PHANTOM BUSINESSES: A CURIOUS PHENOMENON

(Submitted for today’s BELTWAY TRAFFIC JAM.)

No, the curious phenomenon is not me posting three times in a single day–though that is unusual, at least recently. I work within spitting distance of Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, a city of about 15,000. In our local phone book, there’s a listing for an “Express Coffee Shop” on “Physical Road” in Beaver Dam.

I found it curious that there would be a coffee shop that close to me which I didn’t know anything about. I can tell you the relative quality of the java at almost any gas station or restaurant between here and Milwaukee or Madison. And I’d never heard of “Express Coffee Shop” . . . or “Physical Road.”

More amazingly, neither had Yahoo Maps, MapQuest, Rand McNally . . . or the city of Beaver Dam. For that matter, the other phone book for this area hadn’t heard of “Express Coffee Shop” either.

I glanced through the phone book and found several listings in Beaver Dam for non-descript businesses on either “Physical Road” or “Virtual Road.” Guess what? Nobody could find “Virtual Road” either.

So I did what any sensible nebbish would do: I started calling those businesses, trying to find out where they were located. I called three numbers. Two led to recordings that told me “this number has been disconnected at the request of the customer” and one led to a recording stating “all circuits are busy.”

I am familiar with something map companies do to prevent copyright infringement: they insert non-existent towns or roads on their maps. Thus, if anyone does pirate one of their maps, they have built-in proof of the crime: the towns, roads, or other features which don’t exist.

I suspect that the phone book publisher is doing something similar. (For what it’s worth, I can look up any of the Physical or Virtual Road businesses on most major telephone search engines.) While I understand and support their desire to protect their copyright, a little common sense should tell them that creating fictitious businesses in a town of 15,000 people is going to lead to confusion. Nobody could call every coffee shop in, say, Detroit to verify their existence; however, there are only six coffee shops listed in the Fond du Lac/Beaver Dam yellow pages. And the only one (the only real one) in Beaver Dam closed months ago. So it’s pretty obvious what the company is trying to do: They’re trying to protect their information, but in the process, they’re making their product less useful to consumers. That’s fine for a map, but for a phone book in a small city, it’s a big negative.

I’d be curious to know if your local phone books also have phantom businesses.

MOUSE-PROOFED CABLE

Well, I had high hopes for some swashbuckling corporate intrigue this summer, but it’s come to naught: Comcast has dropped its takeover bid for Disney. But the reason is surprising: Disney just isn’t interested in the merger.

Man, do I miss the 80s sometimes. Eighteen years ago, Comcast would’ve leveraged itself to the hilt to pick up a sweet plum like Disney. Then we’d all look forward to seeing what they’d keep and what they’d sell off. (You just know Rupert Murdoch would’ve bought ESPN and ABC.) But now, when Michael Eisner is looking more mortal than he ever has, Comcast is dropping the bid because Disney doesn’t seem to care for it?

We’ve got a different breed of executive these days. So what if a Disney-Comcast merger would’ve left a giant smoking hole where both companies used to be? I find it ironic that two companies which claim to be in the entertainment business have now denied us all what could’ve been the most entertaining story to hit the wires in a long time.

Meanwhile, McDonald’s new marketing plans have borne fruit, in the form of 56% higher profits last quarter. New McDonald’s CEO Charlie Bell plans to continue with the company’s current strategy. And the Burger King closest to me closed a few weeks ago.

IT’S A LAUGH RIOT, ONLY WITHOUT THE LAUGHING

Iowa State University has suspended its annual VEISHEA celebration for one year following boozy riots at this year’s celebration. The move goes against the wishes of students (obviously) and, surprisingly, the Ames business community, which appears to view the violence and vandalism as part of doing business.

In the last seventeen years, VEISHEA has erupted into mob violence five times. A 1997 fatal stabbing led to a ban on alcohol during the celebration. This year’s rioting resulted in $100,000 in property damage. (The rioting was touched off when an off-campus party was broken up; after students failed to move quickly enough, the Ames police used tear gas to disperse the crowd.)

VEISHEA is the nation’s largest student-run, alcohol-free celebration. It dates back to 1922. Its survival beyond 2006 will require a (relatively) trouble-free event that year.

College students drink. Even at Bible colleges. But something’s changed, even since I was in school ten years ago. In the early 90s, there was a sense that drinking was something you did to blow off steam–it was a bit of controlled naughtiness that helped you forget the hassles of academia.

It seems that now college students treat the Friday night drunk as a divine right, something no one should be allowed to limit or even (gasp! ) take away. But in any college town, if the students don’t police themselves, the cops will be more than happy to do it for them. The students at my alma mater found this out the hard way last fall. The students at ISU learned it this spring. A little self-control, a little put-down-the-fifteenth-beer, and a little turn-down-the-music-at-3-AM make the difference between a pastime and a problem. And those who don’t remember the past are condemned to repeat it.