Byline: By armand limnande section: Section mm; Column 0; T: Men's Fashion Magazine; Pg. 76 Length
URL: http://www.nytimes.com SUBJECT
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URL: http://www.nytimes.com SUBJECT: PETROLEUM PRODUCTS (90%); OIL & GAS PRICES (90%); INTERVIEWS (90%); RECESSION (89%); ECONOMIC NEWS (89%); TALKS & MEETINGS (89%); US PRESIDENTS (89%); OIL & GAS INDUSTRY (89%); ELECTIONS (79%); VOTERS & VOTING (79%); PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS (79%); PRIMARY ELECTIONS (79%); GASOLINE PRICES (78%); US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS (77%); CAMPAIGNS & ELECTIONS (77%); INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ORGANIZATIONS (75%); GASOLINE MARKETS (75%); ENERGY DEPARTMENTS (73%); EXPORT TRADE (73%); PRESS CONFERENCES (71%); HORSE & PONY PRODUCTION (69%); DESERTS (54%) COMPANY: CNINSURE INC (68%) ORGANIZATION: ORGANIZATION OF THE PETROLEUM EXPORTING COUNTRIES (84%) TICKER: CISG (NASDAQ) (68%) PERSON: GEORGE W BUSH (94%) GEOGRAPHIC: RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA (90%) MICHIGAN, USA (79%); INDIAN OCEAN (79%) UNITED STATES (98%); SAUDI ARABIA (96%); MIDDLE EAST (79%); INDIA (79%); GULF STATES (79%); CHINA (79%); UNITED ARAB EMIRATES (79%); KUWAIT (79%) LOAD-DATE: January 17, 2008 LANGUAGE: ENGLISH PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company 1182 of 1231 DOCUMENTS The New York Times
Late Edition - Final The Other Nano SECTION: Section A; Column 0; Editorial Desk; EDITORIAL; Pg. 22 LENGTH: 274 words What do a '73 Volkswagen Bug, a navigation system on a new Jaguar and a brand new Nano sedan have in common? Two things: they cost about $2,500 and involve the Indian entrepreneur Ratan Tata. Mr. Tata is chairman of the Tata Group and currently the leading bidder to buy Jaguar from the Ford Motor Company. Last Thursday, he unveiled the world's cheapest car -- a cute five-door hatchback called Nano that's powered by two cylinders in back, capable of running at 75 miles an hour and costing about $2,500. Mr. Tata hopes to sell a million Nanos a year in India and to expand to other developing countries. He claims the car meets European emission standards and gets a hybridlike 50 miles to the gallon. Given the gas-guzzling behemoths that so many of us in the West feel entitled to, it would seem hypocritical to begrudge people in poor countries an affordable car. Much like the hypocrisy of the dealers who have resisted Tata's bid for Jaguar on the grounds that Indian ownership would erode the brand's prestige. The sad fact is that the world has changed since Americans celebrated the egalitarian breakthrough of the Ford Model T. We know now that gas-driven automobiles do terrible damage to the environment, and the notion of loosing millions upon millions of new carbon emitters on our planet is not something to celebrate. So while we admire Mr. Tata's business and engineering acumen in creating the Nano, we ardently wish that he would focus his talents elsewhere: creating transportation that is both affordable and doesn't emit ever more greenhouse gases. That would be something for the whole world to celebrate and buy.
