A Shot in the Arm for IHT Morale.

When was the last time you can remember a NYT editorial using the work of IHT journalists? Not in a long time.

All good, and good for the brand equity for the IHT (which seems to be being diminshed by the planned wiping from the NYT Company's asset sheet of www.iht.com at a time when frankly I'd have thought they could hardly afford to do such a thing. Have they thought this one through?)

What I find interesting about this editorial are the mixed messages.

The IHT isn't referenced as being owned by the NYT; in the paper NYT and IHT journalists aren't distinguished from one another, in the newsroom it's all talk about intergration and the IHT merely being the global edition of the NYT.

Yet here we have, in terms of brand value, a clear distinction drawn between the IHT and the NYT.

Confused? You should be.

EDITORIAL
Corruption in Bulgaria and Romania
Sunday, November 16, 2008
When the European Commission decided in September 2006 to admit Bulgaria and Romania into the European Union, nobody pretended they were really ready.
The thinking was that EU membership would keep them safely out of Russia's orbit. There were also hopes that joining the European political mainstream would accelerate their efforts to rein in organized crime and corruption. The latter was a fairly astounding miscalculation.
What actually happened, as Doreen Carvajal and Stephen Castle have reported in detail in the IHT, was that the prospect of billions in EU subsidies only encouraged the criminals to diversify from smuggling and extortion and to burrow into the political and judicial systems - the better to siphon off EU money.
Today, Bulgaria is rated by Transparency International as the most corrupt nation in the 27-nation EU. The country could lose almost half a billion euros in aid that was frozen in July because of fears that it was vulnerable. Romania is also a cause of serious concern.
This state of affairs is devastating at all levels. The Bulgarian and Romanian people badly need the EU's development aid. And the shocking reports of corruption are hardening the resistance of other Europeans to further expanding the EU, thus lessening the chances of Turkey or Ukraine to ever join.
Perhaps most grievously, the spread of corruption through all levels of government and society, as in Russia and some other Balkan countries, makes it far more difficult to eradicate everywhere.
The IHT articles chronicled how those who tried to expose or combat the criminals in Bulgaria were regularly threatened, maimed or killed, and how these crimes routinely go unsolved. The result, the reporters were told, was that people have come to accept corruption as an unavoidable fact of life and have become apathetic about fighting it.
The wrong conclusion would be to close the EU door forever. The right one would be to ensure that those who pass through it are ready and get all the support they need to be full and healthy members.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/16/opinion/edbulgaria.php

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Things aren't looking too good are they? Are we in fact on the brink?

I just completed my own narrative of Friday, 31st October 2008 and there are things that worry me a great deal more than the future of newspapers.

But on the media side, things aren't looking too good are they?

An ex-executive editor of the International Herald Tribune told me this week that he had something called a BQ (for blog quotient) and that it was pretty full. He reads HuffPost, RealClearPolitics, the Daily Beast, and one private one.

I noted he didn't read Porfolio, if we can call it a blog, which I suppose we can if we can call HuffPost one; below is some info on the dodgy future of Portfolio.

What interested me most is that the blogs this ex-IHT boss mentioned aren't really blogs (like this one) but simply non-MSM on the Internet. He might not be reading a lot (and I don't know what his MSM quotient is) but he's reading it. A MSM guy to the core and he's not in his 20s.

If we take the advertising forecasts for '09, let alone '10 which no one is daring to even speak of I note, and we add in these sea change reading habits, I just can't see how the NYT/IHT are going to get by without some really smart thinking and some pretty smart thinking right now.

In today's IHT, the op-ed page, for the first time used the term 'Afghanistan on the Brink'.

Well, if you've been reading your IHT carefully this year, it's a wonder to you probably why it's taken until the beginning of November for such op-ed pieces to appear under such a headline.

I feel much the same way about the NYT/IHT strategy. We are at an 'on the brink' moment for the future of two newspapers that I and many readers of this blog love.

What I don't see is an acknowledgement of that. But I'm well on the outside, so don't give that idea too much weight. Who knows what their smart Ivys and MBAers in R&D and Strat Plan have up their sleeves?

However, sitting there in their huge (and massively expensive and bottom-line useless/mistake) H.Q building in Manhattan, with a million circulation, being the number one newspaper site and just immersed in the incredible self-belief of American, sorry, NYT, exceptionalism, it's not difficult to see how that headline might not appear in your head: "NYT on the brink".

But I'm pretty sure that's exactly where it is.

Ironically, NYT Company stock, having dipped below the '$10-for-me-on-the-brink-price', ended the month exactly, to the cent, there: it closed out Friday at $10. A 22% drop in the last three months.

New York Times Co
(NYT:NYQ) NYT on other Exchanges
10.00 USD Last
+0.07 +0.70% Change
Data as of October 31, 2008 16:03 exchange time.

I'm going to take a break from Think! next week, elections being one reason, my wife being in Australia and me looking after my two boys being another.

I'll be back. I think.

Condé Nast cuts profile of 2 magazines
By Richard Pérez-Peña
Friday, October 31, 2008
Condé Nast Publications will make deep staff cuts at two magazines, Portfolio and Men's Vogue, and publish them less often while cutting budgets across the company by 5 percent, company executives said Thursday.
Men's Vogue will all but disappear as a separate operation. It will be folded into Vogue and will be published twice a year instead of 10 times, the company said. Employees said they were told Thursday that most of the magazine's staff would be laid off.
The business magazine Portfolio will be published 10 times a year instead of 12. Employees said they were told Thursday that most of Portfolio's Web site staff would be dismissed and that much of the content unique to the site would be dropped.
The company's official position was that it had not yet determined where it would cut Portfolio, or how deeply, but executives who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to go into detail said they expected that 15 to 20 percent of the magazine's jobs would be eliminated. Some of the cuts will involve Portfolio's online operations, including advertising sales, which will be folded into those of Wired magazine.
The cuts at Condé Nast demonstrate that the belt-tightening at American magazines has reached even those that rely on luxury product advertising — a segment of the industry that has held up better than most.
"We still like the magazines," said David Carey, a group president at Condé Nast who directs several magazines, including Portfolio. "What we don't like is the revenue trend across all sectors of the business."
Through the first nine months of the year, ad pages in all U.S. magazines were down 9.5 percent from the same period in 2007. Most magazines produced by Condé Nast — including Vogue, GQ, Architectural Digest and Wired — have had much smaller declines, but they are also among the most expensive magazines to produce.
Portfolio, started last year amid much fanfare, is Condé Nast's first business magazine and its most expensive new project in years. Executives said the company was willing to lose more than $100 million on it.
It had an average circulation of 415,000 in the first half of the year and 445 ad pages through nine months — good figures for a new magazine but still far short of profitability. It hired a staff of prominent editors and reporters at high salaries but has been roiled by internal disputes and high turnover. Men's Vogue, started in 2006, has circulation of almost 370,000 and 449 ad pages through nine months.
Condé Nast executives said spending had been under budget, with several positions unfilled, which would limit the effect of the 5 percent budget cut.
Aside from Men's Vogue and Portfolio, they said, staff cuts would mostly be achieved by attrition, though they said there would be some layoffs.

