Received an email with some kind words regarding this weblog from motivational maven Josh Hinds. Thanks.

If you set your digital watch in the European fashion (day-before-month, 24-hour clock), then tonight at 8:02 p.m., it will read:

20:02, 20:02, 2002

If you set your watch the way Americans do, you missed it a few weeks ago at 2:22 on 2/2/2. Gaylord Entertainment noticed it, however, and decided to open their hotel in Orlando at that precise moment.

Those guys are so clever. I wonder if they’re planning on announcing something big tonight, two, I mean, too.

Cahners, publisher of 135 business-to-business magazines and related media, is changing its name to Reed Business Information. The company says the re-branding will more closely align it with its parent, Reed Elsevier plc.

(Sorry, no truth to that rumor that the company also is entering the federal witness protection program.)

What is it they say about everyone having an opinion?

From CBS Marketwatch:

Disney CFO Tom Staggs, speaking at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in Hartford, Conn., said the “worst [is] over for the downturn in advertising.”

From the Financial Times:

WPP, one of the world’s three biggest advertising and marketing groups, on Wednesday cast gloom over hopes of an early recovery in the sector.

The New York Observer follows-up (temporary link) the revelation by Advertising Age that Goldman-Sachs is putting together a few billion to acquire magazines. Some familiar suspects in the small world of magazine investment banking are quoted, including Jeffrey Dearth who echoes my first take on the timing of this.

Quote:

“Why get in now?…Prices have fallen to the lowest they’ve been in awhile. If they can wrest something away, it’s a great opportunity.”