USEDCARSALESMAN

Usedcarsalesman Meets the New King

As all know high and far, Usedcarsalesman was just a mere observer, never an investor, in the new Web and E-commerce build-out in the 1990s. Concerned that people would question his rationale in later years, Usedcarsalesman kept "hand-written journals" during that time that contained his opinions on web-related developments and society, in general, since, of course, there were no weblogs and he didn't see the point of running his opinions on a "Web" page (ie. "...Wait, if you think their are things wrong with business on the Web, then why are you using a Web page?" :) As you can probably imagine, Usedcarsalesman was, in the 1990s, pretty out of step with life in the United States, for better or for worse.

What did Usedcarsalesman do instead of help roll out the Web like many bright kids in his age-group? Well there was always professional school or a profession -- law, business/MBA, stock brokerage heck, maybe even medicine. But, there, Usedcarsalesman was also obstructed by this new "Web" thing. See, to him, half the fun of going to a professional school or entering a profession was the professional monopoly you were going to have when you enter the field: ie. You go to med school and everybody has to come to you to get a prescription for drugs, go to law school and everybody (at least if they love efficiency) has to come to you for legal advice/representation, become a stock broker then everybody has to come to you to trade securities.

                

In the 1990s, Usedcarsalesman started to see the aforementioned "monopoly dynamic" fly out the window with those professions. Everything that used to be the province only of professionals was now available to the general public: ...Want legal information/forms, go on-line, want to trade stocks, go on-line, want medicine/medical advice, go on-line. Professional school lost some of its luster for Usedcarsalesman in the 1990s.

So Usedcarsalesman thought about going back to basics. His father was a TV/Film man and Usedcarsalesman didn't ever really see himself falling far from that tree, so to speak. But, again, the Web of the 1990s seemed even to jeopardize the solidity of this career pursuit. For example, Usedcarsalesman looked in to the houses of many people and saw that no longer did they have just a bunch of TV monitors and VCRs. They had these new computer terminals hooked up to the Internet that slowly, very slowly displayed web pages which people seemed to relentlessly "consume" like pancakes at a slow-paced competitive eating contest.

                      

Usedcarsalesman saw that people's attention were now divided: Film and TV didn't own people's entertainment lives at home or when in recreation, anymore, it seemed. As a matter of fact, it seemed the Web was consuming more of peoples' free time than TV/Film was!? Usedcarsalesman thought, "Where was film/TV going? It was still going to be around, but was the Web going to incorporate it, bringing on some kind of interactive element with the public?"

So, it seemed that anywhere that Usedcarsalesman looked, "The King was Dead," or at least seriously on the defensive (the "King" in this case being the way of life in the world he had know since he was a child). Usedcarsalesman saw that he needed to make friends and develop alliances with the new King: "The Web." This was no stretch for Usedcarsalesman...He had been regularly using personal computers since he was a little kid in the 80s and had been around the Compuserve Bulletin Boards when the big news was the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion.

             

So Usedcarsalesman thought making peace with this new King "Web" would be no problem. But, he was wrong...He introduced himself and found he was speaking to a slow, retarded King even when his highness was coming to him through a T1 line! And strangely, the public was throwing billions at this new King!? It all made Usedcarsalesman want to shave his head and mustache!!

But, finally, 1999...The advent of relatively inexpensive Broadband for the home user, better servers, decent connection speeds in most places Usedcarsalesman was at. It was as if the new King had secretly had a head transplant (and strangely, this is around when all the capital investment in most web-related public companies fell off!!!). After the turn of the millennium, Usedcarsalesman could now make decent video calls on broadband, he could download music and movies pretty quickly, he felt like he was aligning with a King that was truly going somewhere and that this new world was starting to move with Usedcarsalesman's pace (or vice versa).
         