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WPP predicts "very tough" 2009 (IHT)

Reuters
Thursday, October 30, 2008
LONDON: WPP Group , the world's second-largest advertising firm, on Thursday predicted 2009 would be a very tough year after reporting third quarter revenue growth broadly in line with expectations.
The warning, including the acknowledgment that the Olympic Games had not produced the "Beijing Bounce" that was expected, follows similar dire predictions from other advertising groups such as Omnicom and Publicis .
WPP also said its headline operating margin was flat in the first nine months and said it would not now be easy to attain its margin target for 2008 of 15.5 percent.
WPP, whose agencies include JWT and Ogilvy & Mather, posted like-for-like revenue growth of 3 percent and reported revenue growth of 16.2 percent to 1.72 billion pounds.
Analysts had been expecting like-for-like revenue growth of 3.3 percent according to a Reuters poll of 7 analysts and reported revenues of 1.66 billion pounds.
WPP shares hit near 10-year lows in recent weeks on fears about the economic downturn and after Omnicom, the world's largest ad firm by market cap, reported retail and automotive clients beginning to push back and even cancel some ad plans.
"It is still likely that rates of like-for-like revenue growth, particularly by region, will vary significantly in 2009, as in 2008," the group said. "Whatever the pattern, it is not likely that our budget will reflect the Armageddon currently predicted by the fall in stock prices."
(Reporting by Kate Holton; Editing by David Cowell)

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Too much inventory: Internet advertising is over-rated and here's a look at the future.

"We think that a modest amount of advertising is the right thing because that's going to drive atypical results for marketers."

Web site's formula for success: TV content with fewer ads
By Brian Stelter
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
"THUMBS up" and "thumbs down" ratings for commercials. Choose-your-own-advertisement options before shows begin. Interactive games during advertising breaks.
In the last year these online advertising innovations have been popularized by Hulu, the online video Web site that will celebrate its first anniversary on Wednesday. For all that has been written about Hulu's easy-to-use, aesthetically pleasing interface, the advertising experience is equally important.
In the place of the long commercial pods that TV viewers have become accustomed to, only one ad is shown during each segment break on Hulu. Fewer ads make the ones on the site more memorable, Hulu executives say, allowing the site to charge higher prices for the ad units.
"The notion that less is more is absolutely playing out on Hulu," Jason Kilar, the chief executive of the site, said. "This is benefiting advertisers as much as it is benefiting users."
While Hulu was not the first site to serve up full-length television shows or create new advertising units, it now dominates the emerging market for ad-supported TV and movie streaming. It emerged in public beta form one year ago with 10 advertisers, made its official debut in March, and now counts more than 100 sponsors, from General Motors to Old Spice.
The site has grown steadily, providing 142 million streams to 6.3 million unique viewers in September, Nielsen Online reported last week. Hulu is now the sixth-most-popular online video brand in the United States, surpassing the online video networks operated by ESPN, CNN, MTV and Disney. (It ranks far below YouTube, which streams 20 times as many videos as any other brand in the United States, and behind sites owned by Yahoo, Fox, MSN and Nickelodeon.)
With a library of more than 1,000 television series and 400 feature-length films, Hulu attracts a wider audience than individual network Web sites or competitors like Veoh and Joost. Recently, the site's biggest hurdle has been a shortage of advertising amid a sudden increase in video viewing. The cause? "Tina Fey happened to do an unbelievably good impression of Sarah Palin," Kilar said, referring to the "Saturday Night Live" skits lampooning the Republican vice presidential nominee.
Buzz about the sketches drove millions to view them online. The first skit about Palin, on Sept. 13, was viewed 14.3 million times on Hulu and NBC.com and watched by 10.2 million on television. The second sketch, on Sept. 27, has been viewed 11.1 million times on the site after being watched by 7.9 million on TV. While the comparisons are inexact because online viewers could be watching more than once, "Saturday Night Streamed" may seem a more apt title for the show.
At the same time that "Saturday Night Live" helped spike Hulu's traffic, the fall premieres of many popular TV shows attracted more visitors. To match the advertising inventory to the rapid growth in video views, "we now have to go back out into the marketplace very quickly," Kilar said.
While the site, a joint venture of NBC Universal and News Corporation, is reportedly not yet profitable, it has won over many advertising executives. "I've been waiting for this for 10 years," Greg Smith, the chief operating officer of Neo@Ogilvy, an interactive agency of the Ogilvy Group, told Kilar during a product demonstration last November.
Smith now uses the site regularly. "Hulu takes TV content, which is the best long-form video content there is — the Web has yet to come up with something as good — and it just breaks it out of the tyranny of the schedule," he said in an interview.
In a customer survey commissioned by Hulu and conducted by Insight Express in July and August, 76 percent of nearly 18,000 respondents said that the site had the right amount of ads given the can't-be-beat cost of viewing (free). Just over 17 percent said there was less advertising than they expected. The survey also found a 22 percent bump in advertiser message association and a 28 percent increase in intent to purchase among users.
Kilar is an advocate of the fewer-ads approach. The half-hour comedies that are so popular on Hulu — "Family Guy" from Fox and "The Office" from NBC — have an average of eight minutes of commercial time on TV. On Hulu, where the sitcoms are especially popular, each show averages about two minutes of ads.
"We think that a modest amount of advertising is the right thing because that's going to drive atypical results for marketers," Kilar said. He said the site had no plans to increase the advertising load.
As effective as the ads may be, it must be hard to resist adding more. ABC, a unit of the Walt Disney Company, conducted focus groups with consumers last summer to gauge potential changes to the advertising load on its video Web site. The company is now analyzing the focus group findings, a spokeswoman said.
ABC.com was the first network Web site to introduce full-episode streaming in 2006. Research by ABC last January found that the one-ad-per-segment format resulted in a 54 percent ad recall rate. ABC and the other broadcast networks now make the recent episodes of almost every TV series available for streaming. NBC put the season premieres of "30 Rock" and other shows online a week before they were shown on TV this season.
Despite all the experimentation, it is still difficult to know exactly how many viewers are watching individual TV shows and movies online. Hulu ranks its most popular content, but unlike YouTube it doesn't show the view count for each video. Still, it is clear that millions of viewers are watching some shows online. The Season 3 premiere of "Heroes" in September was streamed 8.1 million times on Hulu and NBC.com, according to the network. (All online streams are not counted as equal, because on NBC.com each segment of an episode is counted as a stream, so a full episode could count as six streams. On Hulu, one episode equals one stream.)
It is easier to count the click-through rates for the video ads. On ABC.com, nearly one in four users participate when the ads are interactive, the network said. On Hulu, companies like Nissan have offered multiple versions of commercials for viewers to choose. The site is also experimenting with longer-form advertisements, sometimes letting users choose to watch a movie trailer in place of a 30-second spot.
Hiccups remain, Smith said, noting that technology sometimes limits innovation. "I'm still getting the same spot five times in an hourlong program sometimes," he said. "If I stop watching a movie and come back a few days later, it remembers where I stopped, which is great, but I wish it would remember which spots I was exposed to."
In a glimpse of the future of ad feedback, Hulu users are encouraged to click buttons indicating whether they like or dislike each ad they see. "As we collect more and more data, we can personalize the ad experience for you," Kilar said.

