Consumer News & Warnings

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Baby Car

Warning: Auto lovers will have to accept the downsizing of the car ! Great idea, I feel. Viva Mercedes !

June 27, 2006

Are Americans Finally Ready to Get Smart?

FRANKFURT, June 27 — Are Americans finally ready to get Smart?

DaimlerChrysler, which shelved an earlier plan to bring its Smart mini-car brand to the United States, plans to announce on Wednesday that it will introduce the tiny, two-seat vehicle to the American market early in 2008, according to several executives at the company.

The German-American carmaker is calculating that with stubbornly high gasoline prices, mounting concerns about global warming, and waning interest in sport-utility vehicles, consumers in the United States will welcome a car that is no larger than a good-sized riding mower.

"Now is the right time to go to the U.S.," said a senior executive at DaimlerChrysler, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the plans were not yet public. "The world, and the U.S., has changed in the last two years."

The Smart car has won a hip image in European cities like Rome and Paris, with their serpentine streets and snug parking spaces. It was recently featured in the film "The Da Vinci Code," as well as in the remake of "The Pink Panther," in which it served as the ride of choice for Inspector Jacques Clouseau.

But DaimlerChrysler's management of Smart has been almost as hapless as the fictional French policeman's driving habits. Since the first car rolled off the assembly line in 1998, Smart has lost $3.6 billion, according to analysts. Efforts to expand beyond the two-seat model, known as the Fortwo, have misfired — sometimes undermining Smart's image as a new-age city car in the process.

Among the stranger ideas, now discarded, was to introduce Smart to the United States in the form of a pint-sized sport-utility vehicle. "It's clear that no one is waiting for another S.U.V.," the executive said.

After heavily promoting Smart's arrival at the Detroit auto show in early 2005, DaimlerChrysler decided to hold off on an American rollout. In April 2005, it announced it would eliminate two models — the ill-conceived S.U.V. and a widely derided roadster — and lay off 700 employees.

Dieter Zetsche, the chief executive of DaimlerChrysler, considered selling the Smart line to another company, before settling for yet another overhaul last March that trimmed costs further and eliminated the poorly selling four-seat model, the Forfour. That left only the original Fortwo. That is the car — equipped with extra emission-control and safety features — that will be sold in the United States.

DaimlerChrysler plans to market the Smart to drivers in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and other congested cities. The advertising, though still in development, will emphasize fuel efficiency, safety and quality. Smart is, after all, part of the Mercedes-Benz car group.

The DaimlerChrysler executive did not disclose the car's projected gas mileage. On its Web site in Britain, a Smart coupe is listed as getting 46 miles to the gallon in the city and 69 miles to the gallon on the highway.

In Europe, DaimlerChrysler offers a diesel engine as an option for Smart, but in the United States it will offer only a gasoline engine. The company will assemble the car at its plant in Hambach, France.

Smart will not be the only extreme subcompact darting in and out of traffic on American city streets. Honda has had success with its new Fit, as has Toyota with the Yaris. DaimlerChrysler notes, however, that the Fortwo is the only mass-produced car in the world that is less than 3 meters (roughly 9 feet) long.

That makes Smart small enough for two of them to squeeze into a single standard parking space — or for drivers to park it perpendicular to the curb without protruding beyond other parked cars, a practice that is forbidden in some cities.

Some experts said that DaimlerChrysler should promote Smart's European styling and corporate ties to Mercedes.

"They ought to play it like a baby Benz," said Joel Barker, an author and expert on business trends. "The Smart car just has a style to it that these other cars don't have. They don't have the cachet."

DaimlerChrysler believes Smart's experience in Canada, where it has been on sale since 2004, augurs well for the United States. The company sold more than 4,000 Smart cars in Canada in 2005, twice the projected number. The company will not announce a sales target for the United States, though it hopes to exceed the Canadian figures.

To succeed, however, Smart will have to avoid the missteps that have dogged it in Europe. The car's sales here have been held back by its relatively high price — typically around $12,000 for a basic model in Europe — and by its cumbersome dealer network, which had been kept separate from Mercedes dealers. Smart does not plan to use Mercedes dealers in the United States either, but will rely on a separate distribution company instead. In Canada, prices for Smart cars start at the equivalent of about $15,000. American prices have yet to be set.

DaimlerChrysler has pledged that Smart will turn a profit next year. Having cut its fixed costs by 46 percent and its number of employees to just 450 from a peak of 1,300, the company said it was on track to do that.

Analysts who were dubious about Smart's survival six months ago are now ready to give it a chance, even in the land of S.U.V.'s.

"It could be a fancy product for urban markets," said Arndt Ellinghorst, an analyst at Dresdner Kleinwort in Frankfurt. "But just bringing the Fortwo to the U.S., without a plan beyond that, would not be a sufficient business model. They should use the Fortwo to test the brand."

¶ Wednesday, June 28, 2006 0 comments

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Fashion Invasion - TOPSHOP

At Topshop in London, the merchandise is extensive, and ever-changing thanks to the company's strategy of refreshing supply lines every few weeks.

Warning: This store and the fashions it sells are about to take over the "scene" here in the USA. Be forewarned.

June 21, 2006

But Will It Play in Manhattan?

By RUTH LA FERLA

Ticking off the days before her departure for London last month, Victoria Thompson, a news associate at CBS, checked her itinerary. The National Gallery, for sure, she said, and maybe the Serpentine, another gallery. But also on the don't-miss list was Topshop, the cavernous fashion emporium in Oxford Circus that has become a mecca for disposable chic.

When they visit London, Ms. Thompson and her sister, Antonia, prowl the store for the stovepipe jeans, bubble skirts and granny boots and the Stella McCartney and Marni look-alikes that they scoop up by the armload. "My wardrobe is largely Topshop-based," Antonia Thompson confided. "I cannot wait for the day that the store is here."

She may get her wish. Philip Green, whose company, the Arcadia Group, owns Topshop along with several other British retailers, was in New York in late April to scout a site for a New York flagship. The store could open as early as next spring.

With their sensitive fashion antennas and tight grips on their purse strings, the Thompsons, both in their 20's, represent the kind of American consumer Topshop plans to court: knowledgeable and demanding, with a near insatiable appetite for novelty and a bargain.

Topshop feeds that appetite with multiple daily deliveries that capitalize on a stepped-up fashion cycle, in which new trends emerge and reach stores within weeks, not months, of their debut on runways.

The chain is not the first to offer those attractions. Its chief European-based rivals — Zara, Mexx, Mango and H&M Hennes & Mauritz, which already have branches in the United States — also sell inexpensive, fresh-looking fashion. But Topshop offers a wider selection of cutting-edge styles, clothing that is better made, though somewhat more costly, than its competitors.

The proposed New York store would be 60,000 to 90,000 square feet, Mr. Green told reporters in April, a fashion outpost on a scale unmatched in any American city by any specialty clothing store.

The Oxford Circus flagship is a four-level, 90,000-square-foot behemoth that draws an average of 28,000 people a day, more than half of whom buy something. That is eye-popping when one considers that Bloomingdale's, which sells more than just fashion, gets 45,000 visitors a day in a space more than 10 times that size.

Mr. Green and Jane Shepherdson, the brand director for Topshop, have been somewhat reticent about their plans. But they have made no secret of their endgame: to turn Topshop — which across Europe operates about 290 stores, and an additional 165 Topman stores, as well as 30 franchised stores — into a global brand.

The venture is risky, Ms. Shepherdson acknowledged. "I'm not at all sure that there is a truly global merchandise mix, and I'm also not sure that Topshop is a global brand," she said. "But I think that certain markets have a lot of similarities."

Both New York and London, she said, "have a real love of fashion and a very demanding customer base that wants something new all the time."

To succeed in New York, Topshop needs to replicate the heady experience of the hunt at the Oxford Circus store. That store is in the most heavily trafficked shopping district in London, an area that is home to Marks & Spencer, Debenhams, John Lewis, Boots and a string of specialty shops.

