access the regular content on WSJ.com. Dow Jones editors will select news stories and information to help WSJ Professional users dig deeper into topics of interest.”

Read more here. A one-minute tour of the new edition is available here.