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Data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) showed cash remittances from OFWs grew by mere 1.5% to $2.301 billion in February from the $2.267 billion a year ago, marking the smallest increment since August 2018’s 0.9% dip. February growth was also slower than the year-ago 4.5% increase.
That brought year-to-date cash inflows to $4.784 billion, three percent more than the $4.647 billion recorded in 2018’s first two months that recorded a bigger 7.1% increase.
“This growth was supported by the increase in remittances from both land-based ($3.73 billion) and sea-based ($1.06 billion) workers, which rose by one percent and 10.5%, respectively,” the BSP explained in a statement.
Personal remittances — which include transfers in kind — similarly edged up by a six-month-low 1.2% to $2.557 billion in February from $2.528 billion a year ago, fueling a 2.3% rise in year-to-date inflows to $5.302 billion from $5.182 billion.
The United States was the biggest source of overall remittances in the first two months, accounting for 35.5%, followed by Saudi Arabia, Singapore, United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, Japan, Canada, Qatar, Hong Kong and Germany, the central bank reported. “The combined remittances from these countries accounted for 77.3% of total cash remittances for January to February 2019,” the central bank said in its statement.
“The relative slow growth in OFW remittances in February 2019 may fundamentally have been largely bought about by the slower global economic growth outlook amid the lingering US-China trade war and uncertainties related to Brexit that also slowed down the economies of the United Kingdom, European Union and their major trading partners around the world,” Michael L. Ricafort, economist at Rizal Commercial Banking Corp., said in a mobile phone message when asked for comment on the latest remittance data.
Sought separately for comment, Ruben Carlo O. Asuncion, chief economist of the Union Bank of the Philippines, Inc., said that February’s increase could be attributed to upcoming student graduation. “… [T]his is before graduation month for the country. This increase may have been due to consumption reasons, probably, celebrations and reunions,” Mr. Asuncion said.
At the same time, he said that February’s growth was slower than the 3.6% increase expected by the UnionBank Economic Research Unit.
“The steady stream of dollars help fund peso purchasing power, almost assuring that household consumption continues, while also augmenting the sustained struggles of the export sector,” Mr. Mapa said.
Cash remittances increased by 3.1% — marking the slowest annual increase on record — to $28.943 billion last year from 2017’s $28.06 billion, a little past the central bank’s three-percent growth projection for 2018.
The central bank projects these inflows to sustain three percent growth this year.
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However, the International Cricket Council is set to send a World XI to Pakistan in September.
Pakistan, who had lingered at eighth in the world rankings in recent times, convincingly beat powerhouses India in the final at the Oval by 180 runs to lift the title regarded as the mini World Cup.
In occupied Kashmir, member of the so-called Kashmir Assembly, Engineer Abdur Rasheed, has said that the celebrations held all across the territory after Pakistan's victory over India in Champions Trophy was Kashmiris' referendum against India.
Pakistan coach Mickey Arthur said he hoped a proposed World XI visit to the country later this year went ahead after his side served notice of their enduring talent with a stunning Champions Trophy final win over India.
It is a similarity between two of its biggest events that has led to a rethink, while Richardson expressed his hope that future World Twenty20s could become more inclusive with up to 20 nations invited to participate.
"We just had to keep believing. they kept on believing, trusting their roles (and) trusting the game-plan that "Saffy" (Sarfraz) and I had set up", said Arthur for whom this was a first major tournament success after spells in charge of both his native South Africa and Australia.
Ironically, Pakistan had edged West Indies for the final spot in the Champions Trophy due to their eighth place ranking.
He added: "The fact is that World T20s do attract a lot of interest, they generate significant revenue for the television companies, but most importantly from our point of view they provide us with an opportunity to give more opportunities to more teams". We don't get the home advantage like other teams. We came here as a number eight ranked team and won the tournament.
"It might not be necessary to continue with two 50-over tournaments going forward".
"It was a great achievement by the boys and full credit to them. I'm optimistic that they'll be given serious consideration to have every chance of succeeding".