So why is Usedcarsalesman writing all this now? Well, because, it kind of provides background as to where he is coming from in upcoming articles, when he talks about the Web, circa 2006, and the reason for his excitement about the foundation of certain new web-based companies (a huge deal with the public in the 1990s, but not so much now)

Web Forums: Fertile Ground to Grow the Best CEOs in the 21st Century

If you are a CEO, probably the last thing you want to do is walk in to a large room full of your customers, the people that buy say, your company's hypothetical Nose-Hair-Trimmers (...Usedcarsalesman has a mustache and does a lot of grooming to look sharp, so he is familiar with such devices :)

Why? Loss of control. You know you can keep all of your customers happy some of the time or some of your customers happy all the time. You also know that your ability to keep a handle on things in such a scenario has the potential to go out the window. And, you know that rather than talking about the work you've done making the new "Grizzly 5000" Model Nose-Hair-Trimmer you can fall in to some kind of quasi-political contest where you address a lot of questions from customers that you'd never get in the boardroom, from the press or even from shareholders (I mean, the corporate board, the press and shareholders don't even necessarily have to use the products you make, right? For them, their relationship to you might be just a management or rhetorical exercise for perks/money, or even just an investment).

As such, Usedcarsalesman has to say that he salutes the new-breed of "Crocodile-Skinned" CEOs who regularly "dive" in to the Web Forums related to their respective company's products. Why? Most web forums aren't filled with corporate board members, members of the press or even probably have a majority of members who are stockholders of any sort. But, they are generally filled by the most critical, demanding and knowledgeable customers of any given genre of products.* 

So for example, when a "Nose-Hair-Trimmer" CEO comments in a hypothetical "Facial-Hair Forum," its like he is going on American Idol, his product is his "song" and he's potentially facing a tough audience: 1,000+ Simon Cowells who may directly tell him his products stink and that they're going back to using heirloom nose-hair scissors :). Obviously, to stay on top, CEOs who go on consumer forums had better have their sh$% together, better know everything about everything, and better have a heart as big as a house! And, the CEOs that I have seen pull this off in forums generally do.

Now, what is different about the aforementioned CEO's? That I can tell, they are often times younger folks in their 20s-40s or older CEOs who seem to diligently follow the new consumer norms of younger folks. Also, these CEOs are people running businesses -- ones occasionally publicly traded -- that would barely make a hypothetical Fortune "50,000" list.

However, these CEOs -- when they dive in to product-related web-forums -- take a lot of risk and earn respect, big respect from forum members. In fact, Usedcarsalesman believes that the CEOs who have made and continue to make the effort in Web Forums are showing themselves as the future top corporate leaders in the 21st century.

* After some review, Usedcarsalesman thinks that this analogy may be a little off. In fact, its the people on the forums who may be the crocodiles; the guy sticking his head in to crocodiles' collective maw and bravely managing to survive is the new-breed CEO.

E-Books to the Rescue

A few days ago, I recognized that I was facing an information emergency which required me to get up to speed on a topic very rapidly. I needed a book, a specific reference-book. My knee-jerk reaction was to place an order for a "physical" text from Amazon.com and have it delivered overnight, instead of in the usual "3-5 Day UPS" manner.

Now, you might've said, "no, don't do that, just call around to your local Borders or Barnes and Noble, and pick it up there the same day!" Well, unfortunately, the text that I needed was too specific for those stores (I had surveyed them on previous occasions). It was one of those "long-tail" books that only a dot-com supplier was going to have in inventory.

So, I searched for the specific text that I needed in Google and found that it was available as an "Ebook," from well, Ebooks.com. I ultimately purchased from Ebooks.com, but Amazon.com also had download-able versions of many of their physical books. And, in hindsight, I probably would have shopped Amazon for the same download-able book before making the purchase; Amazon turned out to have been substantially cheaper.

Two minutes after making payment, I had the text of my "book" right in front of me on my large, flat-screen computer monitor. My stress born from a lack of information subsided as I started to read and slowly got on top of the subject-matter in-question.