Finding a suitable location in New York is crucial. Ideally, it would be in a popular shopping area like Herald Square or near Bloomingdale's at the intersection of 59th Street and Lexington. And making sure Topshop can duplicate the Oxford Circus experience requires overcoming an "enormous number of logistical challenges," Ms. Shepherdson said. Topshop may even consider hiring its own cargo plane to ensure a flow of merchandise that can keep pace with the London operation.

At peak shopping periods, the Topshop at Oxford Circus ferries in goods by the truckload, with two to three deliveries of fresh merchandise a day and 7,000 distinct looks each season. It operates on the models of Zara and H&M, which refresh supply lines every other week, in striking contrast to mass merchants like Gap, which operates on a cycle of 10 weeks or more.

Like those mass merchants, Topshop's manufacturing is mostly done abroad, about 25 percent in China, 10 percent in Mauritius, 5 percent in India. Much of the rest comes from European factories.

Ms. Shepherdson said Topshop was able to move so quickly because its orders were much smaller than other retailers' and its manufacturers were "prepared to be very flexible." In addition, she said, "our internal processes are streamlined, and the decision-making is fast and direct."

A thrumming emporium that boasts its own radio station and regularly stages its own runway shows, the London flagship generates sales approaching $200 million a year, or more than $2,000 a square foot, the company said, double the average sales at other Topshop branches. Total sales for the chain from the third quarter of 2004 to the third quarter of 2005 were about $922 million.

Despite all the retailers already in the United States, the store would arrive in New York at an opportune moment, poised to make the most of a definitive shift in the way that many Americans shop. At one time, it was the norm for consumers to return consistently to the same handful of stores that catered to their style and budget.

Today, by contrast, "no one owns a customer anymore; everyone shops everywhere," said Howard Davidowitz, the chairman of Davidowitz & Associates, a national retail consulting firm. "And nobody minds mixing cheaper things with more expensive ones."

Indeed, among those who can afford it, it has become a commonplace to accessorize say, a $30 Luella Bartley dress from Target with a $1,450 handbag from Chloé or Fendi, the European luxury brands.

That openness to shopping in a variety of stores has been a boon for specialty retailers like H&M and Mexx, whose sales grew more than 7 percent from April 2005 to April 2006, according to the NPD Group, which tracks consumer spending patterns. In contrast, department store apparel sales were essentially flat in the same period.

Topshop plays to — and feeds — the fashion speed-up. "At no time in memory have we seen such an accelerated fashion cycle," said Robert Burke, a retail consultant in New York, whose clients include Bergdorf Goodman.

Ms. Shepherdson, who has been widely credited as the marketing wizard behind Topshop, insists on the multiple daily deliveries. By keeping manufacturing runs limited, Topshop has created what Ms. Shepherdson calls a "dynamic of desperation," that has customers feverishly zooming in on sought-after items, enticing them to visit all the time.

Some merchandise, though in plentiful supply at the time the store opens, tend to vanish by midday. The kaleidoscopic assortment is pitched to a 16- to 34-year-old urban woman. New shipments generate a frenzy much like the one at an H&M store in Manhattan last November, when customers lined up hours before opening time for a chance to buy a limited-edition bargain-priced trench coat or oversize sweaters designed by Stella McCartney. They picked the racks clean within hours.

Topshop appears willing to accept somewhat lower profits to achieve its goals. Mr. Davidowitz said he was not sure what Topshop's profit margins were but estimated them at about 7 to 8 percent, after all costs and before taxes. He compared this with H&M, which makes about 15 percent, and Abercrombie & Fitch, which makes 20 percent.

Though comparisons with H&M are inevitable, the two chains differ in telling ways. It is difficult, retail experts say, to compete with the sheer depth and breadth of merchandise at Topshop's London flagship. Even Topshop itself does not try: it dwarfs other stores in the chain, which average about 17,000 square feet.

To gain some idea of its scale and scope, "you have to imagine the total main floor of Macy's in Herald Square filled with a never-ending assortment of terrific, fresh fast fashion," said Arnold Aronson, the managing director of retail strategies at Kurt Salmon Associates, a consulting firm in New York.

The London flagship sells capsule collections from well-known and emerging British designers like Zandra Rhodes, Emma Cook and Jonathan Saunders, as well as the progressive Unique line, conceived by a team of internal designers.

The store also offers a maternity collection with its own entrance on Regents Street, tall and petites shops, a lingerie department and an entire floor dedicated to vintage fashions. There is the Topman men's shop and a children's line, Topshop mini.

And its services go beyond providing up-to-the-minute clothes. Topshop workers even deliver purchases by scooter to shoppers' homes, and a team of style advisers helps customers mix and match $70 capri pants and $20 T-shirts. It plans to offer similar handholding in New York.

Topshop's rivals say that they can hold their own against its expansion. "Our philosophy has always been to have fashion and quality and the best price," said Sanna Lindberg, the president of American operations for H&M. "I think we will continue to be popular even if Topshop shows up. They would just be another player."

To acquaint Americans with its wares, Topshop plans to expand its Web site in September, offering about 800 styles, or all of what is available in its London stores. The chain has already wiggled a toe in New York's retail waters, introducing a shop within a shop in partnership with Opening Ceremony, a boutique in downtown Manhattan.

Topshop's entering New York "will be a very big deal," Mr. Davidowitz, the retail consultant, predicted. "This would really be a powerhouse that would impact every fashion retailer in New York."

¶ Thursday, June 22, 2006 0 comments

Monday, June 19, 2006

Aspirin v. Alcohol

Source: Alcohol Problems & Solutions
http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/HealthIssues/1043187153.html

Evaluating Risks and Benefits: Aspirin and Alcohol

by W. Lewis Perdue

If medical science came up with a miracle drug that could cut America's leading cause of death - fatal heart attacks - almost in half, people would rush to the drugstore for a dose of this lifesaving pharmaceutical. This happened.

The year was 1989; the miracle drug was aspirin. Yet another lifesaver, moderate alcohol consumption, has the potential to save many more lives than aspirin, and has been ignored and abused by the American government.

Comparing the health effects of aspirin and moderate alcohol consumption - their risks and benefits and the reactions to each of them - offers a revealing glimpse into how American society's deep-seated, ambivalent and irrational attitudes toward alcohol may be killing hundreds of thousands of people each year.

Aspirin

The advice to "take an aspirin and call me in the morning" received new urgency in 1989 when a study of 22,000 physicians indicated that those who took one aspirin every other day had 44 percent fewer fatal heart attacks than doctors in the control group who took a placebo ("sugar pill").

Today, cardiologists routinely advise patients at risk of heart attacks to take aspirin regularly. This advice is given despite the fact that aspirin - the commonest drug in the United States - can have serious side effects.

"Aspirin increases the risks of bleeding disorders, however, and can lead to gastrointestinal hemorrhage [bleeding] and even hemorrhagic stroke," said Dr. Curtis Ellison. "For individuals with a history of bleeding problems or ulcers, the risk of a hemorrhagic problem may exceed the potential benefits of taking aspirin to prevent a heart attack."

Dr. Dean Ornish, author of Dr. Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease, has even harsher words for aspirin. He points out that the doctors taking aspirin in the physicians study had twice as many sudden cardiac deaths, twice the incidence of moderate to severe hemorrhagic strokes and almost twice as many ulcers as those taking the placebo.

Dr. Ornish, who serves as an assistant clinical professor of medicine and attending physician at the University of California, San Francisco Medical School, emphasizes that while "the group taking aspirin had fewer heart attacks, overall there was no difference between the two groups in number of deaths resulting from heart disease or from all causes of death."

Despite powerful potential side effects (aspirin given to children or others with viral diseases can cause paralysis, brain damage or death), Americans rushed to their medicine cabinets and began swallowing aspirin at a prodigious rate.

Why? Because aspirin is a comfortable drug with which most Americans have grown up. It isn't associated with rowdy bars; aspirin abuse is not a visible societal problem which wrecks homes and causes accidents in which innocent people are likely to be injured or killed. Aspirin isn't linked with evangelical Protestant and Muslim religious prohibitions against consumption.

In short, aspirin lacks the emotional baggage of alcohol.