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company 1183 of 1231 DOCUMENTS The New York Times
Late Edition - Final For the Laptop Toters, A Roomier Flight to Europe BYLINE: By JOE SHARKEY SECTION: Section C; Column 0; Business/Financial Desk; ON THE ROAD; Pg. 6 LENGTH: 698 words BRITISH AIRWAYS announced its plans last week to join the new boutique premium-class airline game across the Atlantic. But it isn't bringing a lot of money to the table. In an interview, Dale Moss, a 30-year British Air veteran who is the managing director of the new subsidiary, OpenSkies, discussed the strategy behind a bid for the high-end market at a time the American economy seems to be in for some turbulence. First, the basics. As reported here previously, OpenSkies will start small, with a single Boeing 757 from British Airways' fleet. Starting in June, OpenSkies will fly the 757 (with another to be added late this year and four more by the end of 2009, when new routes are planned) configured with 82 seats. Business class will have 24 flat-bed seats; behind that will be 28 ''premium economy'' seats with 52 inches of legroom; and -- in a move that some competitors say they find confounding -- there will be 30 coach seats in five rows. The initial route has not been set yet, partly because of uncertainty about whether Newark will have to be the fallback if a landing slot cannot be freed at Kennedy International Airport. Nor has British Air yet announced whether the European city will be Paris or Brussels, but it will be one of the two, and the other will be added later. The bet, which would have good odds in a growing economy, is that business travel between Europe and the United States is growing and that premium or mostly premium niche carriers can take a chunk of that market with lower fares and attractive products. MaxJet, one of two carriers that started up on the high-competition New York-to-London route two years ago, went out of business on Dec. 24, after what competitors said was an overexpansion of its routes. The other start-ups flying between New York/Newark and London -- Eos and Silverjet -- say they are in good shape and are developing loyal corporate travel bases. So does l'Avion, a start-up airline that began flying between Paris and Newark early last year. One marketing key, said Mr. Moss, is attracting business from the rapidly growing ranks of smaller companies and the self-employed in both Europe and the United States. ''We're really gearing ourselves for the medium-size corporations, smaller companies and entrepreneurs,'' Mr. Moss said. ''I really believe that's our customer base, those companies and entrepreneurs who can't get the really great deals'' that big-volume corporations can negotiate with the major airlines. ''It's amazing how many small businesses there are,'' he said. ''We have a little temporary office in Blue Bell, Pa., in a campus filed with hundreds of offices -- all filled with businesses of two to 10 people.'' Another bet is that the core customers for these airlines have been traveling more frequently to and from Europe, at least for now, and that the extra cost for a premium seat will continue to be seen as justifiable. ''If you're a road warrior doing 20 or 25 trans-Atlantics a year, let me tell you, you can't do that from a coach seat without beating your body up,'' Mr. Moss said. ''Road warriors today go from airplane to meeting, and go right back on an airplane. They take their laptops with them. They try to sleep. It's hard to do that in a 3-by-3 configuration. What we want to try to do is provide them a sense of a little more room, not luxury, but a little more product.'' Mr. Moss said that he could not discuss pricing yet, but he said that OpenSkies -- whose later routes will include Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Milan and Madrid -- would be ''extraordinarily competitive.'' Other people involved with the development of the airline told me that the decision to put in a token economy section was hotly debated, with the traditionalists insisting on including coach seats, if only to lure budget-minded customers who could be persuaded to upgrade next time. ''This is a predominantly premium airline,'' Mr. Moss said when asked about the coach seats. ''And if we get a customer base that's that strong, let me tell you it would be the easiest thing in the world to take those 30 seats out and fill it with what is appropriate.'' E-mail: jsharkey@nytimes.com