How do you feel about the David Harris signing? He's a very instinctive player, which unfortunately we've seen that first-hand. He has agreed to terms on a two-year contract with former division rival New England Patriots .
The National Health Service said that 17 patients were still being treated in hospital, of whom nine remain in critical condition. Cundy has promised to share with relevant authorities any issues that need to be addressed immediately to protect public safety.
Since then, Kansas City is 21-14 and has made gradual progress in digging out of the bad start. "He threw more changeups tonight". Kansas City tacked on another run in the third when Whit Merrifield drove in a run with a sacrifice fly to right field.
Among flagship species for conservation, Lonesome George is perhaps the most renowned. Long thought to be the sole survivor of a species of giant Galápagos tortoise (Geochelone abingdoni), this conservation icon may not be alone for much longer. Researchers headed by investigators at Yale University report these findings in work published online on April 30th in the journal Current Biology.
Lonesome George originates from Pinta, an isolated, northerly island of Galápagos visited only occasionally by scientists and fishermen. In the late 1960s, it was noted that the tortoise population on this island had dwindled close to extinction. Indeed, in 1972 only a single male, Lonesome George, was found.
He was immediately brought into captivity at the Charles Darwin Research Station on the island of Santa Cruz, where he is housed with two female tortoises from a species found on the neighboring island of Isabela. After 35 years, Lonesome George remains uninterested in passing on his unique genes and has failed to produce offspring. His status as the “rarest living creature” (Guinness Records) and the continuing saga surrounding the search for a mate have positioned Lonesome George as a potent conservation icon, not just for the Galápagos, but worldwide.
In the new work, Dr. Michael Russello (presently at the University of British Columbia Okanagan), Dr. Adalgisa Caccone, Dr. Jeffrey Powell, and colleagues, with the strong support and cooperation of the Galápagos National Park and Charles Darwin Research Station, studied the evolutionary history of a species of Galápagos tortoise (G. becki) on Isabela Island that was previously known to be genetically mixed. The study analyzed the distribution of genetic variation within two G. becki populations across the nuclear genome relative to a large database including individuals from all 11 extant species of Galápagos tortoises. The nearly extinct G. abingdoni on Pinta was added to the analysis for the first time by way of genetic-data collection from six museum specimens, also including Lonesome George. Population genetic analyses revealed that one tortoise sampled on Isabela Island is clearly a first-generation hybrid between the native tortoises from the islands of Isabela and Pinta. That is, this tortoise has half his genes in common with Lonesome George; unfortunately, it is a male. Given that there are well over 2,000 tortoises of G. becki on Isabela Island and a first-generation hybrid was detected in a very small subset of the population, there is hope that a more thorough sampling could reveal a genetically pure Pinta tortoise. In the event additional individuals of Pinta ancestry are discovered, a captive-breeding and repatriation program may be enacted for species recovery. These findings offer the potential for transforming the legacy of Lonesome George from an enduring symbol of rarity to a conservation success story.
The researchers include Michael A. Russello of University of British Columbia Okanagan in Kelowna, British Columbia; Luciano B. Beheregaray of Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia; James P. Gibbs of State University of New York in Syracuse, New York; Thomas Fritts of University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, New Mexico; Nathan Havill, Jeffrey R. Powell, and Adalgisa Caccone of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.
Russello et al.: “Lonesome George Is Not Alone among Galápagos Tortoises.” Publishing in Current Biology 17, R317-318, May 1, 2007.
Annual Town Meeting this spring will act on 44 articles, including requests as varied as banning mechanical leaf blowers, allowing pawn shops in town and creating a hefty legal fund.
Members will also set the fiscal 2013 operating budget, decide capital spending and hear half a dozen citizen petitions.
The annual session starts April 24 with a report from selectmen.
Public outrage over the $576 average tax increase set in December will likely play into this year’s budget debate.
Selectmen have asked Chief Financial Officer Mary Ellen Kelley to present an operating budget that raises the tax levy by only 1 ½ percent.