The Electronic Book turned out to be 360 pages in length. But, as I scrolled its pages upward, one after the other, I realized that I was reading it more rapidly than I would a physical book. And, I didn't have any of the psychological burden that might come from having a large, 360-page book on my lap that I needed to absorb before morning. When my eyes grew fatigued, I zoomed in on the text using the Adobe Reader; my fatigue dissipates. When I need to "highlight" something in the electronic text, I use the highlight function in the comment section of the Adobe program; no need for Highlighter-Brand markers unless I wanted to get a noxious-fume buzz. I ended up running through 200 pages like they were nothing and finished the whole 360-page text of not-particularly-appealing, non-fiction material before bed. I was resoundingly impressed with the Ebook experience.

The next day, I looked at my shelf of paperback books and realized I was looking at the written-equivalent of a large, 1980s-era CD collection. The books were taking up a lot of physical square-footage, when they, like modern music or video downloads, would more efficiently serve me as electronic files. And, the books showed wear and tear, I couldn't enlarge their text, and I needed markers to highlight the segments that were important to me, and I couldn't cut and paste their text to a word document. In sum, my physical books seemed archaic, like art-pieces that should be displayed, but hardly employed as modern resources of information.

So, I may never buy a physical book again, unless I intend to display it in a glass case.

Microsoft "Longhorn:" RSS-use on Steroids

Right now 2% of web users are employing some kind of RSS news reader software, whether web based or PC or Mac-based. These RSS-reader programs aggregate headlines and article summaries from all RSS-providing online sources which a user selects. Said "on-line sources" have to employ an RSS feed creation program of some kind to produce their regular "feeds." These users employing an RSS Reader can essentially "corner," on a regular basis, most every bit of published information that pertains to a respective subject.

Usedcarsalesman, too, has wanted to incorporate RSS or "Really Simple Syndication" in to his blog. He figured that he sometimes discuses topics that has to do with media, technology and too many other issues that a few people might be interested in getting a regular "feed" on. Thus, began his still on-going quest to piece together the business of RSS feeds -- their creation, transmission, storage and consumption.

Early on Usedcarsalesman realized that Blogger provided Atom-type syndication built in with their free blogging service. And he has happily employed it (of course, there are still a few grey areas regarding its operation that he needs to fill in). But, of course, that was not good enough for him; he wanted to be like the larger, "grown-up" sites out their like BlogMaverick.com or WilWheaton.net, that make skillful use of RSS.

      

So, Usedcarsalesman went ahead and picked up "Feed-For-All" software which was basically another feed-creation platform; however, this presented another series of seemingly undefined grey areas for which he needed appropriate definition. But, on he persevered, using chat rooms, discussion boards, tips from other bloggers more experienced than himself to sort out the deals with RSS.

So, why does Usedcarsalesman bother, why does he care bout RSS? Because, he kind of believes that there is going to be growth in the numbers of people using RSS to get their information. This is not a new belief; analysts have been suggesting that RSS is "the new email" for the last 2-3 years. Right now it's used by 2% of web users -- this statistic kind of reminds him of the limited number of people on the web in the early and mid-90s; but, this figure could very well grow to 50-60%+, just as grew the number of web users and broadband users over the last 10-15 years.

One of the main reasons for the growth of RSS could be Microsoft's new operating system, Code-Named "Longhorn" (edit: now sold in 2007 as Vista). Mr. Bill Gates has apparently been thinking, "if people are going to read RSS Feeds, then they better be doing it using a Microsoft product." Just as when Gates began incorporating a Web-browser, Explorer, in to his operating systems, starting with Windows 95, his company now plans to incorporate an RSS feed reader in to his "Longhorn" system.

             

This "free" RSS news reader could, however, interrupt any flow of money to software companies making stand-alone RSS News Readers (such as the one Usedcarsalesman just purchased!). It's all very similar to how Microsoft's Internet Explorer took the Browser market from Netscape Navigator in the 1990s by packaging it together with new Microsoft PC Operating Systems.
         
The good news about Longhorn -- though perhaps not for the stand-alone RSS News Reader software providers -- is for the people providing RSS content to other people. Not too long after Longhorn hits the market, you will probably see the number of web users reading RSS News Feeds climb from 2% to 20%, a 10-fold increase. Usedcarsalesman speculates that this will happen because Microsoft's Longhorn (Vista) will put the matter of RSS front-and-center before a vast number of new computer or OS buyers. And as old computers (and their operating systems) are gradually traded for new, you could see the aforementioned number, as he said, climb to half or more of all web-users before too long.