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company 1184 of 1231 DOCUMENTS The New York Times
Late Edition - Final More Than Games, a Net to Snare Social Networkers BYLINE: By BRAD STONE SECTION: Section C; Column 0; Business/Financial Desk; ADVERTISING; Pg. 4 LENGTH: 1067 words FRIENDSHIP means being able to sink each other's battleships. That is the thinking of Mark Pincus, a well-known Silicon Valley entrepreneur who has built several Internet start-ups, including Support.com and the early social network Tribe.net. On Tuesday, Mr. Pincus is pulling the wraps off the Zynga Game Network, a company devoted to developing online games that work on the pages of popular sites like Facebook and MySpace. Zynga, which has 27 employees, has spent the last few months quietly reinventing card games like poker and blackjack and classic games like Risk, Boggle and Battleship. Users of social networks can add the games to their profile pages and play with their friends online. The games, particularly Zynga's version of Texas hold 'em poker, have already amassed hundreds of thousands of regular users. The company and others like it share a belief that Internet ventures can be created on the backs of the rapidly growing social networks. Last year, these networks invited entrepreneurs to take advantage of their big crowds of users and to keep the revenue they generate from advertising. Whether this approach can generate big profits over the long term is not clear, but plenty of people are giving it a try. More than 7,000 applications have been introduced on Facebook since the company opened to outside programmers in May, and more than 80 percent of its users have added at least one application. Seasoned companies and small start-ups alike are rapidly developing add-ons for Facebook and other sites, including MySpace, which has promised to open its service to developers early this year. Zynga is also tapping into the current enthusiasm for so-called casual games, which have a short learning curve and generally appeal to people who have never heard of games like Halo and spend limited amounts of time playing games. ''People already love to play casual games,'' said Fred Wilson, a partner at the venture capital firm Union Square Ventures, which led a $10 million round of financing in Zynga. ''But when you take a casual game and stick it inside a social network, it becomes way more exciting. This is like pouring gasoline on fire.'' Mr. Pincus is yet another seasoned entrepreneur who is putting great stock in Mark Zuckerberg, the 23-year-old founder of Facebook, and his conception of the ''social graph.'' The idea is that applications like games are even more appealing, and spread more quickly through networks, if friends, family and colleagues can share the experiences. ''I'm not a game fanatic,'' said Mr. Pincus, 41. ''But I represent the market I want to go after. I generally don't have time for games, but it could be a really nice way to connect, for example, with my niece.'' The company is based in a former potato chip factory in the Potrero Hill neighborhood of San Francisco. Mr. Pincus -- who founded Support.com, which went public in 2000 and is now called SupportSoft, and who sold some of Tribe.net's assets to Cisco Systems last year -- bought the building to house his new venture. He is also an early investor in Facebook. Other investors in Zynga include high-profile Silicon Valley figures like Peter Thiel, a Facebook investor and board member; Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn; and Robert W. Pittman, the former chief operating officer of America Online. None of Zynga's games are particularly rare. For example, there are scores of versions of Texas hold 'em on the Internet, and when Zynga introduced its version in July there were already several others on Facebook. But the company develops its games with the interactive features of Facebook in mind. For example, users can invite their friends to play, or see who is already playing and join them in the middle of the game. Zynga has some aggressive plans to stitch together its various properties. Beginning this week, when users join one of its games, they will have access to a universal lobby where they can chat and interact with other users who are playing other Zynga games on other social networks. The company hopes to one day solicit traditional advertisers, but for now it makes money by selling ads to the creators of other applications who want to pull in more users. Zynga charges an advertiser 50 cents