Kelley had recommended the maximum 2 ½ percent increase to help fund a $226.3 million budget and maintain level services. She has said raising it to 1 ½ percent would mean $1.3 million in cuts.
Several resident petitions at the end of the warrant deal with the recent tax hike.
Town Meeting member Matt Calder is asking for a detailed report from the town on the assessing procedures.
Another resident petition seeks to prohibit the town and commercial landscapers from using mechanical leaf blowers.
The intent, according to John Cunningham’s petition, is to reduce the level of lung irritants and diseases. Residents would still be allowed to use the machines at home.
The Planning Board, under Article 8, will propose a new open space residential development bylaw for which more residential developers would be eligible. It would allow developers in R1, R2, R3 and R4 zones to build denser projects if they preserve wetlands or conserve a portion of the property for residents to use for passive or active recreation.
Under Article 7, selectmen will ask voters to consider amending the general bylaws to allow the board to issue pawnbroker licenses.
Southborough resident Christopher McCarthy, who owns Lowell Jewelry & Loan, wants to open a second pawn shop in downtown Framingham.
The Parks & Recreation Commission will ask Town Meeting to approve a 99-year lease for 6 acres at 21 Edgebrook Road.
Kelley proposes the town set up a “major litigation contingency fund” and stock it with $150,000 that the town could use to easily pay legal expenses that exceed $25,000. Selectmen and the Finance Committee are to be “kept apprised” of any expenditures.
Town Meeting will also consider a resolution article selectmen are sponsoring calling for support of the Citizens United movement and for Congress to set candidate spending limits.
L-3 Communications Integrated Systems L.P., Waco, Texas, is being awarded a $73,223,000 modification (P00041) to a previously awarded contract (HQ014711D0014) to add new scope which will be executed via the issuance of task orders. The basic contract ceiling is being increased by $73,223,000 from $564,153,809 to a maximum of $637,376,809. This modification will allow the contractor to procure three used aircraft required to modernize the High Altitude Observatory (HALO) systems used by the Missile Defense Agency to collect electro-optic and infrared imagery during tests of the Ballistic Missile Defense System. The work will be performed in Tulsa, Oklahoma, by L-3 Aeromet. The performance period is from July 2018 to approximately June 2021. Fiscal 2018 research, development, test and evaluation funds will be obligated on various task orders issued for HALO modernization efforts, which will include the added scope for aircraft procurements. The Missile Defense Agency, Huntsville, Alabama, is the contracting activity.
Raytheon Missile Systems, Tucson, Arizona, is awarded a $64,428,768 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for design agent and engineering support services for the Rolling Airframe Missile upgraded MK-31 Guided Missile Weapon System Improvement Program. The support procured is required to maintain current weapon system capability as well as resolve issues through design, systems, software maintenance, reliability, maintainability, quality assurance and logistics engineering services. This contract combines purchases for the Navy (90 percent) and the Federal Republic of Germany (7 percent) under a Memoranda of Understanding and the Arab Republic of Egypt (3 percent) under the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) Program. This contract includes options which, if exercised, would bring the cumulative value of this contract to $301,743,310. Work will be performed in Tucson, Arizona, and is expected to be completed September 2020. If all options are exercised, work will continue through July 2023. Fiscal 2018 research, development, testing and evaluation; fiscal 2017 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy); non-foreign military sales German; fiscal 2018 weapons procurement (Navy); FMS Arab Republic of Egypt; fiscal 2018 other procurement (Navy); and fiscal 2012 and 2017 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) funding in the amount of $14,573,033 will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Fiscal 2018 operations and maintenance (Navy) funding in the amount of $311,928 will be obligated at time of award and will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured under the exception 10 U.S. Code 2304(c)(4), International Agreement. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, District of Columbia, is the contracting activity (N00024-18-C-5431).