So, again, this is good news for content producers. It means there will be more people who will be seeking regular information and articles in an RSS-format and who will read what you write. Now if only Usedcarsalesman can get his RSS feeds and programs organized in the mean time...

Collecting Pop-Culture Items Before and After eBay

When Usedcarsalesman was a kid in the 1970s and the early-to-mid 1980s, he collected all manner of toys, comic books, posters and assorted other items related to the Star Wars-franchise the way some kids collected baseball cards or Pez dispensers. Today, his collections still exist and currently reside 3000 miles away in a concrete bunker in an undisclosed location -- actually an above-ground house.

The good news is that most of those collected Star Wars items have appreciated in value, substantially. But recently, Usedcarsalesman considered that when he factored in the square-footage of residential storage space that old Star Wars items like his took up in a house -- especially one in a area with a booming real estate market -- that any appreciation which those collected items achieved was largely negated.  Even though the items went up by "10-1000+"-times their original price, the business equation of which they were a part ultimately amounted to zero dollars after Usedcarsalesman tallied the value of the storage area that the items occupied over the years.

Today it seems to Usedcarsalesman that he collected things at a young age due to his interest in the wisdom of "buying low and sell high." Great.  It's just that his execution of the storage of those items was a little off -- he'd buy the items and hide them away, kind of in the old Citizen-Kane-style.  Guess you could say he wasn't a full-on nerd who wanted to show the items off, he was just somebody who reasonably presumed the items would increase in value down the road.

But, some, wiser guys -- definitely mostly males -- who really love the stuff they collected in the past and present actually display their "collections" in their own residences as one might display art or paintings or sculpture. They literally have rooms filled wall-to-wall with Star Trek or Star Wars items or old Washington Senators memorabilia and that makes a lot of sense. I guess you could say that it adds to your living arrangement rather than simply subtracting from your residential square footage. And, that's probably the most logical way to hold such items over time: you have interesting items that provide value by giving you and your guests something to look at and which also appreciate enough to offset any costs in their use of space.

As we all know, speculative collecting of pop-culture items has turned in to big business over the last decade. Companies such as eBay have basically aggregated a million collections and small retail hobby enterprises and turned what was once a mom and pop thing in to a gigantic, fluid secondary market for toys and kitsch. As such, If Usedcarsalesman were to take all the original Star Wars items he collected and put it in a room at his place, it'd look like he went on eBay -- circa 2005 -- and spent $30,000 on rare 70s and 80s era pop-culture merchandise.

Anybody with a Visa card could do that nowadays; so it kind of undercuts the fun, treasure-hunting and work which was inherent in the whole business of "collecting" when Usedcarsalesman was a kid.  But in its favor, eBay does offer people the advantage of being able to buy items which may increase in value and which will also appeal to the collector's overall aesthetic tastes, too.

That was tough to do thirty years ago as a kid who had to do the best he could with the limited selection available to him locally. Back then, Usedcarsalesman could generally collect stuff locally that would increase in value, but he just wanted to "put it under a mattress" so to speak. Nowadays, he can have the best of both worlds: collect for speculation and aesthetic appeal thanks to eBay.

Note: Usedcarsalesman is not ticked-off that the whole baseball card, comic-book, toy, garage-sale thing has gone mass-market on eBay. If anything, it's made it easier for young people and adults to get started collecting, speculating or otherwise trading in custom-tailored items that were once the preserve of the hardcore collector or treasure-hunter. And, the people who did the old-fashioned legwork of collecting stuff like baseball cards or Star Wars toys locally as kids (with no eBay) often end up using that experience as a spring board for commodity speculation as adults, say in real estate or automobiles or fine-art.