Alcohol May Save More Lives Than Aspirin

The emotional baggage attached to alcohol as a result of religious prohibition and abuse has made it almost impossible for the media and public policy makers to deal with it rationally. While 7 to 10 percent of Americans can't drink alcohol responsibly, public attitudes have been so thoroughly tainted that many of the remaining 90 percent of the population avoid even moderate drinking-despite the fact that it could save many more lives than aspirin, with the added benefit that moderate drinkers may find such a lifestyle choice enjoyable.

As numerous studies point out, moderate alcohol consumers have a 40 to 50 percent lower risk of having or dying of a heart attack, a protective effect comparable to aspirin. However, moderate alcohol consumption goes aspirin one better since moderate drinkers have at least a 10 percent lower death rate from all causes than do abstainers.

But alcohol also has side effects: abuse is the most obvious and serious problem which must be enthusiastically attacked without depriving 90 percent of the population of alcohol's benefits.

And like aspirin, alcohol consumption has also been linked with increased incidence of strokes. However, numerous studies show that people drinking one or two drinks per day have lower risk of strokes than abstainers. Indeed, even drinkers who reported consuming more than five drinks per day (in reality probably more due to under-reporting) showed a 40 percent greater risk than abstainers - far less than the 200 percent increase for people taking one aspirin every other day. Yet anti-alcohol advocates continually rail about the stroke danger from alcohol while ignoring a common drug with five times the risk.

The stroke danger associated with alcohol lies in abuse, not use.

In comparing aspirin and alcohol, Dr. Ellison said, "An individual with a history of drug abuse, or even for a person who is ascertained to be at increased risk of alcoholism (such as a family history of abuse), the potential for harm from the use of alcoholic beverages may exceed the potential benefits."

The job for American society - including government, industry and advocacy groups - is to develop a rational policy that: (1) removes the negative emotional smears of alcohol to allow the majority of 90 percent to benefit from guilt-free moderate consumption while (2) protecting society and abuse-prone individuals from the harm of immoderation. The job so far has been a miserable failure.

Lewis Perdue is a widely published writer on alcohol issues. He authored The French Paradox and Beyond in collaboration with Dr. Keith Marton (Chair of the Department of Medicine at California Pacific Medical Center and Associate Clinical Professor at the University of California's San Francisco Medical School) and Dr. Wells Shoemaker (a practicing pediatrician and the founder of the Intensive Care Nursery at Watsonville Hospital).

Readings (Listing does not imply endorsement)

Camargo, C. A., et al., Prospective study of moderate alcohol consumption and mortality in US male physicians. Archives of Internal Medicine, 1997, 157, 79-85.

Coates, D. Moderate drinking and coronary heart disease mortality: Evidence from NHANES I and NHANES I follow-up. American Journal of Public Health, 1993, 83(6), 888-890.

Ellison, R. Curtis. Does Moderate Alcohol Consumption Prolong Life? New York: American Council on Science and Health, 1993.

Ford, Gene. The Benefits of Moderate Drinking: Alcohol, Health, and Society. San Francisco, CA: Wine Appreciation Guild, 1988.

Hennekens, C. H. Alcohol and Risk of Coronary Events. In: National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Alcohol and the Cardiovascular System. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1996.

Ornish, Dean. Dr. Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease: The Only System Scientifically Proved to Reverse Heart Disease Without Drugs or Surgery. New York, NY: Ivy, 1996.

Perdue, W. Lewis, and Shoemaker, Wells. The French Paradox and Beyond. Sonoma, CA: Renaissance Publishing, 1992.

Yuan, J-M., et al. Follow up study of moderate alcohol intake and mortality among middle aged men in Shanghai, China. British Medical Journal, 1997, 314, 18-23.

¶ Monday, June 19, 2006 0 comments

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Pill Head (ahem)

Hmmmmmm. If only they made a pill for peace of mind. Be forewarned.

The New York Times
June 13, 2006
A Daily Pill to Combat Impotence?
By ALEX BERENSON

Get ready for one-a-day Cialis.

Icos Corporation, which together with Eli Lilly markets Cialis, the No. 2 impotence drug, says it plans later this year to ask the Food and Drug Administration for approval of a once-daily version of the medicine. In May, Icos applied to European drug regulators for approval of the once-daily pill.

Icos and Lilly plan to market the once-daily drug to men in their 40's and 50's who take impotence drugs frequently, said Paul N. Clark, Icos's chief executive. Most men who use the drugs now typically take them about four to six times each month. A daily dose would be aimed at allowing more spontaneity in the user's sex life than the strategic planning required of what Icos calls the "on demand" version.

The once-daily pill works as well at improving sexual function as the maximum dose of Cialis, Icos said. In a study published in March in European Urology, a journal, 50 percent of men taking Cialis once a day said they were no longer impotent, in contrast to 8 percent of men taking a placebo. Side effects were mild, the study found.

Icos said it expected the daily pill would generate about 50 percent more revenue per patient than the on-demand version. The company did not disclose a price for the once-daily pill, but analysts predict it will cost about $3.50 a pill, or $100 a month, in comparison to $10 to $12 a dose for the current version.

"For patients who are more sexually active, which generally means younger patients, whose sexual activity is more spontaneous, it will be an attractive alternative, provided the cost is not prohibitive," said Dr. Ira D. Sharlip, professor of urology at the University of California, San Francisco and a spokesman for the American Urological Association.

Men must now take Cialis and other impotence drugs at least 30 minutes before they plan to have sex, a factor that has discouraged use of the drugs, urologists say.

Icos, which plans to continue offering the on-demand version, predicts that the daily version of Cialis will have $200 million to $250 million in worldwide sales by 2010. Last year, Cialis had $776 million in sales worldwide. But some analysts doubt that men will want to take an impotence drug every day, since even frequent users of the medicines generally have sex no more than a couple of times a week. Insurance companies may also be reluctant to pay the additional cost of a once-daily pill.

"We do not believe sales will rise as a result of the new dosing regimen," Eric Ende, an analyst at Merrill Lynch, wrote in a report last week.

The market for impotence drugs has stagnated since last summer, when reports linked the medicines to a rare form of blindness. Eight years after Pfizer, the world's largest drug market, introduced Viagra, the most popular impotence medicine, to enormous publicity, the market for the drugs appears to be saturated.

Even with a major new ad campaign for Viagra this year, United States prescriptions for drugs for erectile dysfunction have been flat, compared with a 5 percent rise in prescriptions over all. The $2.5 billion or so of the drugs sold worldwide annually represent only 0.5 percent of the global prescription drug market. But Cialis continues to gain market share, mainly at the expense of Viagra.

Lacy Fitzpatrick, a spokeswoman for Icos, said the company expected the market for impotence drugs to grow at about the same rate as the population of men over 40. Levitra, the third impotence drug, marketed by Bayer and GlaxoSmithKline, is a distant third worldwide.

All three drugs strengthen erections by blocking an enzyme that slows the flow of blood to the penis. But Cialis is broken down more slowly than Viagra or Levitra, so it can work for up to 36 hours, while the other two drugs work for about four hours. That is why a once-daily version of Viagra or Levitra may be impractical.

If approved by the F.D.A., the daily pill will contain 5 milligrams of tadalafil, Cialis's active ingredient. Cialis is now offered in 5-, 10- and 20-milligram doses, but the 20-milligram dose is by far the most popular, according to Icos.

Dr. James Barada, of the Center for Sexual Health in Albany, said he believed the drug could be appealing for men who have sex frequently and do not want to think of themselves as being impotent, even occasionally.

"The idea that if I don't have to think about it, I don't have the disease," Dr. Barada said. "To move it to the background is going to be appealing for some people."

In addition, Cialis may prove to have broad cardiovascular benefits as a once-daily pill, Dr. Barada said. The enzyme that Cialis and the other impotence drugs inhibit is found in blood vessels all over the body, and Icos is now studying Cialis for the treatment of high blood pressure.