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Black Monday and the story you should already have read.

I'll go out on a limb here and post this. You'll have to take my word for it that I haven't seen or heard any news of the Asian markets overnight, nor the European openings. I am going to post this, and then I am going to go and have a look.

Below you will find what I wrote on my blog A Place in the Auvergne just now making my daily alternative narrative for Sunday 26th October 2008.

Normally I don't write myself, I just let the news tell the story, and it's all about story, something the newspaper industry has lost sight of.

I have never written, in the course of doing the Auvergne blog since January 1st, 2008, anything about the day to come, in this case Monday, 27th October.

I hope I'm wrong and only the Warren Buffet like patriotism of American investors can prevent it when the NYSE opens later today.

What has this got to do with the International Herald Tribune?

If you read the IHT carefully, none of what is going to happen today should come as a surprise.

If you are surprised, then the way the story has been told to you since January 1st, 2008 has been wrong.

The traditional news hierarchies of newspapers, which A Place in the Auvergne ignores, clearly aren't working.

IW: Last Friday, in the markets, it was bad. I haven't given a moment's thought to them until now, but this was a tipping point weekend out there in The Shop. The talk has moved from meltdown to panic.
At the time of writing (Monday 27th October 2008) I haven't checked the Asian markets overnight, nor the European opening prices. I haven't looked at any news save the daily article index of the IHT for Monday - that is to say, news from over the weekend. I haven't listend to a radio, we don't own a television to turn on. I don't feel I need to. I know.
I would say the markets, on Monday, 27th October, 2008 are going to be black, pitch black.

Here in The Valley I have not had one single conversation with one person about the financial meltdown, neither with friends on Friday night, nor on Saturday at the protest march against the closure of rural services, nor yesterday when a friend dropped by with some cheese. In the Auvergne, not many of us own stocks, or have much debt, we are close to the land and the food it brings, close to the wood to heat to our homes, water to drink. This is not our problem.

Yet.

But here is something I heard just now, while I was making this post. According to a source at the post office bank in our local town (with a catchment area of 24,000 people), the Post Office bank received €24 million in cash deposits, money withdrawn from the town's local banks and moved to the state owned/backed post office bank.

Think about that.

And if you believe in omens, there were three major earthquakes yesterday and here this Monday morning the dawn was a burnt red of a type I have never seen here in three years.

Now I hear thunder and it is raining.

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Bailout for NYT Company?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not expecting the U.S government to bailout the NYT Company.


However I did comment yesterday that a bailout by a consortium of the great and the good of New York is something I wouldn't take off the table. With debts cleared and a slimmed down verion of the Company (probably excluding the Boston Globe but hopefully including the IHT) taken into private ownership by a consortium of VERY rich liberal New Yorkers, the NYT Company would be well positioned to invest, innovate and acquire in a depressed market.


I would say however that the current situation would make the shuttering of the IHT more likely, not less, and the arrival of an InternationalNYT sooner, rather than later, which would be a shame because the IHT has legs on her yet.


I mention the bailout again, prompted by this article in today's International Herald Tribune.

