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Friday,
March 15th
On this date last year...

"I am not believing what just happened today..."

I was to learn that both Click2Asia.com and EAST Magazine out here in Asia are shutting down at the very same time.

I'm still in shock!

On Click2Asia.com...

According to this article, Click2Asia is shutting down, along with A Magazine. I guess resistance is not futile afterall, eh? This is no bueno and I am personally very disappointed to learn of this event.

Many have assumed that Click2Asia was a main competitor of ORIENTED but in actuality, our product offerings are nothing alike. In fact, without Click2Asia, we are going to have to work that much harder to create an equivalent audience once we are ready to get going.

Perhaps their business model wasn't a sustainable one (and the sustainability of ours certainly remains to be seen), but their presence was vital in bringing much needed exposure to the Asian American community in the U.S., and I applaud all those behind it who worked so hard to make that happen.

I think the writer of that article put it best when he wrote, "Dot-com victims leave a gaping hole for the community". My sentiments exactly. We'll see what happens, but I certainly hope to see something even better come out of this.

About EAST Magazine...

Magazine Stops Publishing as Revenue Heads South
By GABRIEL KAHN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

     "The glossy monthly that tried to showcase a
      new pan-Asian chic has canceled the printing
      of its March issue and fired its 26-person
      staff. Yeo Han Yong, who owns 65% of the
      magazine through his company, East Lifestyle
      Corp., said the magazine's creditors had
      filed suit in Singapore. East Lifestyle is
      also insolvent, he said."  See full article

Gus and I were in frequent contact with Hamidah at EAST Magazine during our most active years when we were building up the ORIENTED.ORG community. He was the one who called me today to tell me of the news and I still can't believe it.

Ummm... should I be feeling some sort of PRESSURE from all of this?!

HELP!

"A logistical challenge..."

Also not a good thing -- although I am most certainly up for the challenge -- is my latest efforts in getting ORIENTED.COM launched by next week. I have needed to pindown representatives on both sides of the Pacific and although I got a surprise buy-in from out of Seattle, I am having a doozy of a time trying to make in-roads in Beijing and San Francisco and am not even sure why.

I was telling Ms. Sandin last night of the cumbersome process I am having to go through to secure the right type of person(s) for the positions and found myself talking like an experienced cross-border executive recruiter! While that is not my cup of cha... I have certainly been acting like it is these past few days.

What I am trying to do is not as easy as I thought it would be.

We'll see what happens.

Last but not least, I had dinner at Mike's place last night to continue going over the legal scenarios with this new company. Term sheets are pretty much ready, and trademark search/registration is being set in motion. The most complicated legal component of this new entity is how .COM will formally relate to .ORG if it should at all... a logistical nightmare in its own right if I've ever heard of one.

It's Friday according to my calendar... but MAN does it ever feel like a Monday.

I need a vacation...

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