Time Magazine's Best Lists: Worst Business Deals

I have been summarizing my thoughts on Time Magazine's Best Lists over the last several weeks and hadn't even touched their business lists. Until now. I found the magazine's Worst Business Deals" very interesting.

* The Blackstone Group going public. It looked hot after years of some rather amazing deals, but lost 38 percent of its value in no time after going public. In my experience, VC firms are the epitome of feast and famine. It isn't the kind of place one puts the family nest egg in. However, you can't count these guys out yet. The stock market is a long term game. It is only a bad deal if you cash in from the early highs.

* DaimlerChrysler pays to unload Chrysler. After an amazing array of mathematic antics, Daimler actually paid $2 billion to unload the company to Cerberus. With mathematic geniuses like this, is there any question as to why Daimler was going broke?

* Microsoft overpays for Facebook. First it was MySpace and Murdoch, then it was Google and YouTube. Microsoft simply had to get into the social networking phenomenon. The one it bought a stake in was Facebook for $240 million. The deal gives Facebook an implied value of $17 million, but is only expected to make $30 million a year. Time Magazine fears it looks like AOL a few years ago. I agree.

* KKR and Goldman Sach's pull the plug on Harman Industries International. Time notes that "Private equity shop Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group's private equity unit pulled out of their $8 billion offer to buy high-end audio equipment manufacturer Harman Industries International, claiming a "material adverse change" in Harman's business. Harman's stock plummeted more than 20%." Harsh indeed!

* Bank of America dumps $2 billion dollars into Countrywide. "Better make that $1 billion — at least that's what B of A's investment was worth as of December 1. Bank of America thought it had picked an opportune time in August to invest in Countrywide's mortgage machine, but the mortgage mess hadn't bottomed out yet." Bank of America was already limping along due to its troubling approach to providing credit to its clients. This situation only makes matters worse.

Some of these stories are not as entertaining or as sexy as some of the others covered, but their implications are far reaching financially. And they are far reaching to investors, customers, and obviously the employees

Time Magazine's Best Lists: The Top Bad Choices, Religious Stories

I like to consider myself fairly positive. I like to think I look at a glass as half full versus half empty. But I really disliked Time Magazines "Best Lists". They were smug, sometimes anti-American, and hostile to traditional values. This post will be about the bad choices because my only problem will be where to stop. In fact, there are so many, the negative will take a few more posts. It will be far more difficult to find some good choices to write about, which I will try to do in the future.

The top ten worst? Where do I start? The religious section struck me as particularly disturbing. Here's the worst, in my opinion, of their best:

* Mother Teresa's "crisis" of faith. She wrote about how she wished she could had felt God's presence more, Time interprets this as doubting her faith. This woman put her faith to action for decades and allowed her head to rule rather than a heart saddened by the poverty she witnessed daily. Quite a leap on Time's part indeed!

* The "greening" of Evangelicalism. The impression you get from reading Time is that churches throughout the US are passionately proselytizing in the pursuit of a better environment. The near religious fervor behind Global Warming has overflowed into Christian churches, we are told. I go to church and am something of a student of what is going on in church culture. I'm surprised to find the "reach" described by Time. Furthermore, the hodge podge category included criticism of evangelicals for failing to support Sen. Sam Brownback because he converted to Catholicism. Confused? Join the club. By the way, I have watched this 2008 race closely and had no idea Brownback was Catholic. I assumed voters didn't support him for the same reason as me -- he didn't have a prayer.

* The "ROAR" of atheist Books. According to Time, atheism is hot. Every dinner party, every cocktail party, and every casual conversations includes discussions about books such as "Letter to a Christian Nation" and "God is Not Great." I guess I need to get out more often! I admit, I live in the Bible Belt, but I like to think I'm well read on what's going on outside of my neighborhood. This phenomenon is new to me and seems to almost support an agenda of the magazine.

* The trials of New Life Church. A single congregation and its personal drama is a top 10 religious story of 2007? Muslim religious leaders supporting democratic efforts in Iraq at the risk of death isn't on this list, but the falling of an evangelical leader (Ted Haggard) is? The same church was the recent victim of a gunman who killed two of it members. Very sad. leave these people alone, and get real about the choices.