CoSTAR Services Inc.,* San Antonio, Texas, is awarded a $10,637,284 modification under a previously awarded indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract (N69450-17-D-1706) to exercise option one to extend services for base operations support services at Naval Air Station Jacksonville, Florida; Naval Station Mayport, Florida, and outlying areas. The work to be performed provides for regional base operations support services including, but not limited to, the following functions: facility investment, custodial, pest control, integrated solid waste management, and grounds maintenance and landscaping. After award of this option, the total cumulative contract value will be $20,987,428. Work will be performed in Jacksonville, Florida, and work is expected to be completed July 2019. No funds will be obligated at time of award. Fiscal 2018 operations and maintenance (Navy and Marine Corps); fiscal 2018 Navy working capital funds; fiscal 2018 Defense Health Program and other appropriations based on regional command requirements in the amount of $9,006,853 for recurring work will be obligated on individual task orders issued under the option period. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command Southeast, Jacksonville, Florida, is the contracting activity.
BAE Systems, Electronic Systems, Nashua, New Hampshire, is awarded $7,841,751 for modification P00004 to a previously awarded cost-plus-incentive-fee, firm-fixed-price contract (N00019-18-C-1003). This modification provides for technical interchange meetings, validation and verification system integration, field service representation and software development activities associated with the Electronic Warfare Test Station in support of the F-35 Reprogramming Labs. Work will be performed in Nashua, New Hampshire (34 percent); Point Mugu, California (28 percent); and San Francisco, California (38 percent), and is expected to be completed in December 2021. Fiscal 2018 research, development, test and evaluation (Marine Corps) funds in the amount of $3,454,644 will be obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity.
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, is awarded a $7,719,478 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for development and demonstration of advanced ocean battlespace capabilities. Work will be performed at the contractor’s facilities and various on-site locations with the Navy. Work is expected to be completed June 2023. Fiscal 2017 and 2018 research, development, test and evaluation funds in the amount of $1,527,255 will be obligated at the time of award. Funds in the amount of $1,000,000 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured under long range solicitation N00014-18-S-B001, a long range Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) for science and technology projects for advancement and improvement of Navy and Marine Corps operations, including Ocean Battlespace Sensing. Proposals will be received throughout the year under the Long Range BAA, therefore, the number of proposals received in response to the solicitation is unknown. The Office of Naval Research, Arlington, Virginia, is the contracting activity (N00014-18-C-2036).
Raytheon Intelligence, Information and Services, Indianapolis, Indiana, is awarded $7,511,079 for cost-plus-fixed-fee order N6339418F0047 under a previously-awarded basic ordering agreement (N00024-16-G-5437) to acquire necessary materials to support Mk 57 NATO Sea Sparrow Surface Missile System Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile (ESSM) ordnance alteration efforts for LHA- and LHD- class surface combatants. ESSM is a medium-range, semi-active homing missile that makes flight corrections via radar and midcourse data uplinks. Work will be performed in Hauppauge, New York (80 percent), and Yorktown, Virginia (20 percent), and is expected to be complete by July 2019. Fiscal 2018 other procurement (Navy) funding in the amount of $5,007,386 and fiscal 2017 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) funding in the amount of $2,503,693 will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured, in accordance with 10 U.S. Code 2304(c)(4) (international agreement). The Naval Surface Warfare Center, Port Hueneme Division, Port Hueneme, California, is the contracting activity.
City Light & Power FTR LLC, Greenwood Village, Colorado, has been awarded a $52,384,455 modification (P00006) to a 50-year contract (SP0600-17-C-8327) with no option periods for additional utility services for the electric distribution system at Fort Riley, Kansas. This modification increases the obligated value from $3,770,580 to $6,020,209. This is a fixed-price with economic-price-adjustment contract. Locations of performance are Kansas and Colorado, with a Feb. 29, 2068, performance completion date. Using military service is Army. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2018 through 2068 Army operations and maintenance funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Energy, Fort Belvoir, Virginia.
Oakes Farms Food & Distribution Services LLC,* Naples, Florida, has been awarded a maximum $46,875,000 firm-fixed-price with economic-price-adjustment, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for fresh fruits and vegetables. This was a competitive acquisition with four responses received. This is a 60-month contract with no option periods. Location of performance is Florida, with a July 19, 2023, performance completion date. Using customers are Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, Marine Corps and Department of Agriculture schools. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2018 through 2023 defense working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (SPE300-18-D-P332).