Buy On The Rumor: F**kedCompany.com

Until a few years ago, if you were an individual, "Main-Street" investor, you probably didn't have information available to you that would enable you to take an aggressive short-term position in stocks with confidence. Actually your information was limited to what you read in business magazines, what you heard from friends, family or coworkers or what your own insights were regarding a publicly traded company. Generally, unless you had access to outright "inside information" (with its corresponding legal ramifications) you were in the dark as an individual investor.

Unfortunately the retail investment professionals, your local broker, planner, and/or investment adviser didn't have it much better. If they were affiliated with investment banks, the aforementioned financial personnel could generally show up in the dark hours of the morning and listen on the "Squawk Box" to hear the "Morning Call" (an investment firms Morning Call was -- and still is -- the product of a bunch of very intelligent analysts in NYC sitting in what looks like a Senate Committee Hearing room talking on microphones to no audience other than affiliated advisers scattered throughout the country). But, at best, the information provided in "The Call" was general in nature and based on the analysts' take on the information that public companies were -- and are -- required to disclose by law.

         

Seeking to obtain more trade-able information, advisers in brokerage offices would often pool their resources and subscribe to highly expensive financial news letters (which shall remain nameless). This kind of information would put advisers in a more informed position that most -Main Street- investors, true. But, again, as with the in-house,"Morning Call", this was not exactly "stop on a dime" information by which to make aggressive, but well-secured short term trades.

What's changed in the last few years for both the "Main-Street" individual investor and the retail financial adviser is the advent of "corporate rumor" web sites, such as "FuckedCompany.com." Usedcarsalesman has been reading Phil Kaplan's FuckedCompany since 2001 and it was really the first "blog" 'Used' paid any attention to.  Kaplan's blog ultimately evolved to chart the declines of many publicly traded dot-com companies and has since moved on to post on all manner of organizational decline. Like a spy-network, a site, such as Fucked Company, may provide a direct inside picture of small to large matters within various public companies (which are kind of like Armies) well ahead of traditional news sources (which are more like low earth orbit military satellites, generally outside and/or useless until they are in the right position).

Everything posted in Fucked Company is a rumor and nothing more, which keeps the site operating in a legal "grey area"; however, its posts have proved to be surprisingly prescient. And, for a monthly fee, you can access all of the negative incoming email rumors that FuckedCompany receives. Philip Kaplan has gone on to do pay sites such as LuckedCompany.com (positive corporate rumors; strangely this site is no longer up) and Internal Memos.com (leaked corporate email) which also provide trade-able information. Of course, Usedcarsalesman has to add that it is the responsibility of the user to interpret and take well-secured investment positions on the information conveyed in Fuckedcompany.com so as to minimize his or her exposure.

   

But if you are a retail financial adviser or a financially fluent -Main Street- investor, you can make short term plays with greater confidence using a site like FuckedCompany.com. Usedcarsalesman hopes to see more of such sites in the future.

When Bloggers Start "Reporting" They Are Going to Start to Get Paid

Usedcarsalesman hasn't written anything in a while -- he was too busy lying around being hand-fed grapes by maidens (Sorry :P)  Nevertheless he will move on to current affairs.

In the last fiscal year or so, Usedcarsalesman vaguely recollects seeing traditional journalists call on bloggers to move beyond trivial accounts of day-to-day personal matters and do more real news-work -- more actual "reporting" (or maybe Usedcarsalesman was just dreaming).  So, Usedcarsalesman began to think, "hmmm, wonder what's involved with this "reporting" business anyway?"

Usedcarsalesman started by looking at The Code Of Ethics Of The Society Of Professional Journalists and saw the following directions given to "journalists" concerning the work of writing stories:

• Diligently seek out subjects of news stories to give them the opportunity to respond to allegations of wrong-doing.
• Identify sources whenever feasible. The public is entitled to as much information as possible on sources' reliability. Always question sources’ motives before promising anonymity. Clarify conditions attached to any promise made in exchange for information. Keep promises.
• Support the open exchange of views, even views they find repugnant. 

Well the aforementioned list kind of took Usedcarsalesman aback. Not the Code's line about, "Support the open exchange of views"  (After all, if Usedcarsalesman were writing like some conventional conservative or liberal newspaper journalists, he'd definitely know that his words would be perceived as veering in a certain, "closed" direction).   No surprises there.