every time one a Zynga player installs the advertiser's application. It offers players incentives to do so; for example, blackjack players can get extra chips by clicking on a link. Mr. Pincus says that players click on 50,000 such links each day, although many lead to other Zynga games. He says the company is already breaking even and has not yet tapped its venture capital. Zynga now has a dozen games and is rolling out four to eight new ones a month. All of them trail behind the popularity of Scrabulous, a Scrabble clone that is one of the most popular games on Facebook, with nearly half a million active users. But in at least one respect, Zynga does not want to copy Scrabulous. Last week, the Web site of Fortune magazine reported that the two brothers in India who created the game had received a legal notice from Hasbro, the toy company that owns the Scrabble brand. Hasbro did not return a request for comment, and Rajat Agarwalla, one of the brothers who created Scrabulous, said his lawyer had advised him not to comment on the matter. Mr. Pincus said he has been careful to avoid trademark problems. Zynga dubs its version of Risk ''Attack,'' and its version of Boggle is called ''Scramble.'' Mr. Pincus said the company would be interested in licensing game trademarks or working with traditional game makers. Evan Wilson, a senior research analyst at Pacific Crest Securities, said the online game industry was rife with copycats, which does not generally pose a legal problem if the knockoffs have different names and altered mechanics. Mr. Wilson thinks that if companies like Zynga prove successful, game giants like Electronic Arts, which owns the digital license for Hasbro games, will move quickly to enter the arena. Mr. Pincus is counting on that. He believes his company's valuable real estate, at the top of the lists of ''most popular applications'' on sites like Facebook, could become an essential asset. Other game makers ''will be faced with an opportunity to launch a game in the directory next to 1,300 other games and hope it gets found, or to launch a game with us,'' he said. URL: http://www.nytimes.com SUBJECT: STARTUPS (90%); INTERNET SOCIAL NETWORKING (92%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (90%); INTERNET & WWW (90%); NAVAL VESSELS (78%); VENTURE CAPITAL (78%); ONLINE COMPUTER GAMES (77%) COMPANY: SUPPORTSOFT INC (58%); FACEBOOK INC (57%) TICKER: SPRT (NASDAQ) (58%) LOAD-DATE: January 15, 2008 LANGUAGE: ENGLISH GRAPHIC: PHOTO: Mark Pincus with his dog Zynga. The Zynga Game Network is to draw its audience from users of Facebook and similar sites.(PHOTOGRAPH BY JIM WILSON/THE NEW YORK TIMES) PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company 1185 of 1231 DOCUMENTS The New York Times
Late Edition - Final SECTION: Section C; Column 0; Business/Financial Desk; TODAY IN BUSINESS; Pg. 2 LENGTH: 669 words A DRUG THAT DOESN'T WORK The cholesterol-lowering drug Zetia, which is prescribed to about 1 million people a week, did not show any medical benefits in a two-year clinical trial, the drug makers Merck and Schering-Plough said. GOOD NEWS FROM BIG BLUE Quarterly profit at I.B.M. rose 24 percent -- much more than analysts predicted. The news pushed Big Blue's stock price up 5.4 percent, to $102.93. [C1.] Wall Street advanced sharply after Friday's down day as I.B.M.'s results led investors to get back into the stock market. [C11.] HIGH COST OF COMMODITIES Prices for commodities like copper, zinc, crude oil, lead, cattle, cocoa and corn are all at or near record prices -- a fundamental shift where Americans now find themselves in bidding wars with overseas buyers for these and other products. [C1.] SOME BIOFUELS FACE BANEuropean Union officials plan to propose bans on imports of certain biofuels, an indicator of growing concern there over the benefits of green policies. [C1.] FUNDS USE A LOOPHOLE Hedge funds and other activist investors have been exploiting a loophole that allows them to avoid reporting their stock purchases in a particular company. DealBook: Andrew Ross Sorkin. [C1.] CUTS COMING AT CITIGROUP Citigroup is expected to announce on Tuesday that it is eliminating at least 4,000 jobs, cutting its stock dividend and adding another big investment by foreign investors to shore up its finances. [C1.] A PLEA BY TOYOTA'S CHIEF Toyota's president, Katsuaki Watanabe, below, used the forum of the Detroit auto show to address his employees in the wake of a series of recalls. ''Each individual must carry the