"There may be a much bigger picture than just for erectile dysfunction," he said.
###

¶ Tuesday, June 13, 2006 0 comments

Monday, June 12, 2006

Bloggers Beware

The New York Times
June 11, 2006
For Some, Online Persona Undermines a Résumé
By ALAN FINDER

When a small consulting company in Chicago was looking to hire a summer intern this month, the company's president went online to check on a promising candidate who had just graduated from the University of Illinois.

At Facebook, a popular social networking site, the executive found the candidate's Web page with this description of his interests: "smokin' blunts" (cigars hollowed out and stuffed with marijuana), shooting people and obsessive sex, all described in vivid slang.

It did not matter that the student was clearly posturing. He was done.

"A lot of it makes me think, what kind of judgment does this person have?" said the company's president, Brad Karsh. "Why are you allowing this to be viewed publicly, effectively, or semipublicly?"

Many companies that recruit on college campuses have been using search engines like Google and Yahoo to conduct background checks on seniors looking for their first job. But now, college career counselors and other experts say, some recruiters are looking up applicants on social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Xanga and Friendster, where college students often post risqué or teasing photographs and provocative comments about drinking, recreational drug use and sexual exploits in what some mistakenly believe is relative privacy.

When viewed by corporate recruiters or admissions officials at graduate and professional schools, such pages can make students look immature and unprofessional, at best.

"It's a growing phenomenon," said Michael Sciola, director of the career resource center at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn. "There are lots of employers that Google. Now they've taken the next step."

At New York University, recruiters from about 30 companies told career counselors that they were looking at the sites, said Trudy G. Steinfeld, executive director of the center for career development.

"The term they've used over and over is red flags," Ms. Steinfeld said. "Is there something about their lifestyle that we might find questionable or that we might find goes against the core values of our corporation?"

Facebook and MySpace are only two years old but have attracted millions of avid young participants, who mingle online by sharing biographical and other information, often intended to show how funny, cool or outrageous they are.

On MySpace and similar sites, personal pages are generally available to anyone who registers, with few restrictions on who can register. Facebook, though, has separate requirements for different categories of users; college students must have a college e-mail address to register. Personal pages on Facebook are restricted to friends and others on the user's campus, leading many students to assume that they are relatively private.

But companies can gain access to the information in several ways. Employees who are recent graduates often retain their college e-mail addresses, which enables them to see pages. Sometimes, too, companies ask college students working as interns to perform online background checks, said Patricia Rose, the director of career services at the University of Pennsylvania.

Concerns have already been raised about these and other Internet sites, including their potential misuse by stalkers and students exposing their own misbehavior, for example by posting photographs of hazing by college sports teams. Add to the list of unintended consequences the new hurdles for the job search.

Ana Homayoun runs Green Ivy Educational Consulting, a small firm that tutors and teaches organizational skills to high school students in the San Francisco area. Ms. Homayoun visited Duke University this spring for an alumni weekend and while there planned to interview a promising job applicant.

Curious about the candidate, Ms. Homayoun went to her page on Facebook. She found explicit photographs and commentary about the student's sexual escapades, drinking and pot smoking, including testimonials from friends. Among the pictures were shots of the young woman passed out after drinking.

"I was just shocked by the amount of stuff that she was willing to publicly display," Ms. Homayoun said. "When I saw that, I thought, 'O.K., so much for that.' "

Ms. Rose said a recruiter had told her he rejected an applicant after searching the name of the student, a chemical engineering major, on Google. Among the things the recruiter found, she said, was this remark: "I like to blow things up."

Occasionally students find evidence online that may explain why a job search is foundering. Tien Nguyen, a senior at the University of California, Los Angeles, signed up for interviews on campus with corporate recruiters, beginning last fall, but he was seldom invited.

A friend suggested in February that Mr. Nguyen research himself on Google. He found a link to a satirical essay, titled "Lying Your Way to the Top," that he had published last summer on a Web site for college students. He asked that the essay be removed. Soon, he began to be invited to job interviews, and he has now received several offers.

"I never really considered that employers would do something like that," he said. "I thought they would just look at your résumé and grades."

Jennifer Floren is chief executive of Experience Inc., which provides online information about jobs and employers to students at 3,800 universities. "This is really the first time that we've seen that stage of life captured in a kind of time capsule and in a public way," Ms. Floren said. "It has its place, but it's moving from a fraternity or sorority living room. It's now in a public arena."

Some companies, including Enterprise Rent-a-Car, Ernst & Young and Osram Sylvania, said they did not use the Internet to check on college job applicants.

"I'd rather not see that part of them," said Maureen Crawford Hentz, manager of talent acquisition at Osram Sylvania. "I don't think it's related to their bona fide occupational qualifications."

More than a half-dozen major corporations, including Morgan Stanley, Dell, Pfizer, L'Oréal and Goldman Sachs, turned down or did not respond to requests for interviews.

But other companies, particularly those involved in the digital world like Microsoft and Métier, a small software company in Washington, D.C., said researching students through social networking sites was now fairly typical. "It's becoming very much a common tool," said Warren Ashton, group marketing manager at Microsoft. "For the first time ever, you suddenly have very public information about almost any candidate."

At Microsoft, Mr. Ashton said, recruiters are given broad latitude over how to work, and there is no formal policy about using the Internet to research applicants. "There are certain recruiters and certain companies that are probably more in tune with the new technologies than others are," he said.

Microsoft and Osram Sylvania have also begun to use networking sites in a different way, participating openly in online communities to get out their company's messages and to identify talented job candidates.

Students may not know when they have been passed up for an interview or a job offer because of something a recruiter saw on the Internet. But more than a dozen college career counselors said recruiters had been telling them since last fall about incidents in which students' online writing or photographs had raised serious questions about their judgment, eliminating them as job candidates.

Some college career executives are skeptical that many employers routinely check applicants online. "My observation is that it's more fiction than fact," said Tom Devlin, director of the career center at the University of California, Berkeley.

At a conference in late May, Mr. Devlin said, he asked 40 employers if they researched students online and every one said no.

Many career counselors have been urging students to review their pages on Facebook and other sites with fresh eyes, removing photographs or text that may be inappropriate to show to their grandmother or potential employers. Counselors are also encouraging students to apply settings on Facebook that can significantly limit access to their pages.

Melanie Deitch, director of marketing at Facebook, said students should take advantage of the site's privacy settings and be smart about what they post. But students may not be following the advice.

"I think students have the view that Facebook is their space and that the adult world doesn't know about it," said Mark W. Smith, assistant vice chancellor and director of the career center at Washington University in St. Louis. "But the adult world is starting to come in."
###

¶ Monday, June 12, 2006 0 comments

Sunday, June 04, 2006

New eyes.

Be forewarned.

New Contact Lenses Give Athletes an Edge
Nike, Bausch & Lomb develop new contact lenses designed to give athletes a competitive edge

BRENTWOOD, Tenn., Jun. 4, 2006
By TERESA M. WALKER AP Sports Writer
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(AP)

(AP) When Camille Walters plays soccer, her normally brown eyes have a spooky red tint. That's because the 15-year-old wears tinted contact lenses that block certain wavelengths of light and help athletes see better.

Oh, and they look cool, too.

"It gives me more confidence because you feel intimidating and bigger and stronger, kind of an ego-booster," said Walters, who plays for Father Ryan, a Catholic high school in Nashville.

Walters and a growing number of other athletes are wearing the MaxSight lenses, which were developed jointly by Nike Inc. and contact lens maker Bausch & Lomb Inc.

The lens _ large enough to extend a ring around the iris _ comes in two colors: amber and grey-green.

The amber lens is for fast-moving ball sports, such as tennis, baseball, football or soccer. Grey-green is better for blocking glare for runners or helping a golfer read the contour of the ground.

Professional athletes tested the lenses last year before they were rolled out for general sales.

Golfer Michelle Wie and baseball players Ken Griffey Jr. and A.J. Pierzynski wear MaxSight lenses, along with members of Manchester United, the U.S. men's soccer team and the Texas Longhorns' football team.

"The bulk of the business we expect will be with the college, high school type athlete who is really looking for that edge," Nike spokeswoman Joanie Komlos said. "We've seen that sales are far exceeding our expectations, and we're going to continue to roll out distribution."