Really Usedcarsalesman was more taken aback by the fact that the "journalism" outlined in the aforementioned did seem to involve a lot of actual work!  That is, cconceivably if people begin to blog by the quoted ethical standards of "The Society of Professional Journalists," they might start to -- in a manner of speaking -- "feel-the-burn" of the work involved.  Usedcarsalesman shuddered to think!

In light of Usedcarsalesman's analysis of the Code and the apparent labor it requires from reporters, his readers might ask, "isn't 'work' -- even journalism -- typically done for compensation?" "Of course," Usedcarsalesman would respond. Hence the title of this post, When Bloggers Start Reporting They Are Going to Start Getting Paid.

Usedcarsalesman believes that if bloggers get serious, become more like regular news journalists, follow the standards of the Code and build a sizable readership, its not unreasonable to believe that they will gain compensation. After all, at that point, the writings of such bloggers might become virtually indistinguishable from that found in major news sources.  Readers might then accord bloggers attention -- displacing some given to traditional news outlets -- in growing numbers and advertising money will follow the attention said bloggers receive. 

Look globally for the best bloggers to start operating more like professional journalists and editors. Look for new companies to form which make money organizing and managing (really, "editing") bloggers.  Look for old news organizations to increasingly start to act more like teams of permanently decentralized bloggers -- that is bloggers reporting and abiding by journalistic ethics. And look for graduates of journalism schools to fully expect to support themselves as bloggers.

eBay Helps the Farm States?

In The Internet, Space People, and Living abroad in the 21st Century -- a previous post here --Usedcarsalesman suggested that widespread use of the web might enable a minor exodus of people from the United States to sunnier nations with lower costs-of-living. However, the other day, he realized that this same thing -- an exodus enabled by the web and, more specifically, by eBay -- was already going on within the United States. 

          

Some young couples are increasingly being lured from urban locations to farm states thanks to an unusual assortment of eBay property auction listings offered by local governments. For example, recently a couple bought an entire, "closed" elementary school facility in Kansas for $25,000. Usedcarsalesman is talking about a facility which likely cost several million dollars to construct, not including the real estate.

               

Yes, for the couple in question, this is probably going to work kind of like buying one of those old Cold War missile silos that people turn in to "Groundhog" Castles; the couple is going to have to invest considerably to clean the place up. But the cool thing is that the area's local government is apparently very enthusiastic about helping them do so; also, there are plenty of people locally who are in need of work. And the business that these people do involves manufacturing hand-made musical instruments, something which places work and storage space at a premium. Anyway, Usedcarsalesman thinks: "great for all involved."
             

Usedcarsalesman finds it very interesting that something like eBay is facilitating a redistribution of small numbers of the population by allowing governments to draw people to areas by auctioning off vacant properties. Drawn by unusual-- and to them-- under-valued properties, these newcomers probably also bring new perspectives to these areas and perhaps a little money, as well.

               

Will an eBay-related relocation of some people economically reinvigorate the farm states?  Usedcarsalesman knows that we already have people there charging for walks in corn-field mazes and rock-wall climbs in reconfigured grain elevators.  So, who knows what's next?

Are Print Publishers Like The Christian Science Monitor Asking for Donations?

Yes, its really true, The Christian Science Monitor (CSM) news organization asks for donations from its readers! Usedcarsalesman, of course, is not the only one who believes that when a "business" starts asking for donations, it is doing something wrong and it is no longer really a business. 

         

Usedcarsalesman doesn't see reasons to believe that this attempt by CSM management to turn the ship around -- say, by asking for donations or conducting souvenir auctions, car washes or whatever -- will somehow bring CSM back in to the black. Instead, he thinks that the Christian Science Monitor's needs are indicative of a situation facing big print media across the board:  the issue of maintaining a profitable, traditional operation in the shallow waters of a young "on-line-only" audience, new, on-line media competition and the never-ending competition for advertiser's dollars whether on-line or off.

