Why do wedding cakes cost so much? They’re made out of food, not gold. Do you suspect you’re being gouged? Here is the quick and dirty on wedding cake prices.

First off, know the lingo. Wedding cake prices are calculated by serving. Most cakes are priced from $1.50-$6.00 per person it serves. Do the math before you fall in love and avoid sticker shock.

Here’s what goes into a wedding cake, and how it affects the cost.

Size Matters

The bigger the cake, the higher the price. We’re not talking just diameter here. Six tiers of sugary perfection are great. But you better be willing to pay extra for it.

A three tiered cake is standard. Anything more involves more work for the baker. Baking. Frosting. Assembling. Keeping a tall cake upright is a trick.

The baker will pass that price on to you.

Now you know why sheet cakes are so cheep. If your budget is tight, buy a small wedding cake. Make up the difference with sheet cakes.

What’s In The Mix

The most basic building block in cake-ology is the cake itself. And the type of wedding cake you choose can drastically affect its price.

The most basic cake is a sponge cake. Think chocolate, vanilla, carrot. They’re safe. Crowd pleasers. And the least expensive.

Cheesecakes are at the other end of the spectrum. In price, not flavor. They’re absolutely decadent cakes. And time intensive to make. You’ll be lucky to find a cheesecake at $6 a serving. Most of them are quite a bit more.

It’s impossible to name every type of wedding cake out there. We haven’t even touched pound cake, whose price is somewhere between a sponge and cheesecake.

But here’s a rule of thumb:
The more time intensive a cake is to make, the steeper the price.

And here’s a rule for the other thumb:
The more “stuff” in your cake (liquers, fruit, nuts), the higher the price.

Beauty That’s Skin Deep

Ah icing. You either love it or you hate it. Your choice of frosting will have to reflect your personal tastes, and your budget.

Buttercream
This is your basic birthday cake frosting.

Pro: It holds up well. It’s easy to use. That makes it inexpensive.

Con: You can’t get the perfectly smooth look so popular these days.

Cream Cheese
This is the traditional frosting for a carrot cake.

Pro: The price is about the same as Buttercream. It tastes great.

Con: You can’t have intricate designs. But if you use live flowers on your cake that doesn’t matter.

Fondant
Think of this as sugar play dough. It’s used in ultra-hip wedding cakes.

Pro: A good cake designer can do almost anything with it. It pleats. It folds. It does everything but cut the cake for you.

Con: It’s expensive. And the least tasty of the frostings.

It’s Hip to be Square

Square cakes are very cool. But they’ll cost you.

A square cake requires a special pan. This you knew. They’re also harder to frost. The edges have to be built up. And look even.

And as you know by now, more work means more money.

So there you have it. The basic parts of your wedding cake. And how they affect price. What you spend on your cake is a personal decision. Armed with this information, sally forth into the wedding cake world and get the most for your money.

It’s your day. You deserve it.

Amy Lee Johnson is a freelance writer that often contributes to Wedding Vows 4U – a site that offers information on such topics as writing wedding vows and selecting wedding cakes.

I was always fascinated by time. Everything we do is governed by time.

It’s time to go to work.
It’s time to read a new book.
It’s time to leave for vacation – that’s my favourite.

We check the time to see if we are late for that special meeting or we slow down because we have plenty of time to attend the seminary.
We live and act in a timely manner.
On the other hand, we can’t turn back time. Once it’s gone, it’s gone – it becomes “the past”. So we should try and make the most out of the present moment because soon it will be history.

It would be nice to know how all this time keeping started and how it evolved through the ages.
Too bad I cannot load the pictures – they were nice and would have made the reading a lot easier.

Oh well, it all started a long time ago. And by that I mean a very long time ago. At the beginning people used the sun to measure the time – it was either “day” or “night”. They noticed that the Sun rose in the East and set in the West. They also noticed that during the day their shaddows changed in length. Early in the day and late in the afternoon their shaddows were very long. They became gradually shorter as the sun rose in the sky and they were almost gone at midday, when the sun was directly overhead.

Based on this observation, around 3500 B.C. the Egyptians started to build monumentally decorated, four sided stone structures called obelisks.

They placed them in public places – like city centers – and used their shaddows to measure the time. It was either morning, midday or afternoon. They marked the ground around the obelisk to get a “more accurate” measurement. The movement of the shaddow from one marker to the next was one hour. Egyptians divided the time between sunrise and sunset in 12 hours – regardless of the season. For them, a summer hour was longer than a winter one.