* The Creation Museum opens. I found this particularly offensive and shows the magazine's agenda. It points out that the new institution has had huge numbers of visitors, but "reaffirms the scientific validity of the Flintstones." So much for objective media. Time doesn't believe that evolution is a theory (but is a "fact") and finds the fact that many Christians believe the planet was created by God and only around 6,000 years ago, ridiculous. Besides being bad journalism, the whoe approach to the article is impolite.

My next review will focus on the news stories. This will likely be a multi-part article on the bad side alone and I am afraid I will have little to say as far as good stories. We will have to see.

Kevin Price is the Host of the Houston Business Show (M-F at 11 AM on CNN 650). He is also Publisher of the Houston Business Review, which is available at no cost each week.

Time Magazine's Best Lists: Commercials

In my recent "list of lists" on Time Magazine's "Best" series, I have been pretty critical. I have to admit though, I did like some of their choices for commercials in 2007.

On the upside for commercials, I love their choice of the David Letterman and Oprah Winfree "love fest" while watching TV together. The two have had a much publicized chilling relationship for years and to get them together made for an eye catching and humorous ad.

The "Impossible is Nothing" ad for Adidas made you laugh (when you saw the cute, little soccer player), made you cry (when you understood the challenges the subject had gone through), and made you proud (when you read how that person over came such). Great stuff!
One ad campaign that I love, but didn't get much air time, was Gatorade's "Thief" campaign. It is funny, smart, and memorable. A must see.

American Express' "Tina Fey" examines the numerous challenge facing a business woman, any of which could be devastating and how refreshing it was that someone rescued her from one without her having to break a sweat.

On the down side, they didn't include any of the great Geico conspiracy ads (like the one on the Flintstones) or any of the Cavemen ads that birthed a TV show (which died quickly, but still, leading to a TV show is impressive!). This is because Time Magazine tries to be some what "high brow" in the way it approaches things, I must conclude.

But overall, I was pleased with Time's choices in this category. I will be reviewing magazine covers in a future post.

Kevin Price is Host of the Houston Business Show (M-F at 11 AM on CNN 650) and Publisher of the Houston Business Review. Receive that free ezine by clicking here.

Time Magazine's 50 Best Websites

Time Magazine is the king of lists. I don't believe any other magazine enjoys ranking things more than this media giant. Recently, I stumbled on their list of the 50 best websites. One of my favorite things to do is to assess the magazine's assessment. Often I have been critical because the magazine is notorious, in my opinion for promoting political agendas. This list, however, has done a solid job of compiling a useful and interesting group of sites. The following is the top ten, but the entire list deserves consideration.

Not surprising, number 1 on the list is GasBuddy.com. 750,000 volunteers notify the website where the best prices for gasoline can be found in almost any part of the country. With gas at over $4 a gallon in most US cities, this is a very helpful service.

Howcast.com is an innovative site that makes it possible to throw away the instruction manual for just about everything. The site is humorous and uses videos instead of mere words to get the message across. This is an excellent resource. It comes in at number 2.

Number 3 brings ILikeTotallyLoveIt.com. The name irritates me, but it is makes sense when you learn about the audience. This is a social shopping website. People post photos of items they like, leave and solicit comments about them, and other wise make shopping more fun. If you like that type of thing.

Omiru.com comes in at number 4. The site's tag line is "real style for real people." Of course, virtually every style publication and site makes similar claims, but this one may be true. It actually strives to make particular (and popular) fashions a good fit for the individual user. Interesting idea.

In our mentally and emotionally challenged culture, it should be no surprise to anyone that a site called PsychCentral.com would come in so high at number 5. This site comes with excellent assessment tools to help the user begin to understand what their needs are. Self-diagnosing can be dangerous, but understanding where to start is, well, a good beginning.

Travel sites for cheap deals are common place and appreciated, but inside information on the quality of a hotel is important. That is exactly what TripKick.com provides, right down to the best floors and rooms to avoid in specific hotels. For the frequent traveler, this is a must see site. It comes in at number 6.