The sport lenses can be purchased only through a doctor's office at a cost of $80 per box, $160 if the prescription for each eye varies.

Dr. Jeff Kegarise, an optometrist whose office is in Brentwood, has already prescribed the lenses for college baseball players, golfers, equestrian riders and tennis players.

"The first reaction from the first two people I fit in this, they went outside and said, 'This is really cool. It's like wearing sunglasses outside,'" Kegarise said.

Even though the amber lens is intended for outdoor use, he has an Arena Football League player who used them indoors because of the bright lights.

Walters, who plays both for her high school and on a travel team, is farsighted and uses MaxSight prescription lenses, but they also come in a non-corrective version.

"It cut out some of the sun, so it wasn't as bright," Walters said. "It was easier to pick out where the ball was at times when it was in the air."

But does the MaxSight lens give some athletes an unfair advantage? The associations that govern high school and college sports don't think so, but they're keeping an eye on the lenses.

Jerry Diehl, assistant director of the National Federation of State High School Associations in Indianapolis, said his group doesn't believe the lenses provide the competitive advantage that Nike claims.

The federation allows the lenses and puts them in the same category as sunglasses or corrective lenses. The NCAA also allows the sports lenses because it considers them similar to sunglasses.

But Diehl said he's worried about the perception of an unfair advantage.

"If one affluent team can get this, it forces everybody else to go out and do that," Diehl said. "Is it really something that makes a difference? In this instance, at this juncture anyway, it doesn't seem to be any better or any worse than allowing what is already under the rule."

Dr. William Jones of Nashville said price will keep some athletes from buying the lenses, but he expects them to be popular on high school athletics teams in wealthier school districts.

Jones said his retired father wears the grey-green lens on the golf course and loves them.

"Most of these people, they're spending tons of money already on equipment, training and everything else. This is just a drop in the bucket for most of them; generally cost isn't much of an issue," Jones said.

___

On the Net:

Nike: http://www.nike.com/nikevision/main.html sectionhome

Bausch & Lomb: http://www.bausch.com/us/resource/visioncare/soft/nike_maxsight_resfaq.jsp

¶ Sunday, June 04, 2006 0 comments

Ebay in Louisiana

Yikes. Be forewarned.

The New York Times
June 4, 2006
How eBay Makes Regulations Disappear
By KATIE HAFNER

IN quick succession one morning last month, Louisiana state legislators plowed through a long list of bills, including one to relocate the motor vehicle commission, another to regulate potentially abusive lending practices, and yet another that was the handiwork of eBay, the digital shopping mall that bills itself as "the world's online marketplace."

EBay had worked overtime to ensure the passage of Senate Bill 642, which sought to exempt some Internet transactions — like those that occur on its Web site — from Louisiana licensing requirements for businesses conducting auctions. As the State Senate's Commerce Committee convened to consider the bill, Duane Cowart, an eBay lobbyist, testified that forcing eBay "trading assistants" to fork over $300 for a license was unduly burdensome.

"What they do on the Internet is not an auction, and they are not auctioneers," Mr. Cowart told the committee. Trading assistants take items on consignment from other owners and put them up for bid on eBay, but Mr. Cowart said their activities were more akin to placing classified ads. Louisiana's senators seemed to agree with him wholeheartedly. "I think eBay is great," said one, while another regaled the room about his adventures shopping for a Plymouth Prowler on eBay. State Senator Noble E. Ellington, a Democrat who sponsored the bill at Mr. Cowart's behest, beamed as his colleagues gave the legislation their unanimous support.

EBay's lobbying activities are not confined to Louisiana. As the company has spread its innovative and influential wings across the Internet, it has also woven together a muscular and wily lobbying apparatus that spans 25 states. "It is a fast-moving train, and if you get in front of it you'll get flattened," said Sherrie Wilks, an official with Louisiana's licensing agency, who is concerned that eBay flouts regulatory oversight by persuading state legislators to take the company's side.

Regulators in other states also say that when they try to erect guidelines around eBay's activities, they quickly encounter the realities of the company's political power, raising anew the perennial questions about the proper balance among public policy, consumer protection and business interests. EBay's lobbying tactics, meanwhile, illustrate the spoils to be won when a savvy, resourceful company combines local political persuasion and grass-roots rallying to get lucrative regulatory exemptions that allow it to safeguard its profits.

EBay's efforts have been remarkably successful, and the company, which has worked tirelessly to cultivate its image as a friendly neighborhood bazaar even as it engages in hard-nosed lobbying, is not shy about boasting of its victories. Last year, Ohio passed a law that would have regulated eBay sellers, but the company moved quickly — with the help of seasoned lobbyists — to have a pre-emptive and more favorable bill passed.

"We realized what was there, and we worked with local lobbyists and were able to get the law reversed," said Tod Cohen, eBay's vice president for government relations. He oversees the company's efforts to convince state lawmakers of a core eBay belief: that state regulation can impede the flow of e-commerce.

The Federal Trade Commission, which has loosened regulations across a broad range of industries, appears to agree. Late last week, responding to a request from Mr. Ellington for an analysis of the Louisiana bill, the agency advised that the bill promoted competition and increased consumer choice.

Unlike many other Internet companies, eBay has to be especially fleet-footed when it comes to stopping what it perceives as hostile regulation, whether it involves the growing number of eBay drop-off stores — places like UPS stores and small shops where people take their goods to be sold on eBay — or the more general category of trading assistants. Anyone engaged in selling on the site depends on a relatively friction-free environment in order to make a profit. So does eBay, because its overall corporate goal is to keep sales volumes high.

At any given moment, 89 million items are for sale on eBay, and the mother ship — eBay itself — gets a fee for each successful transaction. It also charges its 193 million registered users listing fees for any products they display on the site. EBay's gross transaction fees for the first quarter of 2006 alone were more than $500 million, a 30 percent increase over the same quarter in 2005. Keeping regulators at bay, particularly those whose efforts might slow down sales traffic, is a particularly high priority for the company.

Regulations are threatening to eBay for another reason as well. They set precedents. Once a law regulating eBay sellers takes hold in one state, other states are more likely to follow suit. And not only do licenses and other regulatory requisites increase the cost of selling items on eBay, but regulations may deter entrepreneurs who are thinking of introducing eBay-based businesses. Although regulations can help rein in con artists and other fraudsters masquerading as legitimate vendors on eBay — which is why most regulators say they favor strict licensing requirements — eBay sees its online community as self-regulating.

Analysts say the company has little room to maneuver when it comes to opposing outside oversight.

"EBay doesn't have a choice," said Ina Steiner, editor of Auctionbytes.com, an online newsletter. "This is such a tight-margin, price-sensitive business that if there are excessive regulations on sellers, it will affect eBay dramatically."

Accordingly, eBay fights regulators who try to categorize it as an auction house — despite the fact that for years eBay has used the word "auction" when describing what takes place on its site. In securities filings from 1998, the year eBay went public, it said that it "pioneered online person-to-person trading by developing a Web-based community in which buyers and sellers are brought together in an efficient and entertaining auction format." In the annual report last year, eBay said it provided the "infrastructure to enable online commerce in a variety of formats, including the traditional auction platform."

Yet eBay contends that such references are informal and says that auction laws — many of them written long before the Internet and eBay even existed — should not apply to its sellers.

Chris Donlay, an eBay spokesman, said the timed auctions on eBay were fundamentally different from "someone who holds a live auction in front of an audience until he has achieved the highest price possible for the client." Instead, as the company says on its Web site, eBay merely "offers an online platform where millions of items are traded each day."

THE headquarters of the Louisiana Auctioneers Licensing Board is a modest, three-room office in Baton Rouge with two employees and a dial-up Internet connection. The agency says its mission is to protect the public from "unqualified, irresponsible or unscrupulous individuals."

Late last year, the agency's seven-member board, concerned about possible abuses, decided that eBay trading assistants doing business in Louisiana needed licenses. Last summer, Jim Steele, a retired police officer who is the agency's investigator, started paying visits to eBay sellers around Louisiana who were registered as trading assistants.