Later, around 1500 B.C., the Egyptians began to build sundials. They worked the same way as obelisks, but were a lot smaller. A sundial is a circular plate with lines to mark the hour and a pointer that sticks up from the plate. The pointer’s shaddow was used to measure the time.

But, unfortunately, the obelisks and the sundials only worked on sunny days. People started thinking to create another means for time measuring, something that would work all the time, regardless of weather or luminosity.

The Egyptian started to use water clocks around the same time with the sundials. They poured water into a vessel which had a hole at the bottom. The time was measured by the amount of water dripping out. Or, another version of the same principle was to place a metal bowl with a hole in the bottom in a big container filled with water. The water would start filling the bowl and it would sink it in a specific amount of time.
The Greeks called them “Clepsydra” – which translates as “water thief”. It is believed that clepsydras were introduced from Egypt into Greece and, later, from there into Rome.

An improved version of the water clock – more elaborate and impressive mechanized – was developed by Greek and Roman horologists and astronomers around 325 B.C. This version had a face with a hand that pointed the hour as the water level changed.
Sometime after 100 B.C., a Greek astronomer – Andronikos – built a stone water clock in the Athens marketplace. His water tower – known today as the Tower of the Winds – showed the time with both sundials and mechanical hour indicators. It also displayed the seasons of the year and astrological dates and periods.

Another famous water clock was built in China by Su Sung in 1088 A.D. It was a tower over 30 feet tall and incorporated a few mechanisms. It had five front panels with doors that opened to show mechanical figurines that rang bells and held tablets indicating the hour.

OK, now it’s about time to finish this article. You can take a break – if you didn’t fall asleep already – and by the time you come back, I’ll have the last few paragraphs ready for you. I know I said it’s time to finish it, but I have to tell you something about the sand clocks and the candle and incense clocks and we are through with the ancient clocks.
Next time we’ll tackle the mechanical clocks – which are a lot of fun too. And the article will be a lot shorter, I promise.

The sand clock was another ancient type of clock – also known as the sandglass or hourglass. Dry particles flow from one cuplike end of a glass vessel to the other through a tiny passage. Once all the sand moved from the upper bubble to the lower one, the sand clock could be turned.

Candle clocks were used by different people to measure time. They were placed inside of vessels to avoid the air currents which would affect how quickly the candle burned. The candles were marked on the outside with evenly spaced lines. As the burning candle reached a line, an identified period of time has passed.

In China and Japan people used incense clocks as time keeping devices. An incense clock consists of an incense stick placed inside of an animal shaped tray – a dragon, for example. Threads with weights or bells on either end were hung over the incense stick at desired intervals. As the incense burned, the threads burned one by one and the weights dropped onto a sounding plate or pan below, marking the passage of time.

This being said, I finish here and I hope that you will find all these info easy to digest and useful.

And, in the future, if you are looking to kill some time, check my other articles about mechanical clocks, quartz clocks and atomic clocks. Or the one about learning to have a good time. After all, everything is about time….

Disclaimer -Everything written in this article is the result of a lot of time spent reading about clocks. This article is the new born of my brain cramps trying to figure out the best way to promote my web site.

I will not waste your time by listing my professional degrees – who cares about them, after all. Email me, please, if you really want to know. I am creating unique wall clocks with “amazing powers” – they’ll remind you to stop rushing through life and enjoy the present moment because we will not be here forever. http://www.theatik.com

I’ve been teaching and conducting seminars for quite some time, and there’s always a very interesting thing that happens when it’s evaluation time.

I get unusually thin-skinned.

Here’s the scene. I’ve just taught my heart out, possibly at UCLA Extension, or at a client’s site or another venue, and there are thirty participants in front of me, eager to split to start their weekends.

A proctor hands out the computer scored documents as I wait in the hall. Slowly, my students emerge, most of them shaking my hand, thanking me for the course, while others stand by with a question to ask.

I thought I did well. I covered the material, we shared a lot of insights and at least a few good laughs, and everyone got “value.”

But within a few days, as the evaluations are tallied and the results are sent to me, this rosy picture changes because there’s a dark cloud marring an otherwise clear blue sky.

One student bashed me, giving me nearly all “ones” on a nine-point scale. His or her comments are completely off the mark. Somehow, this person seems more than disappointed; it’s anger or jealousy or both that comes through.

So, facing a positive overall score, tendered by the great majority of students, I’m feeling badly because I not only didn’t “reach” someone, but I offended him, without knowing it, and I have no feedback that gives me guidance as to how I can avoid this outcome in future sessions.