WikiTravel.com provides something greatly missing from most travel sites today -- currency. People want to be kept up to date on the best deals, best rentals, best hotels, etc. They are not interested in last month's or even last week's information. WikiTravel.com comes in at number 7 and may actually solve many travel problems.

Coming in at number 8 is YahooAnswers.com. This may be my only major disagreement with the list. I have always found this site to be a pool of worthless information. However, if you always wanted to casually ask for information from people you do not know, this is the place to do it.

Ever wanted a useful site in the quest for nutritional information? You might want to take a serious look at number nine, Zeer. It has detailed information on food items and, better still, the comments of others on what is worth eating and why. Who would imagine, a user friendly food site.

Another site I had a few issues with is number 10, Afrigadget.com. The site's objective is to raise awareness about "simple, sustainable inventions in Africa." The site is actually quite informative and innovative and offers an enormous amount of practical information, particularly for struggling countries. But the site is also so narrow in focus and lacks daily updates, that I don't see how it deserved to be in the top ten.

So that's Time Magazine's top ten sites. Make sure you look at the other 40 on the list. I think that several others could and should be added to the list (while others are removed). Fortunately, Time Magazine allows me to make suggestions of my own. I suggest you let them know your opinions as well.

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Kevin Price is Host of the Houston Business Show (M-F at 11 AM on CNN 650) and Publisher of the Houston Business Review. Hear the show live and online at HoustonBusinessShow.com. Visit the archive of past shows here.

Time Magazine's Best Lists: Magazine Covers

The lists of "top ten" articles by Time Magazine for 2007 is impressive, to say the least. Most will not find much attention here, but there are several I found worthy of review. One category that is worthy of note was their choice of the best magazine covers.

Their number one choice was Texas Monthly's "Bum Steer" issue in which they make fun of Vice President Dick Cheney's hunting accident. All I can do is yawn. This is a story that received way too much play and I think Time should be embarrassed that it gave it such high praise. It really wasn't that funny.

However, they recover from their first choice with a cover from the New Yorker of Iranian President Ahmadinejad getting his foot tapped while reading a newspaper while sitting on the toilet (think Senator Larry Craig). This came after a comment he made at Columbia University in which he told the audience that Iraq doesn't have "a problem" with homosexuality (thanks to a death penalty for such activities). Hilarious.

I liked their choice of Steve Jobs of Apple with the title "iGod" from New York magazine. It was clever and funny, two important elements to successful covers.

Another excellent cover was of Stephen Colbert holding a "mini me" of himself on GQ. Colbert is hilarious and the vanity and audacity of the picture only adds to his amazing humor.

The Economist is one of my favorite magazines and its cover on the "End of Cheap Food" demonstrates why it is one of the smartest publications out there. A great choice of Time Magazine.

There are several others that I would have put in my ten and several of theirs that I would have eliminated, but I think the choices of magazine covers is better than other areas they ventured into.

Kevin Price is Host of the Houston Business Show (M-F at 11 AM on CNN 650) and Publisher of the Houston Business Review. Receive that free ezine by clicking here.

Time Magazine's Best Lists: The Top Bad Choices, Nonfiction Books

I've had plenty to say about Time's choices of religious stories for 2007 and am now going to look at a couple of its choices for nonfiction books.

It's number one choice, The World Without Us (by Alan Weisman), actually makes the case that the planet would be better off without humans. It is the typical environmental extremism discredited by the mainstream of society, with a more sophisticated writing style. The message is the same. According to Weisman, we need to leave. I wonder if he would be the first to volunter to leave?

Then there is Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA (by Tim Weiner). Another in the untold thousands of books trashing US intelligence. I've reviewed several such books on the topic and this is no more impressive than the others. When you read such you almost conclude that we would be better off without the resources such agencies provide. Such critics of the agency offer few suggestions on how to make it better. We need intelligence, develop something better than the CIA and don't merely be a critic.

There are a few choices that I liked and saw their value (especially Steve Martin's Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life). But the obvious political agenda in its other choices and incredibly overtly liberal agenda, made this list difficult to stomach.