Watterson Construction Co., Anchorage, Alaska, was awarded a $28,785,000 firm-fixed-price contract for construction of Missile Field 4 Mechanical Electrical Building at Fort Greely, Alaska. Four bids were solicited with four bids received. Work will be performed in Fort Greely, Alaska, with an estimated completion date of Sept. 30, 2021. Fiscal 2018 military construction funds in the amount of $28,785,000 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Anchorage, Alaska, is the contracting activity (W911KB-18-C-0030).
DBOC JV,* Fairfax, Virginia, was awarded a $20,000,000 firm-fixed-price contract for ammunition industrial base engineering support services. Bids were solicited via the Internet with one received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of July 19, 2023. U.S. Army Contracting Command, New Jersey, is the contracting activity (W15QKN-18-D-0111).
Luhr Bros. Inc., Columbia, Illinois, was awarded a $9,000,000 firm-fixed-price contract for rock dike construction at Locks and Dam 52, River Mile 939 in Brookport, Illinois. Bids were solicited via the Internet with one received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Dec. 31, 2020. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Louisville, Kentucky, is the contracting activity (W912QR-18-D-0034).
Serco Inc., Reston, Virginia, has been awarded a $12,624,343 contract to provide highly qualified and specialized personnel who have the requisite technical expertise and knowledge in their respective functional areas to U.S. Air Forces Central Command staffs responsible for: program management, operational employment of airpower, joint operations, intelligence, logistics, information technology, air operations center operations, deliberate and contingency planning and supporting programs, operational employment of air combat weapons systems, and other functional areas required by mission demands. Work will be performed at Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina; Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio; and Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar. The contract is expected to be completed by Aug. 31, 2019. This is a result of a competitive acquisition. Fiscal 2018 operation and maintenance overseas contingency operations funds in the amount of $12,624,343 will fund the current requirement. Headquarters Air Combat Command Acquisition Management and Integration Center, Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia is the contracting activity (FA4890-18-F-5001).
CEO Mike Slade has assembled a team of the best and brightest to create the Web’s first real company. All they have to do is meet five tough challenges.
The first wave on the Web was spun out of romance. All of a sudden there was a new space, uncharted, open, free — cyberspace — with few requirements and fewer rules. It was open to exploration and self-expression, and an unspoken etiquette was all that was needed to maintain order among its members. It was Web-stock.
The second wave on the Web was spun out of greed. All of a sudden anything with “net” or “web” in its name could attract venture capital or go public; in the last 18 months, investors have thrown something like $3.5 billion at the Web. The Web was a place you went if you wanted to cash in and cash out — fast. It was Web-rush.
Now we are into the third wave on the Web — and it is spun out of a newfound seriousness of purpose. All of a sudden, the bubble has popped and there’s talk of a shakeout — the heady IPOs and sky-high stock market multiples look like a passing phase in the Web’s evolution rather than a permanent destination. Now it’s time for a long hard look at what it takes to build a serious company on the Web. It’s Web-business.
On the outskirts of Seattle, the men and women of Starwave Corp. are betting that the third wave will be their wave — and they are taking the Web very seriously. Backed by billionaire Paul Allen, boasting a collection of the best and brightest talent from the converging worlds of publishing, broadcasting, entertainment, and software, and offering a stable of some of the Web’s most successful programming, Starwave is making a serious bid to be considered the Web’s first real company.
This isn’t a romantic fantasy, and it certainly isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme. In fact, in the course of building a serious company, Starwave has lost serious money.
Building a Web site is easy. Building a Web business is anything but. A close look at the challenges facing Starwave reveals the still-emerging shape of business on the Web. The company’s challenges suggest the nature and scale of what lies ahead for any group of ambitious, committed pioneers who set out to create a defining company on the Web.