When I was in graduate school, one of my savvy professors said, with respect to teaching evaluations: “You could replace all of these questions with just one: Did you like this guy?”

He has a point, and here’s mine, what I need to remind myself after I’ve tried so hard, and still, I’ve ended up with one of these disparaging evaluations:

Each trainee or student only gets one opinion, one evaluation, and one vote. If you take them too seriously, and you attribute to them too much significance, you can inadvertently make them a majority.

A wise person once said, if you are doing anything visible and meaningful, you’ll have detractors, and actually this is a sign that you ARE someone significant.

Don’t make your detractors more important or influential than they are!

Dr. Gary S. Goodman, President of Customersatisfaction.com, is a popular keynote speaker, management consultant, and seminar leader and the best-selling author of 12 books, including Reach Out & Sell Someone® and Monitoring, Measuring & Managing Customer Service, and the audio program, “The Law of Large Numbers: How To Make Success Inevitable,” published by Nightingale-Conant. He is a frequent guest on radio and television, worldwide. A Ph.D. from USC’s Annenberg School, a Loyola lawyer, and an MBA from the Peter F. Drucker School at Claremont Graduate University, Gary offers programs through UCLA Extension and numerous universities, trade associations, and other organizations in the United States and abroad. He holds the rank of Shodan, 1st Degree Black Belt in Kenpo Karate. He is headquartered in Glendale, California, and he can be reached at (818) 243-7338 or at: gary@customersatisfaction.com.

After years of working with entrepreneurs who developed their first web site using an image-based editor, the new world of internet marketing has placed a stronger emphasis on web development that conforms to technical concerns such as search engine optimization and multi-browser compatibility.

Wigging Out

WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get, pronounced “whizzy wig”) web site editing programs can allow anyone to develop rich, full-feature web sites without a working knowledge of HTML (Hypertext Markup Language). Many of these programs feature a “drag and drop” user interface, accomplishing eye-catching web site development in much the same way one might perform desktop publishing.

However, many, if not most of these programs generate HTML files that oftentimes results in compatibility issues. A few key concerns in developing web sites using WYSIWYG editors include:

* Text content may not be positioned at the top of the HTML file, which search engines like Google use to determine search engine ranking;
* Font sizes may not be fixed, displaying garbled or overlapping text;
* Content placement may not appear uniformly in less popular, yet fully functional browsers;
* Future expandability of your web site may be limited to the program’s design interface.

Although many WYSIWYG programs are capable of developing visually appealing web design, HTML automatically generated by the program for upload to the World Wide Web may limit your web site’s compatibility and expandability, long-term.

Coding by Hand

Coding HTML by hand can be a challenging, yet worthwhile endeavor, as the flexibility of hand-coded HTML measurably outweighs the time required to become familiar with the language.

Although a relatively simple programming language, HTML is a diverse subject with many facets that can be used to create a dynamic, rich web presence. There are a number of on-line tutorials offering basic and advanced HTML guidance, as well as HTML’s secondary offshoot languages, such as DHTML and XML. A search on Google (http://www.google.com) using terms such as “HTML how to” or “HTML tutorial” will produce a myriad of results for new and advanced programmers.

Coding your web site by hand not only allows for broadened aesthetic possibilities, but also provides greater flexibility for ensuring your site is optimized for search engine results and display compatibility.

Additional benefits of hand-coded HTML include:

* Wider range of design options such as of tables and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)
* Faster page load, by reducing excess code generated by many WYSIWYG editors
* Increased compatibility with future expansion needs of your site, including forms, mini-applications (often referred to as scripts), and e-commerce features

On Second Thought

If the thought of developing your own web site sounds overwhelming, delegating the project to a third-party design firm may be the best choice. It’s okay to stay focused on what makes you money – supplying your products or services – and allow others to compliment your business with their expertise.

There are many local and national design firms that specialize in web design for particular needs, such as small business or organizational web sites. Hiring the right web design firm can bring your business to a whole new level; be sure to perform thorough research, and compare service providers before choosing the right design partner for your business or organization.

About the Author: Jim D. Ray is a seasoned web developer and president of Web Presence, a national web design firm exclusively serving the small business market sector. To learn more, or for a free quote for your own web site, visit the Web Presence web site at http://www.web-presence.net.

