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Tips from the Publisher: Mike Sends You to JoeSentMe.com

Frommer's recommends this straight-talking, no-holds-barred Web site for business travelers where you find honest analyses on the travel industry, tips for travel and current deals.

No question about it--the best business travel site on the Web is JoeSentMe.com. I read it religiously. What I love about columnist Joe Brancatelli is his relentless commitment to the truth. So many travel writers come from the what-can-I-say-that's-nice-about-this-place school of writing--from The School of Promotional Fluff. Joe speaks from the heart, and comes down on the side of consumers like you and me. He even offends people! Our Frommer's guides do, too, from time to time, because our goal isn't to sell destinations but to tell the truth about them so that travelers can make their own informed decisions.

Here's some information about Joe's site.

On September 21, 2001, Biztravel.com, a commercial site for business travelers, shut down. Joe added a small note to his final columns, pledging to continue his Brancatelli File and Tactical Traveler columns if readers wanted him to do so.

Within 48 hours, Brancatelli's e-mail box was overflowing with thousands of notes from business travelers and travel industry executives. All of them urged him to continue. Some even included their credit card numbers and told him to charge them whatever was necessary, so long as he kept his columns about life on the road in publication.

There were several practical problems. Brancatelli, who made his living as a publication consultant, didn't have the technical know-how to build a Web site; he didn't have a staff, the funding or the time to launch a Web site; and he really wasn't interested in running a Web site. In fact, before the events of September 11, he was planning to retire his popular four-year-old columns at the end of 2001.

However, as e-mails poured in--he received more than 10,000 in the first 96 hours after Biztravel.com closed--Brancatelli realized he had no choice but to continue; he felt the obligation was there. So he purchased a monthly membership in a hosting firm that offered non-HTML Web templates for technical novices. Brancatelli muddled his way through during one overnight session and created several crude pages for his columns. He created a mailing list based on the e-mail he received in the first 96 hours. However tentatively, the JoeSentMe.com Web site debuted on September 28, 2001, fulfilling Brancatelli's commitment to keep the columns on schedule.

Acknowledging that JoeSentMe.com had become the site for business travelers, Brancatelli and fellow columnist Martin Deutsch sought to find means and resources to permit the site to flourish without resorting to traditional advertising support. Out of these discussions came a modest business plan and a parent company, Travel Content On Demand, to manage the venture.

Deciding that a PBS-style model of member support could maintain the integrity of JoeSentMe.com content while providing much-needed funds for technical and editorial enhancements, Travel Content On Demand launched five levels of annual membership. Almost exactly a year to the date after JoeSentMe.com's accidental launch, the site began soliciting members while the site remained free to all comers.

Passionate readers began pledging support in droves, which raised the obvious question: Why were business travelers paying for content that was available free to all? "Because," Brancatelli wrote in his initial note to readers, "members understand the struggle for better treatment for business travelers requires time and effort--and cash. Making life on the road a little less stressful and a lot more productive is a job we have to do for ourselves."

Joe has served as executive editor of Frequent Flyer, "Travel Adviser" of Travel Holiday and contributing editor of Travel+Leisure. He has been called "the voice of the nation's business travelers" by USA Today, "America's best-known advocate for frequent flyers" by National Public Radio and "a madman genius" by The Washington Post

Enough said. You should try out his site (www.joesentme.com)and make up your own mind about it. I think you'll be glad you did.


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