How far can egoless leadership and patient capital take you?
if you want to know CEO Mike Slade’s idea of running Starwave, look at the two magazines on the coffee table in his office: Nation’s Business and MAD magazine. That’s the dichotomy — call it casual intensity — that runs through all of Starwave right to its CEO.
Starwave is headquartered in an anonymous office building next to a drab Seattle freeway. It isn’t until you get off the elevator and enter the open and bright reception area that you get the feeling you’ve arrived someplace a little … different.
Slade, 39, wears khakis and a knit shirt, and his hair is thick and spiky — the look of a man just back from two sets of tennis and a quick shower. But once he starts talking, the words come spilling out in a flood that barely leaves room for questions.
Ask to see Slade’s business plan for Starwave and he laughs: “Which one?” Since he joined the company in February 1993, Slade has generated more business plans built on more financial models than most CEOs do in their entire lives. The reason for the proliferation is simple. There is no single plan or model for doing business on the Web because there is no business — yet.
Slade has come by his skepticism the old-fashioned way — he’s earned it. Under Slade’s leadership, Starwave has gone from 8 people to more than 280, including 55 top-flight software engineers. It has created some of the best-known and most-visited programming on the Web : ESPNET SportsZone, Mr. Showbiz, Outside Online, Family Planet. It has also reportedly spent something on the order of $60 million. The only way Slade and his colleagues can make sense of all this red ink is to treat the entire Web as an R&D laboratory.
Slade has a big advantage in this R&D waiting game. Sitting behind him is Starwave’s main investor, Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen. Having access to Allen’s patient money has enabled the company to develop a long-term strategy that’s otherwise impossible in a hyperpaced, Web-based IPO market that expects a company to go public within 18 months of its founding.
“Paul understands that you have to seek risk — that a new medium plus big risk equals a big reward. And because of that he’s allowed us to run this company like the new media operation of a big company rather than like a startup,” says Slade.
Allen has also given Slade the chance to change his mind — and the company’s fundamental direction. When Slade joined Starwave, the company had no content or product focus — it was trying to make something happen in interactive media, possibly as a tools company, possibly as a content company. Slade focused Starwave on opportunities in sports, entertainment, kids, and families — and identified a three-pronged strategy of online services, CD-ROMs, and broadcast. Then, one year later, Starwave did a sharp turn onto the Net. The credit for the strategy, says Allen, goes to Slade.
The promise of new media has always been about convergence : the digitization of everything that makes possible a combining of text, graphics, video, audio — delivered through another convergence that combines television and computing. If Slade’s experience is any indication, convergence is still at the heart of new media — but not technological convergence. What really matters is human convergence : melding talents from a wide variety of existing media — every medium, in fact, that predates the Web, from radio to film – and existing industries — from software to entertainment.
Can your technology keep pace — or even better, set the pace?
If Mike Slade is an egoless leader, Patrick Naughton, Starwave’s senior vice president of technology, is an angry young man. Eight years ago, when he joined Sun Microsystems as a brash young programmer, he took great pride in his status as an outsider. But now he’s 31 and widely accorded the status that goes with being one of the most gifted programmers in the world. So he bristles at being left outside — and today, he’s bristling at three old friends from Sun.
Naughton has a genuine claim as a founding father of Java. In 1990, a 25-year-old Naughton told McNealy he was quitting Sun to join Steve Jobs at NeXT. Sun was hopeless when it came to software and user interfaces, he complained, and he wanted to go to a company that knew what it was doing. McNealy asked Naughton to write a memo outlining his indictment. The CEO forwarded the email up and down the management chain; the electronic conversations it sparked created the research project that became Java.
Naughton left Sun in the fall of 1994, but he has far from disappeared. Indeed, his decision to join Starwave is generally considered one of the company’s biggest coups. His programming skills give the company a major weapon in an uncertain competition where technology both defines the medium and continually reinvents it. Naughton and his engineers are scrambling to figure out ways to create distinctive Web experiences. Why would someone of Naughton’s reputation join a startup to design clever screen presentations of NBA box scores?