Businesses scramble for a piece of the U.S. bailout
The Associated Press
Sunday, October 26, 2008
WASHINGTON: The U.S. bailout is now the hottest lobbying game in town.
Insurers, automakers and American subsidiaries of foreign banks all want the Treasury Department to cut them a piece of the largest government rescue in U.S. history.
The betting is that many with their hands out will be successful, especially with financial markets in a stomach-churning dive and predictions that the U.S. economy is about to tumble into a deep recession. These groups argue that the credit squeeze is so severe and the risks to the economy so dire that their industries need financial support as well.
The Treasury is considering requests from a variety of industries, but has not decided whether to expand the program, officials said Saturday.
Lobbying efforts are intensifying. The Financial Services Roundtable wrote Treasury officials on Friday requesting that the initiative to buy $250 billion in bank stock grow to cover insurers, auto companies, securities dealers and U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies, including banks. The Treasury's plan is intended to bolster banks' tattered balance sheets and get them to resume making loans.
As the Treasury now interprets it, these additional groups would not participate in the bank stock program. They could receive help from a separate part of the $700 billion rescue that will buy bad assets from financial institutions.
Steve Bartlett, the president of the Roundtable, urged the Treasury to broaden the definition of those eligible for the stock purchase program. "The institutions that are excluded play a vital role in the U.S. economy by providing liquidity to the market," Bartlett wrote Neel Kashkari, the Treasury official running the bailout program.
Referring to U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies, Bartlett said, "This is a global crisis and to not recognize the U.S. firms controlled by foreign banks or companies would create further impediment to the market's recovery."
A financial industry official said Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr. had met over the past week with various groups, including hedge fund managers, that were petitioning for assistance. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the Treasury had not made a decision. This official said the discussions with insurance industry executives were being held in advance of what are expected to be disappointing earnings reports by some insurance companies in the coming week.
The official said the insurance industry would like to get government purchases of their stock on a mandatory basis, duplicating the agreement Paulson struck two weeks ago with nine major banks.
Paulson pressured the big banks to go along with the program as a way of removing the stigma that might be attached to the payments if only a few major banks had received them.
Some insurers technically would be eligible for stock purchases now if they own subsidiaries that are savings and loan institutions regulated by the Office of Thrift Supervision.
Last month, American International Group, the largest insurance company in the nation, received an $85 billion loan from the Federal Reserve. Since then, it has gotten further support in an effort to withstand the biggest upheavals on Wall Street since the Great Depression.
Complicating the government's decision-making is that the administration of President George W. Bush will not be in charge after Jan. 20. Paulson, who has said he has no intention of staying on the job, has pledged to consult both campaigns on his bailout actions.
Barack Obama's presidential campaign said Friday that it supported the effort by the auto industry to get money from the $250 billion made available for stock purchases. That would be in addition to $25 billion recently approved by Congress for low-interest loans to help the struggling industry retool and build fuel efficient vehicles.
The debate over expanding the bailout comes as the Treasury is rushing to get money out the door to the primary recipients: banks that sharply curtailed lending after suffering billions of dollars of losses on mortgage-related assets as home foreclosures soared in the housing slump. Lawmakers are pressuring the Treasury to do more in the foreclosure area, as well.
Sheila Bair, head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, told Congress about efforts to provide government-backed loan guarantees for mortgages that are reworked to help homeowners in danger of default. That would give banks an incentive to speed up refinancing efforts because the government would back part of the reworked loan.
The Treasury is also moving ahead to get bank stock purchases approved. It announced on Oct. 14 that it was spending $125 billion to buy stock in nine of the largest financial institutions. An announcement was expected Friday about a second round involving 20 to 22 other banks. But it was decided each bank would announce its own agreements with the Treasury, out of concern that excluded banks could suffer a stock sell-off from disappointed investors.
PNC Financial Services Group announced Friday it was acquiring National City for $5.58 billion, in what was the first instance of a bank using fresh investments from the bailout program to make an acquisition.

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Frantic panic is in the air generally: what should the NYT do?

Last Friday hit everyone hard, and there has been a weekend of reflection.

Read these articles from today's International Herald Tribune, if you don't believe that at least at the NYT editorial desk, there is a growing awareness of something more than a financial meltdown and it's called financial panic.

I'd say we've just had a tipping point weekend.

In Europe, crisis revives old memories

Roger Cohen: Shoot the horses?

But have we learned enough?

The price of optimism

Economic rout seems to take on a life of its own

Economic downturn is expected to get worse



What should any company do, what should the NYT do, in such times?

I'd say it's innovate, acquire, invest or die time. Tom Friedman pretty much sums up my views and I hope the NYT's bankers, commercial paper holders and executives read this carefully: "So let's keep our eyes on the prize."


Thomas L. Friedman: Save the system
By Thomas L. Friedman
Sunday, October 26, 2008
The hardest thing about analyzing the Bush administration is this: Some things are true even if President Bush believes them.
Therefore, sifting through all his steps and missteps, at home and abroad, and trying to sort out what is crazy and what might actually be true - even though Bush believes it - presents an enormous challenge, particularly amid this economic crisis.
I felt that very strongly when listening to Bush and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson announce that the government was going to become a significant shareholder in America's major banks. Both Bush and Paulson were visibly reluctant to be taking this step. It would be easy to scoff at them and say: "What do you expect from a couple of capitalists who hate any kind of government intervention in the market?"
But we should reflect on their reluctance. There may be an important message in their grimaces. The government had to step in and shore up the balance sheets of America's major banks. But the question I am asking myself, and I think Paulson and Bush were asking themselves, is this: "What will this government intervention do to the risk-taking that is at the heart of capitalism?"
There is a fine line between risk-taking and recklessness. Risk-taking drives innovation; recklessness drives over a cliff. In recent years, we Americans had way too much of the latter. We are paying a huge price for that, and we need a correction. But how do we do that without becoming so risk-averse that start-ups and emerging economies can't get capital because banks with the government as a shareholder become exceedingly cautious?
Let's imagine this scene: You are the president of one of these banks in which the government has taken a position. One day two young Stanford grads walk in your door. One is named Larry, and the other is named Sergey. They tell you that they have this thing called a "search engine," and they are naming it - get this - "Google." They tell you to type in any word in this box on a computer screen and - get this - hit a button labeled "I'm Feeling Lucky." Up comes a Web site related to that word. Their start-up has exhausted its venture capital. They need a loan.
What are you going to say to Larry and Sergey as the president of the bank? "Boys, this is very interesting. But I have the U.S. Treasury as my biggest shareholder today, and if you think I'm going to put money into something called 'Google,' with a key called 'I'm Feeling Lucky,' you're fresh outta luck. Can you imagine me explaining that to a congressional committee if you guys go bust?"
And then what happens if the next day the congressman from Palo Alto, who happens to be on the House banking committee, calls you, the bank president, and says: "I understand you turned down my boys, Larry and Sergey. Maybe you haven't been told, but I am one of your shareholders - and right now, I'm not feeling very lucky. You get my drift?"
Maybe nothing like this will ever happen. Maybe it's just my imagination. But maybe not ...
"Government bailouts and guarantees, while at times needed, always come with unintended consequences," notes the financial strategist David Smick. "The winners: the strong, the big, the established, the domestic and the safe - the folks who, relatively speaking, don't need the money. The losers: the new, the small, the foreign and the risky - emerging markets, entrepreneurs and small businesses not politically connected. After all, what banker in a Capitol Hill hearing now would want to defend a loan to an emerging market? Yet emerging economies are the big markets for American exports."
I am not criticizing the decision to shore up the banks. And we must prevent a repeat of the reckless bundling and securitizing of mortgages, and excessive leveraging, that started this mess. We need better regulation. But most of all, we need better management.
The banks that are surviving the best today, the ones that are buying others and not being bought - like JPMorgan Chase or Banco Santander, based in Spain - are not surviving because they were better regulated than the banks across the street but because they were better run. Their leaders were more vigilant about their risk exposure than any regulator required them to be.
Bottom line: We must not overshoot in regulating the markets just because they overshot in their risk-taking. That's what markets do. We need to fix capitalism, not install socialism. Because, ultimately, we can't bail our way out of this crisis. We can only grow our way out - with more innovation and entrepreneurship.
So let's keep our eyes on the prize. Save the system, install smart regulations and get the government out of the banking business as soon as possible so that the surviving banks can freely and unabashedly get back into their business: risk-taking without recklessness.

