Job Discussion Forums

NateM · Joined: 19 Apr 2004 Posts: 358

I got the same notice, as a fellow thatsbj user. I've also found a thatsmagazines.net, which appears to have a link to a new Thatsshanghai. Pretty seedy happenings here, I'd say.

NateM · Joined: 19 Apr 2004 Posts: 358

And the plot thickens:

Susie · Joined: 02 Jul 2003 Posts: 390 Location: PRC

I have no proof that "That's" magazines has sold my email information to advertisers, but I have abundant evidence that since signing up to advertise on That's online, my email account has been filling up with spam and bulk mail from advertisers and crooks and viruses like a driping tap of water into a bucket!

edwinagirl · Joined: 05 Jul 2004 Posts: 68 Location: beijing

This is fascinating stuff. Allow me to speculate, if I may.

I've met Kitto. He's a decent enough guy that I think you could more or less trust, but very condescending, almost to the point of offensiveness. I also met Kathleen Lau, who may be the one behind his demise. She's a typical Shanghai hard-nosed business woman, who sees business as war: out to screw you before you screw them. She suddenly now appears all ovet the latest issue.

It may just be rumor, but the story is that she was pushed out of the magazine a few years ago. Kitto says he bought her out. Her role had probably been to act as the local partner and give him the political cover he needed to publish - a difficult thing to do 8 years ago. She has the political connections and after her enforced absence she came back gunning for Kitto. She won.

Was this another case of joint venture partners failing to respect each others views? Probably. It looks like a classic example. But there's another lesson: how could a smart guy like Kitto build an incredibly successful business like this, but fail to establish ownership of it??? He says he had legal ownership of the website, which implies he had none over the business proper. He blew it. The site without the magazine is not worth diddly, so he probably took whatever he could get for it.

As to the database, after Kitto sold the sites, he really doesn't have any say over who does what with it. It looks as if Asiaxpat have used the database and allowed advertisers to access it. I don't see much future for any of this. Kitto must be one sorry-ass individual.

Roger · Joined: 19 Jan 2003 Posts: 9138

Thanks, Edwina girl for your input. I can corroboroate most of what you said as I knew the old mag when it was called CLUELESS and was run out of a little cafe in Taojin Lu, Guangzhou (there was but one issue, the Guangzhou one). Kathleen ran her cafe professionally; it used to attract a lot of westerners in search of real western drinks (no STARBUCKS then and there...). She said she was an American woman, though, not a Shanghainese.

Mark Kitto took over maybe 3 years ago. He ran it efficiently, nonprofitably (I assume). He wrote an occasional piece, but on the whole, he had others write. He was interviewed several times by the SCMP, which also carried rumours back in, I believe, October, about this switching of the database. The november issue showed no departure from established publishing practices, but the December issue had telltale signs of a hostile takeover. For instance, the address of the Guangzhou Editor had changed for the 3rd time in 2 years; this time it was back to the offices the mag had had 2 years earlier... but without listing telephone and fax numbers! Ominous, isn't it? The names of some of the staff are the same ones. Some, but not all...

K. Lau could not publish on her own; she found the Yangzhou municipality as a sponsor. Just how she bowed out (or was p;ushed out) I don't know; personally I believe she wasn't pushed out. I remember she wrote a couple more pieces after she had sold it to Mark Kitto. She actually announced her own disappearing act. She was said to have been running a new restaurant in the Xintiandi area of Shanghai.

jg · Posted: Sat Dec 25, 2004 3:58 pm Post subject:

I just wish the font and format at AsiaXpat was more user friendly. They obviously want to get the most info on the screen as they can, but its not so easy to read and there isn't much color variation. Plus Thats seemed a lot more... I don't know, it seems they covereed local stuff better, and I liked their reviews. Asiaxpat doesn't have that.

Thats the tough biscuit of doing business in China, having to have a Chinese partner. Many counties have some sort of protectionism I guess.

Maybe this guy Kitto coudn't own everything outright (being a foreigner) and thats how they were able to pull the rug out from under him?

edwinagirl · Joined: 05 Jul 2004 Posts: 68 Location: beijing

JG,

It seems certain that Kitto didn't ave any legal claim on the business. He is not contesting it, for example, and he sold the website. If he planned to contest it, or try to win it back, he probably would not have sold the site.

I would imagine that when he began the magazine - and it is more or less his creation - he knew he could not get a proper license. Only a JV license would protect him legally, and they were not availabe in publishing at the time. So he went ahead and did it anyway. He probably thought that, over time, he would figure something, so he took the risk of trusting his partners in the meantime. The point seems to be now that, he never did figure out a way to establish legal ownership. He may have ignored the issue and hoped for the best. Again, speculation (I'm inferring) but this was a colossal mistake.

I would urge any aspiring foreign entrepreneurs in China to consider the issue of ownership. There is no point in proceeding with a school/business, whatever if you cannot establish legal control. A 'hope for the best' attitude adds way too much risk to the mix.

In many ways it would have be much better if they had shafted Kitto in the early years, but 8 years down the road - that 's gotta suck!