Among those visited by Mr. Steele was Cheryl Brown, who runs a small eBay business out of her modest one-story home in Hammond, about an hour's drive east of Baton Rouge. Ms. Brown keeps an eclectic mix of wares — including shoes, belts and Black & Decker laser levels — piled around a bed in a spare back bedroom. Mr. Steele arrived at Ms. Brown's door last February and told her that she needed to get an auction-business license or face a cease-and-desist order.

Ms. Brown said she was "blown away" to find herself singled out. After all, she said, her sales averaged little more than $2,000 a month. Even so, she paid $300 for the license and an additional $250 for a surety bond the licensing board required.

Ms. Brown has yet to make a single sale as a trading assistant ("I don't want to sell people's old clothing," she said) and says she would rather not have to have a license. But, she said, she also enjoys the extra credential that a license gives her. Further, she said, she believes that her transactions on eBay are, in fact, auctions. "My opinion is that eBay is the one doing the auctioning," she said. "They're in control."

Ms. Brown's opinion is shared by Brian Leleux, an eBay seller at the opposite side of the state and the opposite end of the eBay sales revenue stream. Mr. Leleux employs nearly a dozen people and sells some $120,000 each month in recliners, inflatable air beds and other goods on eBay, making him an eBay "Platinum PowerSeller." He pays eBay about $12,000 every month in listing and transaction fees and an additional $2,100 to PayPal, eBay's automated payment subsidiary.

Mr. Leleux operates his business, MassageKing.com, in a large warehouse near Lafayette, and Mr. Steele visited him there earlier this year. Mr. Leleux had signed up with eBay as a trading assistant but done very few consignment sales. Still, he paid the state's fee and applied for the license. Like Ms. Brown, Mr. Leleux said that he did not want a license but that it did give him "one more bit of legitimacy," a notion that appealed to him. And he, too, says he believes that eBay is an auction house.

Still, not every eBay trading assistant was so compliant when Mr. Steele came calling. Barry Simpson has a computer equipment store in Morgan City and sells items on eBay as a sideline. Earlier this year, Mr. Simpson said, Mr. Steele visited him and insisted that he be licensed, even after Mr. Simpson said he would prefer to stop being a trading assistant. Mr. Simpson refused to get a license and complained to eBay, after which the company stepped up its legislative push in Louisiana.

"At that point, we decided we needed to act," said Mr. Donlay, the eBay spokesman.

Mr. Simpson says he believes that complying with certain regulations just does not add up. "If someone comes in and tells me I need a license and I'm selling something for someone else, and I don't do enough of that business, I'll quit," he said.

Unlike most entrepreneurs, Mr. Simpson has a well-heeled and influential corporation — as vigilant about its own interests as it is about his — ready to take on regulators. And eBay appears to be prepared to contest regulators in almost any state where it feels that its prerogatives are threatened.

In California last year, a bill that would have subjected eBay drop-off stores to restrictions now placed on pawnbrokers died quickly after eBay executives — including Meg Whitman, the chief executive — met with leaders of the Republican caucus of the Legislature. "The Republican votes we thought we had withered away," said Leland Y. Yee, the Democratic California assemblyman who sponsored the bill.

Last year, after eBay waged a protracted lobbying effort in Illinois, the state revised its laws to allow Internet auction sites to compete with licensed ticket brokers and sell tickets for more than their face value. New York and Florida have passed similar amendments after eBay lobbied for changes.

Auctioneering laws like those in Louisiana are another focus for eBay. In Maine and Tennessee, after eBay intervened, laws were changed to exempt Internet auctions from licensing requirements.

All of this is just a matter of common sense, according to some people involved in the debate. Ms. Steiner, the newsletter editor, says that many eBay sellers do their trading part time or in addition to another job. "If they are overregulated by licensing fees," she said, "they will abandon their eBay business." For its part, eBay is leaving little to chance.

Over the last eight years, eBay has built a stable of local lobbyists in 25 states. Those lobbyists — who work on retainers that can reach $10,000 a month, according to state lobbying registration documents — have also made contributions to individual politicians who sponsor bills favorable to eBay. For example, Mr. Cowart's political action committee in Louisiana contributed $2,000 to Mr. Ellington in 2005. And eBay lobbyists in Illinois have contributed thousands of dollars to politicians who supported the ticket-scalping bill.

EBay combines its politics-as-usual approach with more creative grass-roots tactics. It keeps its membership informed about regulatory issues as soon as they crop up, using mass e-mail messages and a year-old Web-based initiative called "eBay Main Street," which sends out "legislative alerts" and provides letters that users can send to government officials. Bowing to the traditions of ward politicos adept at turning out the vote, eBay routinely summons its sellers and sends them on personal visits to statehouses around the country to meet with legislators.

"What better way to get a response than to get to the grass roots, which is eBay's members," said Kathy Greer, an eBay seller in New Hampshire, where there has been continuing debate about regulating eBay sellers. "Let them go out and fight your battle."

WHEN eBay sent e-mail messages in April to its Louisiana members to tell them their livelihoods could be threatened by the state's intention to require licenses — and urged them to take action — Ms. Wilks, the licensing agency's sole administrator, was besieged with phone calls and e-mail messages from angry eBay sellers. After she explained that the board intended to require that only about 460 registered eBay trading assistants be licensed, the hubbub died down.

But some sellers who joined in the campaign say they felt that eBay had misled them by making it appear that the proposed regulations were more sweeping. "They approached it in a very underhanded way," said Stephen Dille, a Baton Rouge accountant who sells items intermittently on eBay but received the alert and sent an e-mail message to Ms. Wilks. "I always thought of them as a good company, but now I'm questioning their culture, and their ethics."

Anna Dow, a lawyer for the Louisiana licensing board, put it more forcefully. "They're being deliberately misrepresentational of what's going on," she said.

For their part, eBay officials say that the licensing board has repeatedly refused to give the company a clear answer on whom it plans to regulate, so it has sent e-mail messages to a wide variety of recipients. EBay's anti-regulatory stance extends to storefront drop-off centers, which have been proliferating rapidly around the country. Vendors welcome the company's help.

Debbie Gordon, the owner of Snappy Auctions, a nationwide chain of eBay drop-off stores that is based in Nashville, says she believes that all eBay consignment stores should follow certain practices to make sure that customers are protected. But she was outraged two years ago when Tennessee regulators told her that she would have to get an auctioneer's license and attend a week of auctioneering school.

Ms. Gordon paid $700 for a license and other fees and spent what she called "five days I'll never get back" at a training course for auctioneers. "Ninety-nine percent of the course had nothing to do with our business," she recalled. "It was about traditional auctioneering, cattle and land and firearms."

Soon after a local newspaper publicized Ms. Gordon's experience, eBay stepped in. It convinced lawmakers that not only did outfits like Ms. Gordon's have no relationship to hog calling, but also that because of the timed nature of an eBay auction, the transactions were altogether different and thus not subject to auctioneering laws.

"We fundamentally believe that auctioneering laws are not applicable, are detrimental and are being used to harm competition," said Mr. Cohen of eBay in an interview. "They protect entrenched incumbents rather than enhancing competition, consumer choice and entrepreneurial spirit."

BUT Ms. Wilks of the Louisiana licensing board says that if trading assistants on eBay are not required to have licenses, people like Linda Williams will have nowhere to turn. Earlier this year, Ms. Williams, who lives near Baton Rouge, gave an antique couch to someone to sell on consignment on eBay, she said. The couch was sold, Ms. Williams said, but she did not see a penny of the proceeds.

Ms. Williams called the licensing board, which found that the seller was an auctioneer who was already facing a separate investigation. A bank seized his assets — which included a warehouse filled with items he had taken on consignment from dozens of people, including Ms. Williams — and his license was revoked, according to Ms. Wilks and Ms. Dow. "They were very helpful, and told me to call any time," said Ms. Williams of her experience with the licensing board. "If it wasn't for them, there would be nothing I could do."