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Police investigate white powder at New York Times (IHT)

The Associated Press
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
NEW YORK: An employee of The New York Times opened a letter Wednesday containing a white powder that officials later said was harmless.
The discovery comes after more than 30 letters containing a suspicious powder were mailed to Chase bank branches and federal banking regulators' offices in nine cities. Officials said those letters, postmarked Amarillo, Texas, also appeared to be harmless.
A law enforcement official said the letter sent to the Times didn't appear to be related to those sent to the financial institutions.
The Times letter did not carry a Texas postmark and contained a different substance, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
The newspaper told employees the powder was found Wednesday morning when an employee opened a letter on the 13th floor of company headquarters in midtown Manhattan. Police were called and said they didn't believe it was harmful.
The law enforcement official also said the Times letter tested negative for dangerous toxins.
The newspaper closed one lobby to the building, but it was reopened by about 6 p.m.
Anthrax-tainted letters were sent to media outlets and offices in 2001. Five people died, and since then, officials have been cautious when suspicious powders are detected.

Wednesday, Oct 22
Anthrax to NYT Office?
So basically we are assuming that over the next two weeks things will just proceed to get crazier as the reality of a Barack Obama presidency, helped along no doubt by the Liberal media elite(!), begins to sink in to a certain portion of the population. To wit: Radaronline is reporting that the NYT office received an envelope today containing a "white granular substance." Per the in-house email:

At about 11:30 a.m. today an employee on the 13th floor of our headquarters building in New York opened an envelope addressed to The New York Times. A white granular substance was in the envelope. The New York City police were called and are now on site investigating. The 41st Street side of the lobby is closed but people are able to get in and out of the building. We will keep you updated on any developments.

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Luxury brands and 2009 Advertising forecasts for IHT

There is a hardly a piece of good news for anyone putting together a 2009 advertising budget for the IHT.

But for the IHT a couple of headlines caught my eye hard.

Japanese buy less, and European fashion houses suffer

Outlook seen challenging for luxury goods in 2009
http://www.iht.com/articles/reuters/2008/10/21/business/OUKBS-UK-LUXURY-OUTLOOK.php


Luxury brands, fashion and renewable energy have been the backbone of the IHT's 2008 advertising revenue, and all are in retreat.

Time to re-do those forecasts - again. But where are the cost cuts going to come from? Over at the FT, there is news of 60 layoffs.

Resolved to keep on marketing, even in tight-fisted times (IHT)

I blogged on this exact point yesterday:

Joseph Tripodi, chief marketing and commercial officer at the Coca-Cola Company, whose Coca-Cola brand is the strongest in the world, according to a new survey by Interbrand, evoked imagery from the Great Depression."Don't go to the ledge," Tripodi said. "Don't let the urgent overwhelm the important.""It's very easy now to panic, and we cannot panic," he added. "Invest in your brands now, especially in these dry times. The easiest thing is to shut down, and that's the worst thing."


By Stuart Elliott
Monday, October 20, 2008
ORLANDO, Florida: Attendees of a big annual conference for marketers, held here last week, could have been forgiven for believing they had stumbled into a symposium for scholars of American history in the 1930s.
These are some of the words and phrases heard during the conference, the 98th annual meeting of the Association of National Advertisers: "financial crisis," "scary," "foreclosure," "economic crisis," "difficult times," "the chaotic financial markets," "devastating," "under siege" and "unprecedented."
There were even references to "Happy Days Are Here Again," which became the unofficial theme song of those who fought to forestall the effects of the Great Depression, and to "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself," the encouraging words of Franklin D. Roosevelt during his first inaugural address, in 1933.
"The consumer is sitting at the bottom of a bunker with his head in his hands, wondering if it's safe to come out," Jez Frampton, global chief executive at Interbrand, an Omnicom Group agency specializing in corporate and brand identity, said during a general session of the conference.
"It's up to us to stimulate demand in the marketplace again," he added.
•
Whether the members of the association — 400 companies that together spend an estimated $100 billion a year on advertising and other forms of marketing — are willing to stick to the spending plans they made "before the globe went mad," as Frampton put it, is a crucial question.
If marketers cut budgets, that could intensify the recent sharp downturn in consumer spending. Conversely, by maintaining, or increasing, spending levels, they just might shorten the length of whatever recession might be coming (if it is not already here).
"Look, everyone is going to want to cut, but no one wants to be first to say it in public," said one attendee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because his company has not completed its planning for 2009.
"That's especially true given that we still have some time before Christmas," the attendee said, referring to the importance of the holiday shopping season for marketers and retailers. "Anyone who says anything now could go down as the Grinch who stole Christmas."
The closest any speaker came to tipping his or her hand was Anne Saunders, brand and advertising executive at Bank of America.
"We aren't done planning '09 yet," Saunders said, so "we're not concluding at the moment that we would necessarily cut" spending.
If a decision is reached to make cuts, "we don't expect to see a substantial cut," she added, because "it would be a mistake to say you don't need to continue to tend your brand, even in a challenging market like this."
Other speakers made the same point, in more emphatic and colorful language.
"It's incredibly important to be risk-takers in the economic climate we're in," said Michael Mendenhall, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Hewlett-Packard, when "people have a tendency to pull back."
"In economic times like these, you don't hunker down and go in the bunker," he added.
Rebecca Saeger, executive vice president and chief marketing officer at the Charles Schwab Corporation, quoted Mendenhall approvingly in her remarks and added: "Let's all go for growth. Let's see this as an opportunity."
Increasing sales and profits has "never been more important," said Saeger, who was elected during the conference as the chairwoman of the association for 2008-10. "There has never been a more crystal-clear realization of why you need a strong brand."
Joseph Tripodi, chief marketing and commercial officer at the Coca-Cola Company — whose Coca-Cola brand is the strongest in the world, according to a new survey by Interbrand — evoked imagery from the Great Depression.
"Don't go to the ledge," Tripodi said. "Don't let the urgent overwhelm the important."
"It's very easy now to panic, and we cannot panic," he added. "Invest in your brands now, especially in these dry times. The easiest thing is to shut down, and that's the worst thing."
James Stengel, who is retiring from his post as global marketing officer at Procter & Gamble, was asked whether consumers seeking to save money might be tempted to switch to private-label products from brand names. That would mean paying less attention to ads for brands — no matter how much marketers spent.
That is unlikely, Stengel replied, if marketers understand that "in these times, people are looking for the right value."
"If we're there for consumers when they need us," he added, "I'm sure we'll be fine."
Procter, the world's largest advertiser, survived "tough times" in countries hit hard by recent economic crises, Stengel said, like Argentina and Russia. He even remarked on how Procter made it through the '30s.
Two speakers described how the upheaval in the American economy is inspiring advertising campaigns.
"Right now, given where America is, people need to go back to the comfort of home," said Mark Addicks, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at General Mills. So a new campaign for the company's Pillsbury brand will carry the theme "Home is calling."
A commercial that Addicks showed, by the Saatchi & Saatchi division of the Publicis Groupe, began with people from all walks of life clicking their heels together like Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz" and ended with a family coming home to a meal with Pillsbury crescent rolls.
•
Claire Bennett, senior vice president for marketing at American Express, said the "challenging environment" gave her brand "a unique opportunity" because of its "legacy of trust and confidence."
"We will be talking about that in the coming months," she added, and "our own card members can speak for us."
The entreaties of the speakers may have influenced the estimated 1,200 attendees at the conference, based on results of instant polls during two general sessions.
Asked about immediate plans, 33 percent of respondents said they would maintain the level of their marketing spending, 33 percent said they would reduce spending and 27 percent said they would spend more. (The rest were unsure.)
And when asked about 2009 compared with 2008, the largest number of respondents, 28 percent, predicted stability, followed by 26 percent who forecast spending increases of more than 10 percent. Nineteen percent predicted decreases of more than 10 percent, 14 percent predicted decreases of less than 10 percent, and 13 percent predicted growth of less than 10 percent.