Source: www.isnare.com

Too many days I found myself constantly checking the same financial news web pages for any news about the companies I was currently invested in. Between clicking on these web pages and constantly clicking on other financial web pages to obtain stock quotes, I was driving myself crazy and wasting a lot of time that belonged to my employer. After all he does not pay me to surf the web. But if I didn’t keep track of investment information, I could lose a lot of money. I thought there had to be a solution other than taking Valium. Why should I watch web pages for stuff when my computer should be able to do this for me? This is when I discovered a software program called Easy Web Page Watcher by Patrick DiRienzo.

As the author’s home page explains, “Easy Web Page watcher watches HTML web pages for your information by continuously downloading and inspecting each web page you specify for the text you specify”. A web page is just a file containing HTML text, therefore Easy Web Page Watcher is really downloading and reading an HTML file looking for your text.

I came to understand that this program could only detect changes that are part of the HTML text, but that was all I needed. Most of the web pages I wanted to watch were pure HTML pages (no Java, etc. involved).

After seeing a seal of approval from PC Magazine, I decided to try this software. The first pleasant surprise was that the program was immediately easy to use. A toolbar with large buttons provided all the user interface I needed. One button allowed me to enter web pages and another button allowed me to enter text such as my stock names and dollar amounts. I realized that this was probably a limited user interface, but the fact that it got the job done without wasting my energy on a learning curve was all I cared about.

The program worked as advertised. I was alerted with an audible alarm when my stocks appeared in a press release at Yahoo’s financial web site. I soon discovered that the program could also email these alerts to me. This was great because now I could run the program on my home PC using my full time broadband Internet. My employer could not accuse me in any way of constantly being on the Internet at work.

Another one of those large toolbar buttons allows you to change the watch mode to “Just Tell Me If The Web Pages I Specify Change”. In this mode, Easy Web Page Watcher will notify you when any changes or updates occur on the web pages you specify. It does this by continuously downloading and comparing the HTML file with the initial HTML file recorded at the start of the watch session. If the HTML file changes Easy Web Page Watcher notifies you. I soon had a use for this operating mode. I could now watch my Web Site’s HTML log file for visitors. I subscribe to one of those services that provide you with an HTML log file that updates with visitor information every time someone clicks on one of your web pages. Instead of constantly checking this HTML log file with my Internet browser, I let Easy Web Page Watcher watch it for updates. It is a lot of fun to know immediately when someone visits your site.

Easy Web Page Watcher Home Page: http://www.patdirienzo.com

"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">

Save money and get top-quality with HP laser print
cartridge

Would you like to get top quality printings? Let us introduce
you the HP laser print cartridge. HP LaserJet print cartridge offer professional
print quality, fast, consistent performance, easy-to-use design,
and improved workflow and added value.

This product has 2 features that will make your work a lot
easier:

Quality: HP laser printer cartridge is designed for
impressive professional-quality black and color text and
graphics printing.

Reliability: HP laser print cartridge is specially designed to
work with HP laser printers for always clear, sharp results.

HP laser print cartridge has been designed to meet
and exceed business printing demands, it is very easy to use,
install and maintain due to its new architecture.

They present a brand new toner and cartridge design that will
allow you to get fast, reliable, high volume printing. So you
can print much more pages than ever before and with an
incredibly high quality in every page, it doesn’t matter if it
is just text or text combined with graphics.

The fact of being able of printing more pages means that you
will not need to be replacing the cartridge constantly as you
used to do it, therefore you will save time and money because
you wont need to get a replacement or wait until you get it so
often as before, and this will improve your efficiency and
performance at work. HP laser print cartridge is the HP printing
solution for cost-effective use.

With HP laser print cartridge you will not have to worry
anymore about printing pages with such a low quality that they
can not be read or understood. When you are going to present a
work report or an investigation work for your boss or for your
college professor, they have to be clear, well printed and look
good, so anybody can read them and understand even the most
little detail. This way your boss or your college professor will
have a good impression about you, and you won’t have to waste
time and maybe even replace a cartridge to print your work again

We have an online information service where we will answer all
the questions you may have about this product in a very
professional way.

So now you know, if you want to get the best quality for your
printings at a very low price just look for us. HP laser print cartridge is what you need for your
office or home printer. Our cartridges carry a full
manufacturer’s warranty! We are so sure that our product is so
good that we can assure this: if it’s faulty we will replace it.
If it fails to satisfy your expectations we will refund it,
without making any question.