EBay executives say that stories like this do not mean that more laws are required. They point out that law enforcement agencies are set up to investigate Internet fraud. "Regulators regulate — that is their job," Mr. Cohen said. "But we have an obligation as a company to protect our community."

Shortly after the first legislative hearing on Senate Bill 642 in Louisiana, eBay sent out another e-mail alert, this time to its biggest sellers in the state. The company asked sellers to attend a meeting late last month to update them on the bill and to brief them on other potential impediments to their businesses. Some 50 sellers from around the state attended the meeting at a Baton Rouge Marriott. Michelle Peacock, eBay's director of state government relations, flew in from California to join Mr. Cowart, the lobbyist. Large colorful billboards outlining "barriers to e-commerce" decorated the room.

Ms. Peacock discussed the proposed revisions to Louisiana's auctioneer statute and talked about a bill supporting the elimination of restrictions on the resale of tickets on the Internet. After the meeting, several attendees piled onto a shuttle bus that eBay provided and drove to the Capitol to talk with their state representatives about Senate Bill 642.

The next day, the Commerce Committee of the Louisiana House of Representatives took up the bill, which the State Senate had already passed. The bill received unanimous support in the committee. Mr. Ellington, the state senator, said in an interview last week that he expected to see the bill pass the full House this week — without a hitch.

Iris Smalbrugge contributed reporting for this article.
###

¶ Sunday, June 04, 2006 0 comments

Saturday, June 03, 2006

Phones and the internet

Phones and the internet: a match made in ... cyberspace. Be forewarned.

The New York Times
June 4, 2006
Digital Domain
Internet Phones: Please Wait for the Next Available Opportunity
By RANDALL STROSS

THE telephone and the PC are ubiquitous desk mates, separated by a few inches and about a century.

How soon we can use our home phones to exploit the efficiencies of the Internet, where calling costs are too small to be worth metering, is a question of no small import for every telecommunications provider — and for every household with a phone.

The prospect of modernizing the telephone seems close because broadband services have solved the so-called last-mile problem, bringing relatively fast Internet connections from local switching centers and cable offices into customers' homes. But connecting home phones to the Internet — spanning the last foot and a half — remains a problem, unless one subscribes to one of the new Internet phone services offered by cable companies here and there.

Ideally, we will not end up so dependent upon the cable guy. When eBay decided nine months ago to acquire Skype Technologies, the Luxembourg-based wunderkind that offers free Internet calls around the world, it seemed that free or nearly free Internet telephony would soon reach every American den, and no one would have to sign up for a separate phone service with the cable company. The happy day of free calls will not arrive, however, until existing phones are replaced or adapted to plug into the Internet.

Skype is a service that enables long-distance conversations without phones: one Skype user, sitting at a PC with a headset, can talk to any other Skype user sitting at another PC. Soon after announcing the Skype acquisition, eBay's chief executive, Meg Whitman, said she thought that Skype could "turbocharge" eBay and PayPal — and that eBay and PayPal could likewise "turbocharge" Skype. "One plus one plus one should equal four or five," she said.

She and her eBay colleagues were so eager to complete the Skype deal that they offered rich terms for a company with a mere $60 million in revenue last year: eBay paid $2.6 billion in cash and stock with an additional $1.5 billion to follow if performance targets are met. Figured most conservatively, the $2.6 billion price was 43 times revenue, a valuation so far above industry norms that it might as well have been determined by a Magic 8 Ball.

Any PC, equipped with Skype's free software and a headset, or with a microphone and speakers, can place a free phone call to a similarly equipped PC anywhere in the world — and without bankrupting Skype. The arrangement places no burden upon Skype's servers: messages go directly from calling PC to receiving PC, peer to peer.

These PC-to-PC calls avoid charges because they do not tie up the lines of proprietary telephone company networks. Voice sounds are digitized, compressed, popped into data packets and sent on their way into the shared space of the Internet. The quality of these digitized Internet calls can be as good as or better than conventional calls.

Skype's revenue comes principally from its SkypeOut service, for calls that originate on a PC and connect to a conventional phone number. The sound quality is not as good as it is with its PC-to-PC calls, but Skype's international calls are cheap — as cheap as those offered by no-name, prepaid calling cards — undercutting the rates of traditional telephone companies.

Verizon, for example, has a plan with monthly fees that entitle customers to call China for as little as 15 cents a minute — or $5.23 a minute for the basic rate if you aren't on a plan. At Skype, the call-anytime, no-monthly-fee flat rate is about 2 cents a minute.

News of Skype traveled swiftly, without need of advertising, after the company was founded in 2002. When eBay offered to buy it in September 2005, Skype said that it had 54 million members in 225 countries, and that it was adding 150,000 registrants a day. These numbers must have caused heart palpitations in eBay's executive suite. Skype's hypergrowth would help bolster eBay's slowing growth in its core auction business.

Skype users must use a PC to initiate a call, and eBay users are no less reliant on their PC's, so blending the two services by having eBay sellers offer a "Skype Me" button on their listings seemed a natural fit. With a click, someone interested in bidding would be connected directly to the seller, without having to wait for an exchange of e-mail messages. "Buyers will gain an easy way to talk to sellers quickly and get the information they need to buy," the company said when it announced the acquisition.

EBay has not been in a hurry, however, to roll out the Skype Me option to advertisers. EBay sellers in Belgium, the Netherlands and China can use the option, but not those in the United States. Chris Donlay, a spokesman for eBay, said that the delay in introducing it in the United States was a matter of careful testing and prudence. "We try not to throw something out there," he said.

Undoubtedly, eBay has noticed that stubborn last-foot-and-a-half problem. Paying little or nothing to place a long, unhurried call via Skype to a loved one halfway around the world is worth the minor inconvenience of putting on a headset. But using a headset for every call is a habit yet to be acquired by most people.

The handiest way to make a Skype call is by picking up a telephone. Skype, however, can use only Skype-certified phones, designed to be physically connected to a PC.

When will Skype phones become ubiquitous? Those amazing Skype registration numbers — in the first quarter, the number of users worldwide increased by 220,000 a day — are not having much of an impact on the telephone equipment market in the United States, even in Silicon Valley.

EBay made a great fuss last year when it struck a distribution deal with RadioShack to place Skype-certified phones in 3,500 RadioShack retail outlets. The only one that my local store had in stock, however, cost $120, a price that is not set to move a lot of product. I thought that a local electronics superstore chain might have far greater selection, but discovered that I was only half right: the store, Fry's Electronics, had a lot of phones — 237 models — but only one Skype phone in stock, on sale for $80.

Even after overcoming the equipment problems on the buyer's side, eBay faces another hurdle: most of its merchandise sellers, whether big or small, have good reason to resist offering a Skype Me option. Fielding telephone calls from prospective buyers one by one is labor intensive, which is to say expensive. Restricting communication to e-mail messages is far more efficient. EBay makes it easy for a seller to publicly post replies to queries so that the same questions need not be answered over and over.

While eBay dithers with its proprietary Skype Me plans, Google, Amazon, online newspapers and the rest of the Web are quickly embracing the Old New Thing in advertising: click-to-call, shorthand for "click to be called back," a technology that uses Internet telephony for calling customers back and is available to Web site designers from any number of vendors.

With a click on the button in a Web advertisement, like a Google text ad, a box pops up where you type in your phone number. If it works properly, your phone rings in a blink — with the local plumber or florist or bookseller at the other end of the line. Local merchants who have traditionally advertised in the Yellow Pages are showing particular interest in click-to-call. They, unlike most of eBay's merchandise sellers, are set up to field customers' questions anyhow. On the customer's side, there is no need for a headset or any special equipment. Everyone with a phone can use a click-to-call feature immediately.

For advertisers, click-to-call offers twin attractions: the efficient placing of ads linked to particular search terms, and a means of measuring results without worry about automated click fraud perpetrated by competitors. Peter M. Zollman, an analyst at Classified Intelligence, a consulting firm based in Altamonte Springs, Fla., said that in the future, "advertising — and I mean all advertising — will be performance-based."

"Click-to-call," he added, "is one more manifestation."