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France looks to save its newspapers (IHT)

I love France, which is why I live here.

Now, that said, if the Loi Bichet was reformed, the NMPP monopoly ended and the link broken between the CGT dominated distribution industry, the first thing the IHT would do is to fire a whole load of people in production (assuming compliance with existing French employment law or revised Sarko employment law), and cut their cost base considerably without fear of the CGT blocking the distribution of the IHT in France, and countries serviced by airplane from French print sites.

Actually, they might do more than that. They might up sticks and relocate to New Jersey, New York or a new media city in the U.A.E.

The point being, the CGT and the NMPP have had the IHT by the balls forever, and that has got to stop. Because France is the IHT's biggest market in the world, circulation wise, and a stoppage of IHT distribution for a week or more in the IHT's European circulation is untenable for advertisers. The IHT's numbers are simply too small (reader reseach numbers) to stack up with out French distribution.

Bernadette Lefevre helping a customer at her Paris kiosk. Even when newspapers reach newsstands in France, they often go unsold. (Emmanuel Fradin for the IHT)

France looks to save its newspapers
By Eric Pfanner
Sunday, October 19, 2008
PARIS: Like other Paris newsstands, the kiosk run by Bernadette Lefevre displays hundreds of newspapers and magazines, from mainstream titles like Le Monde to offbeat publications like LVP, a sort of Time Out guide for swingers.
And, like most of the 28,000 other news vendors across France, Lefevre has no choice over the selection. Under a 1947 law, French publishers are guaranteed newsstand space and national distribution - an effort to ensure freedom of expression after a wartime diet of Nazi propaganda. The rule, called the Loi Bichet, may have been well intentioned, but analysts say it also has a negative side, preventing vendors from adapting to market demand and contributing to an alarming decline in newspaper readership and revenue.
"The Loi Bichet, at the very least, must be changed," Lefevre said. "We need to be able to vary the offer from neighborhood to neighborhood. Otherwise it will get harder and harder to earn a living."
Newspapers throughout the developed world are losing readers and advertisers to the Internet, but French papers are in particularly bad shape. According to the World Association of Newspapers, circulation of paid-for dailies totals 154 copies per 1,000 people - lower than in Cuba, Lithuania or Suriname, and only about half the level in Germany or Britain. Like Lefevre, many analysts see overregulation as a major reason why French papers are thinner, scarcer and more expensive than elsewhere.
"It has become a French disease," said Emmanuel Schwartzenberg, a former media editor at Le Figaro and the author of a recently published book on the problems facing the French press.
In an effort to find ways to revitalize the industry, President Nicolas Sarkozy gathered more than 140 media experts this month to begin a three-month, government sponsored study of the written press, to look for ways to revitalize the French Fourth Estate. Like many analysts, Sarkozy put the spotlight on the difficulty of publishing in France.
"Like many of you, I think that distribution is the biggest problem for the newspaper industry," Sarkozy told participants. "At a time when marketing has become so important, it is peculiar that the press is so poorly sold."
French publishers face some unusual barriers to getting their dailies into readers' hands. For starters, they have to join a distribution network, NMPP, a near-monopoly that is mutually owned by the publishers and run by Lagardère, a publishing and military procurement conglomerate. After years of complaints from publishers about the cost of using this system, NMPP is restructuring its operations. Among other things, it plans to cut hundreds of jobs and close one of its distribution centers near Paris.
But that has caused other problems. Delivery workers at the NMPP are represented by a hard-line union, the CGT, whose hold over a choke point of the distribution system gives it considerable power. The union has struck three times this year against the cost-cutting plans, most recently in September; on those days, newsstands across France were empty. Printers at the individual newspapers are also represented by the CGT, with the power to shut down production.
Even when newspapers reach newsstands, they often go unsold. Many kiosks, even in Paris, are closed Sundays or for the entire weekend - a time when newspapers in other countries often make the bulk of their profit.
NMPP wants to create 5,000 new points of sale within the next two years. But reaching that target could be difficult. Every proposal to open a newsstand is subject to review by a special commission representing publishers and distributors, which is required to ensure that the newcomer does not hurt sales at existing nearby vendors.
Why have restrictions remained in place for so long in France? After all, in neighboring Britain, publishers like Rupert Murdoch, with the backing of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, moved aggressively to improve their business prospects in the 1980s, dismantling powerful newspaper unions.
Schwartzenberg said politicians and publishers in France had been loath to do anything until now because both sides thought they had benefited from the system.
"When something is not working, there are hidden reasons," he said. "This hidden reason is that the will of every government since 1945, from De Gaulle to Sarkozy, has been to control the press."
By keeping the newspapers financially weak and dependent on public subsidies, he said, governments think they can indirectly exercise control. Meanwhile, French publishers are willing to go along with the arrangement because a costly and cumbersome distribution system keeps foreign media companies from entering their market, he added.
Bertrand Pecquerie, director of the World Editors Forum in Paris, said France could learn a lot from publishers in Britain or Germany. Unlike those countries, France has no mass-market tabloid like The Sun or Bild Zeitung, with circulations upward of three million. The largest paid-for national daily in France, Le Figaro, has a circulation of about 320,000.