One of those “experiences” is Starwave TV, and it’s already in prototype. Imagine that you could watch the NBA finals on your computer, see footage of, say, Dennis Rodman going up for a rebound, touch the cursor to his moving figure — and instantly call up his entire career statistics. “Just think of Bloomberg TV and make it SportsZone on the PC,” says Naughton.
Can you assemble a team of unparalleled editorial talents — who are willing to obsolete their proven skills in pursuit of an unproven new business?
If Mike Slade is the heart of Starwave, then Senior Vice President Tom Phillips is its soul.
Tall and angular, with a frame that practically vibrates with nervous tension, topped by a thick shock of black hair, Phillips hardly looks the part. And, at age 41, he already holds the distinction of being one of the oldest people at Starwave. But alone among the people at the company, perhaps in the whole world of the commercial Web, Phillips knows what it means to ride the zeitgeist, to feel both the exhilaration and the decompression of the ride. As a founder of Spy magazine — one of the defining publications of the 1980s — he has seen what it’s like to be in the hottest enterprise in your medium, what it takes to hold such an emotional business together, and what it feels like when the air goes out of the balloon.
He also knows what building a creative, on-the-pulse-of-the-times company is ultimately all about: finding and recruiting those few people with the rare combination of great talent in their current career and a willingness to throw away that success to take a flier on something totally new, dangerously unproven — and potentially spectacular.
As homey as all this sounds, and as clever as Phillips’s categories are, the problem Starwave faces is the same that confronts most start-from-scratch communities: Is it a new town they all share, or just a random collection of neighborhoods? The answer may determine whether Starwave becomes the first big Web company, or instead remains a series of loosely linked Web projects. At the moment, the company’s various editorial departments are very much next-door neighbors but operate in separate realities: these homesteaders are a far cry from collaborating to build one town they can all inhabit.
How do you produce as much original material as possible — and leverage relationships with brand-name partners for the rest?
“I think you can accurately describe this as bedlam,” says Susan Mulcahy, editor-in-chief and publisher of Mr. Showbiz, as she walks through its offices and gestures at the posters and Hollywood detritus.
In cultural terms, no one has come as far to Starwave as Mulcahy. Witness a short inventory of items in her office : a copy of a 1952 New Yorker cover, a postcard of the St. Regis Hotel bar, a Henry Alford column about walking around Manhattan in pajamas, a metal desk-spike from the New York Post city room, Norma Shearer and Rudolph Valentino paper dolls, a cheesy Mexican comic book (Páginas Intimas), and a 1950s plastic doll from New Jersey.
This office, combined with her languid-yet-nervous style emblematic of a proto-New York City magazine editor, makes Mulcahy seem like a rare orchid lost in the Olympic rainforest. In fact, however, Mulcahy’s journey to Starwave was shorter — in miles — than almost any other recruit’s.
When she agreed to develop an online entertainment service for Starwave in 1994, Mulcahy was burned out from the New York scene and living in a trailer in Joseph, a small town in eastern Oregon. “I was tired of the downsizing, the chronic kvetching, and the overwhelming sense of going nowhere,” she says. So she had lit out for Oregon and a self-created life, struggling to make a living writing articles and screenplays.
When Phillips first contacted her, Mulcahy had never so much as gone online. So she bought a 2400-baud modem and signed up with America Online. “A few days later,” she recalls, “I called him up and said, ‘Why is anybody interested in this? It takes an hour to get a page.'” But Phillips was insistent, and six months later, Mulcahy moved north — “partly because I wanted to eat again,” she laughs.
The service she created and now directs, Mr. Showbiz, offers perhaps the best view into the challenges facing Starwave both externally, as it tries to build a business on the Web, and internally, as it struggles to coordinate its various operations. Mr. Showbiz has more than 20,000 users per day, generating about 600,000 visits and 12 million hits per month. Those numbers make Mr. Showbiz a hit by Web standards — but they’re just a fraction of the traffic at the mighty SportsZone. As a result, Mr. Showbiz commands ad rates of only $4,500 per month, about a third of the rates charged by its neighbor down the hall.