responsibility'' for ensuring quality, from design to manufacturing and selling company cars and trucks, Mr. Watanabe said. [C5.] TOO MANY PLANES SOLD? Sales of Airbus planes in the last few years have never been better. But some analysts say Airbus and its chief rival, Boeing, have so many planes to deliver in the next five years that it is bound to affect future sales. [C4.] ILLEGAL CATCH Europe's appetite for fish is so great that it has led to a thriving trade where fish is caught and shipped illegally beyond the limits of government quotas or treaties. [A1.] BIG DROP IN SEARS PROFITSears Holdings, the combination of Sears and Kmart, said profit would fall by 60 percent in the current quarter ending Feb. 2, compared with last year. The news sent its stock tumbling 6 percent. Sears blamed a tough economy, but few of its rivals have warned of a profit decline for the crucial fourth quarter, which is raising questions about Sears's strategy. [C4.] FORECLOSURES IN BALTIMORE Single women have been among the fastest-growing groups of homeowners facing foreclosure in recent years -- and Baltimore provides an example of how the losses can hurt families and a community. [A1.] CANDIDATES ON THE ECONOMY A look at the various economic stimulus plans proposed by the presidential candidates. [A17.] A LOBBY FOR GAME MAKERS The video game industry intends to establish a political action committee to donate money to friendly politicians and candidates. [C5.] FIGHTING SEXUAL PREDATORSMySpace, the country's biggest social-networking Web site, has agreed with attorneys general of 49 states to take new steps to protect children from sexual predators on its site and has agreed to lead an effort to develop technology to verify the ages and identities of Internet users. [B3.] Facebook's online games A well-known Silicon Valley entrepreneur has built a company called Zynga to develop online games that work on the pages of popular sites like Facebook and MySpace. Advertising. [C5.] EX-TIMESMAN TO WRITE COLUMN Howell Raines, who lost the top newsroom job at The New York Times in 2003 amid public rancor and scandal, will become a media columnist -- covering, among others, The Times -- at Conde Nast Portfolio. [C9.] BETTER LOUNGES More airlines are sharing costs -- and saving money -- when building new luxurious lounges for passengers. [C6.] URL: http://www.nytimes.com SUBJECT: PHARMACEUTICALS INDUSTRY (90%); PHARMACEUTICAL PREPARATION MFG (90%); LIPID LOWERING AGENTS (90%); CLINICAL TRIALS (78%); COMPANY PROFITS (77%); CORN MARKETS (76%); FOREIGN INVESTMENT (76%); IMPORT TRADE (76%); BUSINESS FORECASTS (76%); ENERGY MARKETS (76%); PRICE INCREASES (76%); METALS MARKETS (76%); BEEF & CATTLE MARKETS (74%); BIOFUELS (74%); CHOLESTEROL (73%); DIVIDENDS (72%); HOLDING COMPANIES (70%); MOTOR VEHICLES (69%); LABOR UNIONS (67%); HEDGE FUNDS (66%); FORECLOSURE (60%); STOCK EXCHANGES (76%) COMPANY: SCHERING-PLOUGH CORP (58%); CITIGROUP INC (91%); AIRBUS SAS (53%); DETROIT AUTO AUCTION (53%); BOEING CO (53%) TICKER: SGP (NYSE) (58%); CGP (LSE) (57%); C (NYSE) (91%); BOE (LSE) (53%); BAB (BRU) (53%); BA (NYSE) (53%); 7661 (TSE) (52%); 8710 (TSE) (91%) INDUSTRY: NAICS325620 TOILET PREPARATION MANUFACTURING (58%); NAICS325412 PHARMACEUTICAL PREPARATION MANUFACTURING (58%); NAICS325411 MEDICINAL & BOTANICAL MANUFACTURING (58%); SIC2844 PERFUMES, COSMETICS, & OTHER TOILET PREPARATIONS (58%); SIC2834 PHARMACEUTICAL PREPARATIONS (58%); SIC2833 MEDICINAL CHEMICALS & BOTANICAL PRODUCTS (58%); NAICS523120 SECURITIES BROKERAGE (91%); NAICS522210 CREDIT CARD ISSUING (91%); NAICS522110 COMMERCIAL BANKING (91%); SIC6021 NATIONAL COMMERCIAL BANKS (91%); NAICS336411 AIRCRAFT MANUFACTURING (53%); SIC3721 AIRCRAFT (53%); NAICS336414 GUIDED MISSILE & SPACE VEHICLE MANUFACTURING (53%); NAICS336412 AIRCRAFT ENGINE & ENGINE PARTS MANUFACTURING (53%); SIC3761 GUIDED MISSILES & SPACE VEHICLES (53%) GEOGRAPHIC: UNITED STATES (79%); EUROPE (79%) LOAD-DATE: January 15, 2008 LANGUAGE: ENGLISH GRAPHIC: PHOTO DOCUMENT-TYPE: Summary PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company 1186 of 1231 DOCUMENTS The New York Times