                         

Forgive the analogy, but Usedcarsalesman thinks that print news publications like CSM currently resemble old pleasure yachts that have run aground near tropical islands. He thinks that, rather than call for help, the captains of these "yachts" need to dump excess weight to enhance the buoyancy of their vessels. Then they need to return the boats to port, scrap them, and use the salvage money to buy all of their people -- including themselves -- jet-skis and satellite phones.

             

In a literal sense, print news media businesses like CSM should do the following:

• Keep the usual cadre of intelligent reporters.
• Keep strong management.
• Use minimal office space; get read of most of it except for maybe management offices leased in some high end business tower; sell the old-school, museum-like headquarters of outlets like the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, etc.
• Writing and editing off-site at all times;  bonuses paid to reporters, editors for doing their jobs from home.
• Eliminate each media outlet's traditional pulp print operation and its correspondingly inflated-wage, union jobs.
• Out-source traditional, "printing-press" printing to a centralized provider of printing services; such a company would produce traditional, "print" copies of newspapers, magazines, etc. to the few people who still demand their news and periodicals in such a format (for their own nostalgic purposes or for framing a clipped photo).
• If possible, out-source all in-house, research resources.   A external service can scan microfiche and one can view it on-line remotely; library services can locate materials and email scanned materials to reporters;  every research service -- including Lexis/Nexis -- is accessible to any person on-line with an account.   
• And outsource the sales and marketing functions of newspapers! Perhaps sell the publication to a large media conglomerate that can separate those functions; or form a conglomerate of publications that can address that issue for your own publication.  Usedcarsalesman says:  "Come on, are journalists at a news publication to work in the "production section" of a business that sells and markets?  Or are they there to write and edit?  Obviously, they are there to write and edit.  Usedcarsalesman believes that every aspect of their organization should be about the same. 

By doing this, Usedcarsalesman sees that they might greatly reduce operating costs in their industry and enhance their business for many reasons:

• It would not have to carry massive overhead for office space and print operations.
• It might enable greater pay for reporters due to lower costs of doing business.
• It might become easier to employ more reporters in any given media outlet since the logistics of maintaining an office environment become mostly irrelevant. 
• More reporters mean more news, stories, and issues covered.
• News organizations could expand in to new areas of publishing like never before, simply because the costs of doing so are so minimal.  Leveraging the "brand equity" of an old-school newspaper or magazine's "name" would become the name of the game.  For example, an organization such as The Washington Post could start to publish on-line, scientific journals, regional magazines (Virginia, Maryland, DC) , a sports magazine, an educational weekly, etc.   All the Post would need to do is slap its name on these sites to lend legitimacy to their content. 

In conclusion, Usedcarsalesman doesn't see the "donations" as a means for The Christian Science Monitor to stay in the "business" of news.  He has instead charted a potentially more beneficial course of action for their industry.

Note August 2007:  The Christian Science Monitor seems to have stopped soliciting for donations to fund their own operations and is now making an attempt at merchandising for profit:  http://www.csmonitormall.com/?s=csmonitor&attr=rottext

The Middlemen are Dead. Long Live the Middlemen (and Salesmen and Consultants, too).

Usedcarsalesman recalls life in the 1990s almost as clearly as if he had imagined it all himself. The impressions made on him by the new "actors" which had emerged -- the World Wide Web, Wall Street analysts now on television, pasty-faced "entrepreneurs" touting oddly-named public companies making less of a profit than a kindergartner's lemonade stand, spin-doctors good enough to talk God in to fronting a Ronnie James Dio Tribute Band -- all still stick. 

         

One theme from that time that also stood out especially strongly for Usedcarsalesman was that technology could "cut-out-the-middleman."  That is, if he bought "on-line" and "went-direct," he -- as a consumer -- could save money by eliminating contact with people traditionally working in the "middle" of business transactions. This all sounded "good" to Usedcarsalesman, but it wasn't exactly new to his way of thinking.