Secret Tips For Negotiating Your Credit Card Debt

Most people think that it is hopeless for a individual to negotiate their credit card debt with a credit card company because the company is not interested in working out a deal with the people that hold their credit cards. The truth is that some of these credit card companies may be inclined to speak to you and work out some kind of debt guidance plan for your debt because they would rather recoup some of the money that you owe to them easily instead of having to pay someone to endlessly contact you about the debt and possibly not obtain any payments from you at all. There are a number of unique things you should keep in mind when attempting to negotiate your credit card debt and keeping these things in mind may assist you a great deal in your pursuits.

The first thing that you need to keep in mind when attempting to negotiate your credit card debt is to be honest about your situation when you are talking to the representative of the company you desire to negotiate with. You would be dumbfounded at how lenient some companies can be when a individual has a legitimate hardship, such as the loss of a job, the loss of a spouse, or are medically incapable to work for a period of time. Some credit card companies are now offering a type of credit card insurance to be able to suspend your payments for a period of time if any of these circumstances take place and disrupt your ability to make your payments because they have noticed that many of their customers go through these situations now and again.

Another thing to remember when negotiating your credit card debt is to be sure that you are addressing with the appropriate personel that has the authority to service you. A lot of times you may be speaking to a individual who does not have the authorization to negotiate your debt situation. Sometimes in this case they try to differ you from achieving your goal by saying they can’t assist you. Insist on speaking with someone in the company that can assist you, if neccesary try and find a local branch where you can speak to somebody in person.

Always remember to be polite and respectful when talking to your credit card company about negotiating your debt. It may be hard at times, but getting angry at them will only make matters worse. Being respectful to those trying to assist you is very essential for seeing any results. Remember, you want these people to help lower your debt, not make things worse for you.

Translated from Russian. We shall be glad to receive your remarks on stylistics, grammar, and content issues.

The Chinese proverb says: Before going somewhere, find out where you are. Having paraphrased on Russian, we shall receive: Before asking “What to do?” find out who you are.
The basic problem of the Russian society is the following: we do not know who we are. We as a society are in unconsciousness. Let will address to a history. Russians did not understand itself and therefore searched the help at outside of during many centuries. The first fact known to us is the invitation of Scandinavians to a board, because the Russian “democratic” control system through Veche has given failure. In the first centuries of Scandinavians board a lot of famous actions have been made in Russia. Main from it are creation of statehood and expansion of Christiania on the ancient Russian ground. But Scandinavians did not differ from Russians through some generations and were a reason for chaos of domestic wars. It was a major factor of Russia capture by Tatars. With all negatives that invasion from the East carried Russia have received positives: the authority, the order and the East culture. The obvious fact, the Tatars invasion promoted the collecting of Russian grounds around the Moscow and further to a birth of Great Russia. As soon as east experience has been mastered and it has been embodied in Ivan Grozniy’s despotisms, unconsciousness of Russians was appearing once again and plunged the country into Vague time. After a short rest at M. F. Romanov’s board, unconsciousness had again an effect in Great split and crisis of authority down to Peter I’s board. Peter’s greatness consists that he has combined West and the East, the western technologies and east values. Cultural explosion of the XIX century has been appeared due to Peter’s reforms. Unfortunately Alexander II’s reforms had only the Western basis; it had enabled the Russia unconsciousness to appear in the beginning of XX century during Russian revolutions. What is our way now? Where will this way result? It would not be desirable to be mistaken once again.
This work is attempt to reply: “Who are we?”

E-mail: vsmolyanov@yahoo.com
URL: www.chelovek-center.ru

About the Author

The part of article is created on the initiative of the experts with experience in the field of control systems, managements of projects and psychologies. Our purpose is self-improvement and self-actualization of the person. The article contains the concept of person development on the basis of traditional religions and modern achievements in the world of science.

We have become a society that demands the most technologically advanced equipment, and cell phones are no exception. That’s why the cellular telephone industry is changing so rapidly. Today’s phones are quite impressive with many bells and whistle, but wait, the cell phones of the future are like something out of a sci fi movie. Who would have dreamed that we’d come this far in such a short time?

The cell phones of tomorrow are so compact that you’ll need a beeper just to find where you left them. Current phones are incredibly tiny but they are going to get even smaller. You’ll be able to purchase a watch with cell phone and all you’ll have is a headset to talk with. Of course it will be all voice activated. The phones that are simply a tiny screen with wireless headset are also on the horizon.

The cellular market believes that if pricing is right, you’ll throw away the old dial up systems and use cellular for you home communications as well as your mobile communications. That’s why a company is in the process of developing a very futuristic full size handset that will plug into your cell. Perfect for those long at home conversations.

I know your thinking, well that’s nice but that’s not so far out. ButWait! There’s more great news.

