Future Teller

When I'm looking for something that happened yesterday, last week, or last year, name-brand services such as Lexis-Nexis, Dialog, and Dow Jones News Retrieval do the trick. But in addition to being outrageously expensive - annual fees can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars - these database giants can't tell me what's going to happen. For that, I turn to the Future Events News Service, or FENS.

FENS reporters scour the globe for leads on forthcoming news, interviewing everyone from high- ranking state department officials to municipal government flacks. The "future events" are then uploaded daily to the FENS Web site, where clients like CNN, BBC, and The Economist can predict and prepare for the next big, or not-so-big, news.

The FENS homepage is a statement in simplicity. It contains not a single graphic, which makes for faster searches. If, like me, you want only the facts, then dense images, multiple frames, and cutesy animation are nothing more than clunky filler. Using pulldown menus, I can refine my search by choosing from any combination of 9 geographic regions, 40 international organizations, and 140 topics. The resulting headlines link to full articles, which include a contact and phone number.

When I tire of the Web, FENS will email or fax custom reports tailored to my own specs. Whether I'm tracking political unrest in sub-Saharan Africa or labor unions in eastern Europe, I just tick off the categories of interest on a fax registration form and FENS automatically emails or faxes an alert every time something new comes up.

FENS's new Web interface and recently launched email alerts make it an indispensable tool for journalists and run-of-the-mill soothsayers alike.