You see, Usedcarsalesman had similar "go-direct" feelings about "middlemen" as a youth in the 1970s and 1980s. As he began to accumulate modest funds to spend, he began to wonder: "why can't people buy cars directly from the factory without using a dealer, why can't we buy investments without calling a broker, why do we need some real estate broker's agent to show us a house when we buy real estate?"

                

For example, young Usedcarsalesman could order a high-end car stereo or clothes directly from a paper catalog.  So, why would he want to go to a retail store and pay more for the same items in order to cover a salesman's commission?  To Usedcarsalesman, It simply didn't seem that "middlemen" or their sales people added any value that might justify the higher price of a retail purchase. 

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Considering his early disdain for "middlemen" and his witness of their seemingly career-ending defeat versus the Web in the 1990s, you'd think that Usedcarsalesman would pronounce their business -- across-the-board -- as "dead."  Actually, in 2004 Usedcarsalesman believes something different:  that which "killed" them in the 1990s -- the Web -- may actually bring middlemen and their salespeople great prosperity in the future.  Ironically, the World Wide Web and Internet-based commerce has created an environment exponentially more conducive to the business of "middlemen" and their salespeople than ever before. 

          

If they are working on the "sell-side" of a transaction, "middlemen" are now capable of representing a product or service to a global marketplace, to almost a billion potential buyers on-line. For example, a guy who may have sold cement mixers -- as either a "middleman" or one of his salesmen -- in a mid-size U.S. town in the 1980s now has the potential to pitch them globally by teleconference or by a broadband video "ad" that he can cut for his or his company's site.  This guy can now get face-to-face with millions of people, many who were formerly out of reach.  Consider legions of "middlemen" and their salespeople reinventing themselves almost in to Home Shopping Network-type hosts and hostesses for a particular product.

               

At the same time, some "middlemen" (or their salespeople) -- especially those with keen industry and product expertise -- will find the web a place that enables them to work efficiently on the "buy-side" of transactions.  Thus, they might find great success as "consultants" working as described below:

• Since e-commerce on the World Wide Web offers more goods and services for sale, often more cheaply than before, and often with no salespeople to pay commissions to, modern consumers might increasingly employ consultants to advise on a transaction.   Effectively, such a web-based buyer's consultant could become the global point-person -- the knowledgeable individual whom everybody world-wide contacts when they need to make a particular purchase -- for a specific class of goods or services.
• Taking no fees or commissions from sellers, these former "middlemen" or salespeople will earn their money as a fee paid by the buyer at the beginning and end of a transaction.  They will work on behalf of buyers to identify the best product or service -- large or small -- for them, to find them the lowest price available, and always with the  buyer's/client's interests solely in mind.
• It is possible that such consultants/advisers could work as a team for a particular buyer.  You've probably noticed that the more people you have helping you, who have your interests in mind, the easier it is for you to make a highly satisfactory business transaction. For example, let's say you go on a vacation in the future. You might employ a dozen specialized consultants to make your trip as smooth as possible. Each of these independent, buyer's consultants will focus on a different aspect of your vacation: customized site-seeing, dining, hotels, tour guidance, translation, whatever. You might take the trip and find that you have never had an experience that fit you so perfectly, since every angle was covered.
• Buyers might find it worthwhile to employ a different set of on-line consultants when they shop for a car, look for a new house, seek a college for you child, choose a new type of work, investigate medical treatment or cosmetic surgery, shop for holiday gifts, buy clothes, play sports, resolve conflicts, basically anything and everything that could be made easier with the advice of numerous experts.  A buy-side consultant might find it inexpensive to operate on the web; buyers might find it correspondingly frictionless and inexpensive to employ this consultant's services.  As such, buyers might find it now affordable to assemble a team of such advisers for many on-line purchases, whether large or small.   

Whether middleman, salesperson, consultant, whether buy-side or sell-side, all will find that the Web is indifferent to location and enables independent action.  It may also "level" hierarchies and give formerly low-level players opportunities for greatness.  In the end, rather than destroying middlemen, Usedcarsalesman believes that the Web has actually enabled them and expanded their horizons. The Middlemen are dead. Long live the Middlemen (and Salespeople and Consultants, too).