Your cell phone is going to be your garage door opener and your universal remote for your TV. Yes that’s right! Kind of like one stop shopping. It’s also going to work as a remote car start on new vehicles equipped with the technology. So let’s see. You’ll be able to turn on the TV for your morning update, start your car to warm in the middle of winter, and then drive on off to work, all the while talking to your pal. Now that’s pretty impressive!

Hold on! Just when you thought there couldn’t be anything more, there is! Your cell phones going to be equipped with an MP3 player, a DVD player, and a mini game machine. All at your fingertips. So when your board to tears at work, or waiting for an appointment, you’ll have a full entertainment system at your fingertips.

Today mostcell phones come equipped with a digital camera. Remember all the oohs and aahs when that technology hit the market. Well it’s going to get better, you are going to have a true video camera built into your phone, which will be good for 10 to 20 minutes of record time.

Wait, there’s more! Cell phones are going to be able to read RFID tags, which are cheap disposable tags that contain information about a product. In the future items in a store will all contain these tags and your phone will have a built in RFID reader so you’ll be able to quickly access product information. Sounds like the day’s of a live person helping you might become a thing of the past.

There is even talk that these devices could make checkouts a thing of the past. Of course that would mean we’ve also become a cashless society. I know we are almost there now. You would scan an item in the store, then punch a button to purchase it. Goodbye to long check out line ups.

But wait, they want to take it one step further! Your cell phones going to act as your wallet for electronic style payments. You’ll be able to access your bank accounts, and credit cards with the touch of a button.

Currently we’ve got email and some limited web functions available on our cell phones, but that’s all going to change! Your cell phone is about to become the smallest computer ever built. I will allow you to do everything you can do at your desk top, with the advantage of mobility.

The list goes on and on. The creative juices of the cellular industry are flowing fast. With wireless systems like blue tooth on the market, the flood gates have opened. Your going to see cellular technology beyond your wildest dreams. Get ready for the twighlight zone.

About the Author

Keith Kingston is a professional web publisher who is an authority on a wide variety of subjects. Find out more about his reviews on cell phones at http://www.latest-cell-phones.com

Nielsen figures indicate that Facebook has 110 million global users whereas MySpace only has 83 million users across the world. In terms of popularity, there can be little doubt that Facebook is the new king of cool. However, that is not to say that MySpace is dead, MySpace has recently launched myspace layouts 2.0 in response to the competition. What is interesting are the Comscore figures which indicate that the average MySpace user spends 266 minutes on the site each month whereas the average Facebook user only spends 166 minutes per month. This figure can be attributed to various factors. One of the key factors is that MySpace is very blog oriented whereas Facebook is more focused on applications which are not time consuming. Furthermore, Facebook is focused upon networking with people you already know, whereas on MySpace more time is spent on meeting new people. Regardless of what one thinks of these figures, it cannot be disputed that in terms of overall popularity, Facebook has trumped MySpace. However, if we consider the revenue raised by MySpace compared to the revenue raised by Facebook, it cannot be disputed that MySpace is the reigning king. Mr. de Wolfe, the creator of MySpace revealed in a BBC interview1 that the key difference between MySpace and Facebook is that MySpace makes money. In fact, MySpace depends almost entirely on advertising for its revenue. The CEO of MySpace, Mr de Wolfe, goes so far to claim that MySpace is the only social networking site that makes money. The BBC reports despite the money-making capabilities of MySpace, News Corp reported a recent drop in its revenues, which included a decrease in the revenue generated by MySpace. News Corp partly attributes this loss to the money it spent launching a new music feature which allows users to download music for free. Such a feature is unparalleled by any offering on the part of Facebook. The other factor is the global recession. The BBC notes that even advertising is “not recession-proof”. Similarly, Mr de Wolfe describes the market as having “certainly gotten softer”. There is no doubt therefore these factors are decreasing the profitability of MySpace. However, what News Corp does not tell us is the true reason behind the drop in revenue. I would argue that the true reason behind the drop in revenue is the decreased popularity of MySpace. The Nielsen figures are indicative of this decrease in popularity. Social networking sites are very faddy in the sense that users tend to embrace the next cool thing. MySpace is considered to be yesterday’s news compared to Facebook. That is why Facebook is more popular than MySpace even if one concedes that the two sites are essentially the same. Despite the decreased popularity of MySpace it still generates more revenue than Facebook. Which is why Chris de Wolfe says that “Time will tell whether they [Facebook] can figure out how to make money – we have”.