Powerful online tools for art collectors can simplify the search for information.

At Art Basel in Miami Beach last December, collectors previewed the latest online service designed to make the hum for information about art easier. When it goes live in March, MutualArt.com will consolidate in one place the latest art-related news, sales notices and information on galleries and museums. For an annual fee of $300, subscribers will also be able to filter customized information on the artists they collect or follow.

MutualArt.com founder and CEO Moti Shniberg says he was inspired by Bloomberg's approach to covering financial markets by bringing data and news together. He calls the lack of such centralized information in the art world "primitive."

"It's quite strange that art lovers are so sophisticated, but for information, they have nothing," he says. Shniberg expects the website to appeal to hedge fund investors and young, wealthy professionals who are accustomed to acquiring a lot of information before making major purchases.

MutualArt.com enters a crowded arena of websites and services devoted to helping collectors monitor the art market. Artfact (artfact.com), based in Newton, Mass., also provides art enthusiasts with auction records and other data. And Artinfo.com, which is headquartered in New York, delivers news and information from its parent company, LTB Media; in addition, Artinfo.com offers a directory of museums and galleries.

Some advisors question the usefulness of yet another site. However, Ben Crawford, MutuaIArt.com's Chief Marketing Officer who recently left his position as president of LTB Media, says MutualArt.com and Artinfo.com could not be more different, though both boast an impressive compilation of articles on art from a worldly range of publications, he says.

Artfact's CEO, Adam Kirsch, says that with information on more than $100 billion in artwork sales, including provenance records, his site offers the largest computer database of auction records. "Most people who are interested in art prices come to us sooner or later," Kirsch says.

However, Shniberg says collectors want even more data. An Israeli native, he minted his fortune in 2002 when he sold his shares of the technology company ImageID, which he founded. Soon after, he made his first foray into the art community when he helped create the Artist Pension Trust, a fund for artists who pool works of art in exchange for a share of profits from the future sale of their works.

Through MutualArt.com, Shniberg has forged partnerships with institutions including the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, allowing, in theory, a collector interested in Cindy Sherman photography to receive updated information about museum exhibits, gallery shows and auction sales. The patented algorithms that drive the site will sort and synthesize data so that, for instance, a collector planning a trip to Berlin will be able to create an art itinerary for that visit.

A layperson could drown in minutia, but Shniberg says serious aficionados, especially those collecting as an investment, require all the art-related information they can get. "When I developed the Artist Pension Trust, I had the opportunity to meet so many collectors, and to gain a better understanding of this industry," he says. "I realized as I spoke with them that there was a need. I thought that maybe I could develop an information mechanism to fill it."