"We have exactly the same society, the same standard of living, the same culture, but in France you don't have a popular tabloid, because the French press is very elitist," Pecquerie said. "There is this attitude that a newspaper is prestige reading. We need a popular newspaper with some tabloid attitude.
"If we don't understand the workings of the newspaper industry worldwide and try to make a French exception, we will fail."
Axel Springer, publisher of Bild, has long wanted to start a similar publication in France. But last year, shortly before it was due to start printing, the company reversed course, citing difficult "logistical and technical manufacturing conditions."
For a head of state juggling issues ranging from foreign wars to financial crisis, Sarkozy has shown a surprising level of interest in the fortunes of the media business.
Last year, he tried to crack down on digital piracy of music and movies. This year, he has proposed a ban on advertising on public television; that plan has drawn criticism from opponents of the president, who say it is intended to help his friends in the media industry by driving advertising to their privately owned networks.
Many analysts say Sarkozy's goal in convening the conference on the written press is to continue a drive to build French "national champions" with wide-ranging media interests. The president has said he favors a relaxation of rules blocking owners of major television networks from also owning national newspapers. Dropping those restrictions could bring needed money and know-how into the newspaper business, he says.
But critics note that it also could help Sarkozy associates like Martin Bouygues, who controls the largest television channel in France, TF1, and Serge Dassault, who controls Le Figaro, to consolidate their media empires.
In his speech opening the conference, Sarkozy underlined his support for subsidies, which amount to nearly €300 million, or just over $400 million, in direct aid and around €1 billion when indirect benefits like tax breaks are included.
Some newspapers, like L'Humanité, published by the Communist Party, survive largely because of state subsidies, but they are not the only ones that are struggling. The two leading national dailies, Le Figaro and Le Monde, have each recently made deep cuts in their staffs. The two main business papers, Les Échos and La Tribune, were recently sold.
Analysts question the use of some of the public money. Schwartzenberg said more than €100 million went toward financing early retirement programs for the printers and delivery workers. Very little is spent on starting new publications or on the Internet, where French papers' audiences and ad revenue remain small.
In an effort to defend the aid, the delivery workers' union said the participants in the conference should write into the French Constitution a clause identifying the press as a "cultural, social and political good."
With so many vested interests at stake, analysts say, one important stakeholder is often forgotten: the reader.
"The problem in France is that journalists, publishers and workers have never thought of their papers as commercial products," said Patrick Eveno, a media historian who is taking part in the conference.
"They have only thought of their papers as a means of political influence," he said. "If this does not change, the written press will die."

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Pop up ads on www.iht.com

You're on www.iht.com as I am on a nearly daily basis, you have a subscription to the print paper (I appreciate many Internet users do not) and this advert (see below) pops up as an entire page. Indeed entire page pop-ups even on home pages are common on many media sites.

In the case of these pop-ups, or specifically in the case of the iht.com subscription pop-up, I don't know what the click-through rate is nor the click through to conversion rate is nor the conversion to retention rate is, but either way, they bug the hell out of me.

Is Internet advertising over-rated?

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About.com

Please find below press release from the NYTCompany about not very interesting new stuff at About.com.

I'm not a heavy About.com user, it is has to be said. I've looked at it this year, out of interest, but I've never actually gone to it to find out About something. I wonder why this is? Must reflect more but I think they're are things that prevent me, conciously or subconciously.

a) they're not leveraging the NYT brand and no credibility equity has been transferred from my devotion to all things NYT to anything about.com;

b) the logo looks like its made by a graphic designer who doesn't know much about graphic design and to my particular eye says 'amateur', 'cheap' low quality citizen journalism;

c) the fact they only have 750 experts who are constantly referred to as 'REAL PEOPLE' unlike say, real academics, real researchers, real journalists or even real experts. (cf Wikipedia) Of those 750 experts only 20 of them have been named Forbes “Best of Web,” in 8 years. By industry standards this may be good but as a consumer it doesn't seem to be enough, for me at least. Of their 57 million users, only 8 million have thought the stuff good enough to subscribe. I know you can argue this is a very good conversion rate, as a business, but as a consumer it doesn't instill me with confidence.

d) any strapline that uses such a strong negative (Guidance. Not Guesswork.) usually leaves a take out that the lady doth protest too much and it isn't offering that much guidance - which is a weak abstract noun for a brand statement - and could well involve a fair amount of guess work;

e) an Internet business like this surely needs to be global and although I haven't done a thorough analysis of their topics or experts, my sense is that both are predominantly American focussed (e.g for example, and not a particularly good one, but you get the drift, there is no topic for Brazil or Australia but there is about Brazil and Australia Travel) and it's all in English. (Save About China)

f) the crappy advertising that pops up.

That all said it is one of the webs top 15 content sites, reaching 38 million unique visitors each month in U.S.* and 57 million globally.** (About.com metrics, bien sur).

Of those 19 million 'foreigners' who use it may I refer them to User Promise No. 5 of the About.com's 6 user promises, which is "We'll speak your language".

If you'd like to read more about About.com scroll down past the latest gripping installment from it's development and have a look at Channels and Topics, plus some other stuff.

