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To: KeepItSimple who wrote (56989)	5/17/1999 2:18:00 AM
From: Bill Harmond	Respond to of 164684

>>And their ad rates have gone down. Not that much, and it doesn't matter because their avails (availabilities...trade talk for inventory available for sale) have grown faster than the advertising marketplace and they are running at a 20% sell-out. Yahoo could pull an OPEC cut their rates by 80%. That would change the barriers-to-entry equation quickly. The key sponsorship areas like finance have very high rates and have seen no softening.

To: KeepItSimple who wrote (56989)	5/17/1999 8:57:00 AM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Respond to of 164684

VaultReports.com dishes the dirt on top companies By Denise Duclaux NEW YORK, May 16 (Reuters) - A trio of former college buddies is transforming corporate America's proverbial watercooler into a vast online forum that dishes the dirt on heavyweights such as Morgan Stanley Dean Witter <MWD.N>, Microsoft Corp. <MSFT.O>, the New York Times <NYT.N> and Yahoo! <YHOO.O>. "We saw so many of our friends disillusioned out there," said Mark Oldman, the 30-year-old co-founder of VaultReports.com. "There is only so much somebody can get from a company's shiny happy brochure," Looking for an antidote to the 9-to-5 blues, Oldman and his two friends, Samer Hamadeh, 29, and H.S. Hamadeh, 28, founded VaultReports.com in 1996 to give employees the lowdown on prospective workplaces. The Silicon Alley firm employs a squad of about 15 editors to interview company insiders and then cobble their findings into detailed reports sold in bookstores for about $25 each. Although VaultReports.com touts about 120 individual company reports as well as roughly 24 industry reports in print, its Web site offers profiles on close to 1,000 of America's elite firms in such sectors as banking, technology, media and fashion. Employers can post classified ads on the site, while employees can receive job openings by e-mail. But the three entrepreneurs, whose firm pulls in about $4 million each year, took their operations one notch further about a month ago. They added an uncensored message board to each company listing on the Web site, allowing workers to gripe about their bosses anonymously. "Companies are telling us it's very useful to have those message boards out, because it tells about employee morale and allows workers to air concerns they have in an anonymous way to a third party," Oldman said. Some companies, however, are less receptive to having their dirty laundry aired in cyberspace. Morgan Stanley recently blocked access to the site, where their workers have complained about managers by name and claimed their pay did not compare to that of rival firms. A Morgan Stanley spokeswoman said it was simply company policy that employees use the Internet solely for professional purposes and declined further comment. VaultReports.com, however, was not satisfied with that answer. Last week, the company parked a mobile billboard proclaiming "Bitch about your boss" outside Morgan Stanley's Times Square office and handed out fliers offering another, unblocked address to the site. "This is the sort of feedback that companies should take notice of. In this tight labor market they need to retain employees," Oldman said. "If employees are unhappy about something, it's important to get it to the upper echelons." Scott Scanlon, chairman and chief executive officer of human resources consultant Hunt-Scanlon Advisors, agrees the site offers useful information for both employees and employers, but said he sympathizes with Morgan Stanley. "I think in some way it's unproductive if you have employees spending time posting complaints," he said. "It isn't the best use of time, and people get carried away going into the site and make a mountain out of molehole. But it does create a place where people can go in and vent." VaultReports.com says pay is one of the top concerns of employees, but issues can range from work schedules and rival firms to late-night hot spots and fashions do's and don'ts. "It ranges from very intelligent discourse on important issues to completely frivolous and silly comments," admitted co-founder H.S Hamadeh. One PaineWebber <PWJ.N> insider interviewed by VaultReports.com touts his firm's relatively liberal nature that allows "some long-haired and multi-earinged employees." A Goldman Sachs <GS.N> counterpart vents "sometimes I don't even have enough time to take lunch - or even go to the bathroom." "It's completely safe to be an out gay, bisexual or lesbian here," says an America On...