Late Edition - Final G.M. Buys Stake in Maker of Ethanol From Waste BYLINE: By MATTHEW L. WALD SECTION: Section C; Column 0; Business/Financial Desk; Pg. 3 LENGTH: 744 words General Motors, eager to ensure a supply of fuel for the big fleet of flex-fuel ethanol-capable vehicles it is building, has joined the rush into alternative energy and invested in a company that intends to produce ethanol from crop wastes, wood chips, scrap plastic, rubber and even municipal garbage. Rick Wagoner, G.M.'s chairman and chief executive, announced the investment on Sunday in a speech at the opening of the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. The company purchased an equity stake in Coskata, a start-up company in Warrenville, Ill., that plans to make ethanol without using corn. G.M. would not say how much it paid or how big a stake it took in the company. Coskata plans to build a pilot-scale plant this year in Warrenville, William Roe, the president and chief executive of Coskata, said in a briefing with reporters last week. It has demonstrated all the phases of its technology but has not linked them together in an operating plant, he acknowledged. Putting money into the fuel business is new for car companies, said Jeffrey Leetsma, the president of the Automotive Hall of Fame, in Dearborn, Mich., and a car historian. ''I think this could be new ground,'' he said. Henry Ford, he said, established rubber plantations in Brazil to try to break the Dutch cartel, but in the modern era the car companies have generally not invested in fuel. ''I don't really see the logic of it,'' said Christopher Flavin, president of the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington environmental group. ''It's not particularly an industry they know well, or have expertise in.'' Companies like G.M., he said, could be more effective by concentrating on the fuel efficiency of their products.. But Lee Schipper, a visiting scholar at the transportation center of the University of California, Berkeley, said that a new method to make ethanol ''presents them with a way of wiggling the industry out of fuel economy standards.'' California is seeking a standard based on how much carbon is added to the atmosphere, he said, and ethanol made from waste materials could result in substantially less carbon per mile. ''If I were that company and I really believed in the process, why wait for someone else to invest?'' he said. Coskata is one of many companies, and far from the leader, in an emerging world of start-up firms that are making alternative fuels with a mix-and-match approach to existing technologies. In Coskata's case it is a combination of gasification and bacterial action. The first step is cooking the raw feedstock into synthesis gas, a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide. That gas is cooled and fed to bacteria that consume it and excrete ethanol. Coskata is not the only company pursuing the gas-to-bacteria-to-fuel route, but claims its process gives more ethanol per ton of raw material -- 100 gallons -- and uses less water, less than one gallon for each gallon of ethanol. If it can be done economically, the Coskata process has three large advantages over corn-based ethanol, according to General Motors. First, it uses a cheaper feedstock that would not compete with food production. Second, the feedstock is available all over the country, a crucial point since ethanol cannot be shipped from the corn belt to areas of high gasoline demand in existing pipelines. In addition, the process appears to require less electricity and natural gas, meaning that making it would not release as much carbon. The product would qualify for a federal tax exemption for ethanol. Mr. Roe said that ''at full production, Coskata ethanol should be 50 cents to $1 cheaper than gasoline at the pump,'' and that the total production cost would be under $1 a gallon when the fuel begins flowing in 2010 or 2011. Mary Beth Stanek, G.M.'s director for energy and environment, said the process showed ''near-term readiness'' and that no scientific work was involved to commercialize it. ''It's literally just physical building,'' she said. Her company intends to help get the fuel into pumps around the country, she said. Many of G.M.'s vehicles are already capable of running on a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, but that fuel has not become widely available. Most ethanol is used in a blend with 90 percent gasoline. Coskata is financed in part by Vinod Khosla, the computer entrepreneur turned venture capitalist, but is only one of the companies he is backing to produce ethanol without corn. Directory: ~hesterj -> Entrepreneur Entrepreneur -> Byline: By richard siklos section: Section C; Column 5; Business/Financial Desk; Pg. 1 Length Download 3.51 Mb. Share with your friends:
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