About.com Health Expands Its Online Community with Calorie Count Groups
NEW YORK, Oct 14, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- About.com Health (www.about.com/health), which is among the top three consumer health Web sites in the U.S. (September 2008 Nielsen Online), announced today the launch of Calorie Count Groups, a free online social dieting network that allows members to connect and communicate about topics of interest, and motivate each other to achieve health and weight goals. Calorie Count Groups is the latest addition to About.com Health's Calorie Count Web site, which provides guidance and support to dieters, information on foods, exercise programs and dieting tools. Calorie Count passed the one million member mark in August.
"More and more people are embracing social dieting as an effective method of weight loss and maintenance," said Igor Lebovic, director, Calorie Count. "Calorie Count Groups allows members to benefit from the knowledge and experience of others and provides an environment through which they can share tips and lend support."
Using Calorie Count Groups, members can also create their own public or private groups and connect with people who share similar interests, live in nearby neighborhoods or have common goals. Thus far, approximately 26,000 Calorie Count members have joinedmore than 300 Groups in categories such as Motivation and Challenges, Foods and Cooking, and Losing or Gaining Weight, among others.
Since 2005, Calorie Count members have collectively lost over 1.3 million pounds - the equivalent of 85 adult elephants, nine Boeing 737 aircrafts and almost three Statues of Liberty.
About About.com
Founded in 1996, About.com is one of the Web's leading producers of original content. The site's expert Guides provide users with accurate and unbiased information to help them live happier, healthier and more successful lives.
In March 2005, About.com was acquired by The New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT), a leading media company with 2007 revenues of $3.2 billion, which includes The New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, The Boston Globe, 16 other daily newspapers, WQXR-FM and more than 50 Web sites, including NYTimes.com, Boston.com and About.com. The Company's core purpose is to enhance society by creating, collecting and distributing high-quality news, information and entertainment.
This press release can be downloaded from www.nytco.com
SOURCE: The New York Times Company
About.com Erica McDonald, 212-204-1724 emcdonald@about.com

READY FOR THE INTERNET LIKE NEVER BEFORE
About.com is an online neighborhood of hundreds of helpful experts, eager to share their wealth of knowledge with visitors.

Every month, over 60 million people* visit us for help with everything from health care and parenting issues to advice on travel, cooking, technology, hobbies and more. And we offer solutions in the form of over two million hand-crafted, original articles, recipes, product reviews, videos, tutorials and more.

All created by our network of expert 'Guides' - real people who, like all good neighbors, help others so that everyone's life gets just a little better.

Founded in 1996, About.com was acquired in March 2005 by The New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT). Today, About.com is recognized as a top 15 content site and one of the largest producers of original content on the Web.

ABOUT.COM LEADS THE WAY

• About.com is America's single largest developer of original content on the Web. Offering almost 2 million pieces of original content spanning 21 diverse channels.



• Only About.com features expert Guides. With a network of 750 Guides, About.com provides practical solutions to everyday problems across thousands of topics. Consistently providing rich and relevant content and guiding key decision, Guides turn About.com into a trusted community.



• About.com is a top 15 content site. Reaching 38 million unique visitors each month in U.S.* and 57 million globally.**



• About.com is the answer or end result for many Internet searches as well as a "direct destination" for loyal users.
  About.com continually maintains its relevance to users.



• About.com covers 70,000 topics, and adds more than 6,000 pieces of new content each week.



• About.com offers a valuable contextual environment. Offering unique Guide-based content and a robust online experience, About.com provides a leading means for advertisers to surround their message with relevant content and is a powerful driver of an enhanced brand experience.

ABOUT.COM FINANCIALS

Source: http://www.nytco.com/pdf/annual_2007/mda.pdf

"The About Group principally generates revenues from display advertising, that is relevant to its adjacent content, cost-per-click advertising (sponsored links for which the About Group is paid when a user clicks on an ad), and e-commerce (including sales lead generation). Almost all of its revenues (95% in 2007) are derived from the sale of advertisements (display and cost-per-click advertising). Display advertising accounted for 51% of the About Group's total advertising revenues."

About.com accounted for just 3% (US$102.7 million) of the NYT Company's 2007 total revenues of US$3.195 billion. (By comparison the NYTMG - accounted for 64% - basically the NYT - and the NEMG - basically the Boston Globe - accounted for 19%; the Regionals delivered 14%.) That was a 28% increase over 2006 and 82% over 2005. So it's revenue base isn't far off the IHT in a good year, or more to the point and more exactly, the revenue base of the IHT isn't that far off About.com when the IHT has a good year.

The difference however is that the NYT paid cUS$50-70million dollars for 50% of the IHT but paid US$410 million for 100% of About.com in March 2005. At that time About.com had 57,000 topics and a library of 1.2 million pieces of content and had, according to Nielsen//NetRatings 29 million unique users nationally and 47 million worldwide in October 2005. Today those figures have increased (in 3 years) to 38 and 57 million respectively.

I'll leave you to judge:

a) whether you think those growth figures are good, bad or indifferent given the explosive growth rates we've seen in other Internet businesses, especially social-networking sites;

b) where the IHT could be today if that US$410 million had been poured into the IHT, iht.com, reporters, thickening the book and redesigning it and marketing it from March 2005.

Now let's take a look at the profitability of About.com

In 2007 it's costs were US$68 million, a profit of, give or take, US$ 34 million. That's not bad going on a revenue base of US$102 million and on that front, the IHT can't even touch it. In fact, I don't think the IHT has been profitable since it was fully acquired by the NYTCompany

However, the About.com cost trend isn't terrific. Up 37% over 2006, up 53% over 2005 and some would argue that the revenue growth, impressive as it may look (28% increase over 2006) was in fact off a low base and these big number revenue growth rates need to be continued for years to start getting near the print properties. And that is not a given.

There are of course a whole number of variables at play in these cost growths (compensation, content and amortization cost increases primarily due, we are told, to new initiatives and acquisition costs in 2007). What those acquisitions brought with them in increased revenue the NYT Company is less than clear on. They do say that the 2007 revenue increase was primarily due to increased ad revenue (from About.com or the new acquisitions the language does not make clear, saying that 'in addition, revenues increased due to the About.com acquisitions'.)

Alors, I could bang on about about but for now I have had about enough.

Feel free to explore many of the interesting subjects in the experts hands of REAL people.



About About.com Guidance. Not Guesswork

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