Mr. Zollman said he was pleasantly surprised recently when he was searching on the Web for last-minute deals on cruises and was offered a click-to-call button. He clicked, was called back instantly and got a price that he deemed a bargain.

STRICTLY speaking, click-to-call did not save appreciable time when dialing — punching an unfamiliar number into a telephone keypad cannot take much longer than tapping one's own phone number into the click-to-call box. But the process connected him instantly to a human being. Presumably, this level of service will be necessary: surely, no merchant would have the audacity to call you back only to put you on hold.

In an unexpected way, Skype, for all its peer-to-peer ingenuity, has yet to catch up with the plain old telephone system. "People want instant gratification," Mr. Zollman said. "Many do not have Skype, but everyone has a phone."

Randall Stross is a historian and author based in Silicon Valley. E-mail: ddomain@nytimes.com.
###

¶ Saturday, June 03, 2006 0 comments

Friday, June 02, 2006

Healthy regard

Rolling Stone magazine gave the game away about health clubs in a 1983 article.

Anywhere men & women are in various states of undress and sweating profusely, there's bound to be a charged atmosphere. Enjoy !
The New York Times
June 1, 2006
Physical Fitness
Don't Hit on Me, Mr. Goodbody
By MELENA RYZIK

WOW, David Atencio thought the first time he entered 24 Hour Fitness, a gym in San Leandro, Calif., in the early 1980's. Look at this! Look at that!

The object of Mr. Atencio's wonder was not the high-tech elliptical trainer or the juice bar — neither existed yet. Instead Mr. Atencio, then in his 20's, was focused on something that had an even greater impact on the fitness industry: women.

"Man, did you see that girl?" Mr. Atencio recalls telling his friends as they scouted for potential dates.

"You met people, you dated people," he recalled wistfully. "It felt more like a nightclub. There was a lot of endorphins kicking off, a lot of wildness in the first couple years. Were women at my beck and call? Yes — I taught aerobics!"

But these days, Mr. Atencio, now 42 and a regional director of sales for 24 Hour Fitness in Houston, is more likely to be checking his heart rate than checking out a member of the opposite sex. And not just because he's married.

When men and women first began working out together in the late 70's and early 80's, the atmosphere at many gyms was as sexually charged as a John Travolta-era disco: beefy men and lithe women pumped iron, Jazzercised and gave each other the eye.

Rolling Stone magazine picked up on the trend in 1983 with "Looking for Mr. Goodbody," a cover story which proclaimed health clubs to be "The New Singles' Bars."

The article served as the springboard for the cheesy 1985 movie "Perfect," in which the still-gyrating Mr. Travolta was cast as a muscle-bound investigative reporter wooing a buff aerobics instructor played by Jamie Lee Curtis. For many people who joined gyms in those days, getting healthy was an afterthought. But now, trainers, gymgoers and fitness industry experts say, expectations have reversed. Health is often the key motivator, and, with a few exceptions, the idea of the gym as a pick-up spot is about as passé as neon pink leg warmers.

"The first time people came into a club, they were coming to meet people," Mr. Atencio said. "Today it's more about getting fit."

Molly Fox, an early gymgoer who started one of New York's first aerobics studios and who is now group fitness manager for the Equinox club in San Mateo, Calif., witnessed the change. On a gym floor, "you could just feel the come-on," she said. "Now, certainly somebody might look at somebody, but it doesn't have that vibe."

That gyms have evolved into a more professional, largely flirt-free zone has as much to do with demographics, time management and the advent of the iPod as it does with spandex and sexual politics.

In the early days, the confident and the taut frequented gyms, not the saggy masses. "It was 6 or 8 percent of the population who went, people who were comfortable with their bodies, not grossly out of shape," said Rick Caro, who co-owned a handful of gyms in the Northeast in the 70's and 80's.

"It was all about looking sexually attractive," said Sandy Coffman, a fitness consultant in Bradenton, Fla.

And gym bunnies, both male and female, dressed to accentuate their appeal (or so they thought).

"Jane Fonda made it O.K. for us to exercise almost naked in public," Ms. Fox said. "There was a whole sexual revealment — a thong leotard with a flesh-colored tight. It was like, butt cheek, hello! When I look back on it now, it looks like an exotic dancer outfit."

Men liked to flaunt their assets, too. In "Perfect," Mr. Travolta wears crotch-hugging short shorts, and he's not afraid of the hip thrust.

By and large, gym members today aren't the sleek 20-somethings of a generation ago. People aged 35 to 54 account for a third of all health club members, according to the International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association, a trade group. The over-55 crowd makes up another quarter and is the fastest growing segment of gymgoers.

"You take the 50-, 55-, 60-year-old person, they're not going to be checking out the scene the same way they did in the 1970's," Ms. Coffman, who is 64, said.

Today's exercisers are also more likely to be hitting the treadmill on the advice of a doctor, or to get rid of a lower-belly bulge, rather than to perfect their preternaturally tight abs.

"There used to be a feeling that you had to be fit before you even joined a gym," said Julie Main, the president of the Santa Barbara Athletic Club in Santa Barbara, Calif., where she has worked for more than 18 years. "Now when you look at the people in the weight room or even our cardiovascular room, they're not the hard bodies that you see in the magazines."

With a more diverse, older membership — 41.3 million people belong to health clubs, compared with 17.3 million in 1987 — the focus has turned to less sexy concerns: lowering cholesterol levels, maintaining heart health, slimming down.

"Everybody is far more focused on living a healthier lifestyle," Ms. Coffman said. "Fitness right now is all about the word wellness."

Even as people become more serious about increasing their physical fitness, they are spending less time at the gym, a consequence of overscheduling. "You would talk to people in the 80's, and they were proud of the fact that they were spending two-and-a-half, three hours in the gym," said Robert Caravetta, a personal trainer in New York. "You rarely see that anymore."

Today's members generally spend 45 to 90 minutes, and even less time at express workout facilities, said Rosemary Lavery, a spokeswoman for the sports club association.

Instead of dropping by the health club for an evening's worth of chatting up other members, interrupted by bouts of exercise, people do what they have to do and leave. Working out used to be a leisure activity; now it's a personal responsibility, like flossing — which is pretty much the antithesis of flirty fun.

There is also the influence of entertainment technology: rows of television sets and MP3 players. With everyone in a headset bubble or busy with a trainer, there are fewer opportunities to start conversations. "When I have my iPod on, it's definitely a deterrent that says 'Leave me alone. I want to be in my own space,' " said Kerry Brown, 28, a clothing marketer who goes to Clay, a spalike facility in Manhattan.

Ryan Schick, 26, a photo editor who frequents a couple of Equinox gyms in Manhattan, feels the same way. "The gym is my sanctuary," he said. "I don't believe it's appropriate personally for me to hit on people in the gym because I feel like I'm violating that spirit of why I'm there, which is just to mentally veg out and de-stress."

Considering that the gym brings together like-minded individuals, some single members wish the activities included a little more multitasking. "You can find similar people, whether they're in the same income bracket or time schedule or a healthy person," Ms. Brown said. "It's not a bad place to meet someone. It just doesn't happen very much."

A gym can be a good outlet to meet someone "because there's no alcohol involved," said Brooke Temner, 26, a beauty publicist who belongs to a Crunch gym on the East Side of Manhattan. And the environment isn't as threatening as a bar. Still, Ms. Temner has yet to have anyone approach her midworkout.

There are exceptions, chief among them gyms with a large gay membership. "It's such a different vibe than a straighter gym," said Robert Morea, a trainer who works with clients at several Manhattan gyms, including some that attract a gay clientele. "It's much more social."

Which is not to say that most health clubs are completely asexual places, where men and women interact only with the dumbbells.

"If you see some hot guys at the gym, you're going to check them out," said Jennifer Vanlerberghe, 29, who works for a travel company and belongs to the Reebok Sports Club in Manhattan. "But chances are you won't talk to them. You wouldn't be like, 'Um, can you show me how to do a bicep curl?' I would be embarrassed because I should know how to do a bicep curl. And I do."
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