Considering whether to do business with a startup? Check out its Web site and make a phone call. Here are five yellow flags you may want to consider:

5) Pointless propositions. So the company "leverages technology to optimize workflow and communication across multiple distribution channels in real-time." Next question: what does the company do?

4) Buzzword babblapalooza. Someone should distribute a language blacklist that includes the following: "next generation," "cutting-edge," "revolutionary," "best practices," "utilizes," and "solve real-world problems."

3) Conspicuous stretches. Do the people you are reading about sound like they have controlled at least 50% of the U.S. economy over the last four years? If it sounds too good to be true, it is. Watch for phrases like "pioneered relationships with Global 10,000 companies."

2) Baseless biographies. Visitors to the "Management" section of a Web site (or, "Team" in MBAspeak) would like to learn about what the people in charge are actually doing. This query is typically answered with a paragraph beginning with "Prior to working at..." In other words, everything except what you really care about is provided.

1) Fictitious largesse. My favorite. Despite the appeal to many people of working with a small business and receiving personal service, many entrepreneurs live under delusions of empire. Home answering machines contain greetings advising that "none of" their "associates" can take the call. If the "sales," "investors," "marketing," "press," "jobs," "service," "comments," "questions" and "bizdev" email addresses all exist for a company "headquartered" in "suite" 25-W, some further diligence is in order.

For whatever reason, New York City food service personnel are absolutely the best at processing complex requests for menu variations and getting it right--quickly.

The menu contained "turkey club," with turkey, lettuce, tomato and bacon, and "roast beef club," with roast beef, lettuce and tomato.

I wanted a club with both turkey and roast beef, but no bacon, on whole wheat bread, not white, lightly toasted, with just a little mayo. That's exactly what I received. I don't think I could eat in any other city.

When I lived in D.C., at a deli I ordered turkey on a roll with lettuce and tomato. The other two available toppings were pickles and peppers. The person behind the counter took forever to write out the full words "lettuce" and "tomato" even though he could have just written "L" and "T," because under these circumstances those abbrevations could only have one meaning. This was intolerable and I soon moved back to New York.

An indispensable aspect to voicemail is an indication that a message exists, so you don't have to dial in to the system to check messages.

I have AT&T voicemail as a backup for my answering machine, because although I like call waiting to tell me that another call is coming in, sometimes I don't like to interrupt the conversation. Having a backup message repository allows the caller to leave a message.

Amazingly, however, AT&T's voicemail system does not include existence indication services. Its system doesn't work with a telephone light indicator and doesn't offer the stutter dial tone typically available with home voicemail.

So AT&T is turning this gaping lapse into a revenue stream. Voicemail subscribers can buy a small unit for as little as $10 (plus $8 shipping). Rest assured, this Band-Aid is actually state-of-the-art technology: both versions use "proprietary software that allow the AT&T VoiceMail Manager's [sic] to uniquely interact with" the system.

I opted for the free e-mail alert service instead. The whole thing seems ridiculous, since stutter tone alerts are as fundamental as, say, basic grammar.

P.S. BellSouth has called off its merger talks with AT&T. Maybe they encountered this flaw as well in the course of their due diligence.

A benefit to the World Series ending in six games: earlier termination of those MasterCard ads. Like Hootie and the Blowfish and "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," those ads could have retained their initial appeal if those in charge refrained from blatant saturation.

One ad per game, in the late innings, would have been about right. Several installments per game, multiplied by every game of the playoffs, was just too much.

I just received the sixth e-mail reminder for a networking event tonight. It's not so much that today's reminder is inappropriate, but rather that there is minimal utility in the intervening reminders between the initial announcement and the near-term confirmation.

For an event with a limited, distinct set of people (a meeting of an organization, or a small birthday party), the optimal number of e-mail notifications is two. An initial announcement should go out a couple of weeks beforehand to give people enough lead time. (This applies for New York City scheduling culture; optimal lead times may vary in other regions.) Then, a confirmation should go out a day before the event.

Sending excessive intermediate reminders is sure to desensitize the audience and perhaps even cause irritation or negative feelings toward the organization, especially from people that simply have not had a chance to attend an event and meet the organizers in person. (Knowing that the person sending all that e-mail is actually nice, though uninformed as to efficient communication, would offset the irritation.)

At least the sender moved the recipient addresses to the blind carbon copy field, so I'm spared from completely unwanted cross-replies.

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Programming note: the next post will not be until at least Tuesday. The Friday Top Five will return next week.

A cold rain with the temperature just above freezing always seems to feel colder than snow with the temperature just below freezing. My guess is that there are at least two reasons for this:

1) The evaporation of water produces a cooling effect, whereas snow, as a solid, simply falls off (minus the smaller amount that melted upon contact). Rain falling on your hand with a temperature of 35 degrees is an extreme version of the chilly experience of coming out of a swimming pool on a mild or cool day.

2) Snow is pretty, while cold rain is not. Snow can make people more upbeat and thereby distract them from the actual temperature. There is nothing upbeat, however, about making your way through the coldest possible water.

Richard Sandomir of the New York Times is probably my all-time favorite columnist. Nearly everything he observes about the intersection of business, media and sports offers a fresh dose of common sense with well-founded insight.

However, I thought one of his criticisms in today's column was unfair. He scolded Bret Boone, a guest TV commentator during the American League Championship Series, for not offering insight into his brother Aaron's dreadful batting slump leading up to the series-ending home run.

Despite apparent nerves at first, Bret became quite chatty and was a pleasure to have aboard. However, it was equally clear that he had made the specific decision not to comment on his brother's performance. If Bret is a professional sportscaster, this decision is fair game for objection. But Bret is an infielder for the Seattle Mariners. He made no representations of professional broadcaster aspirations (at least judging from the juxtaposition of Boone in a black t-shirt next to Joe Buck and Tim McCarver in business attire). He was apparently just uncomfortable commenting about his brother and decided to avoid an awkward situation.

In the capacity of an active ballplayer and of Aaron Boone's brother, Bret's decision may not have been perfect for everyone. But it was perfectly acceptable.

Smooth Jazz CD 101.9 (it was on in a restaurant; I didn't decide to listen) has pushed the envelope on defining its format. A recent playlist selection: "Fields of Gold" by Sting.

CD 101.9 has integrated many pop, adult contemporary and other crossover hits into its playlist--fairly, because many pop songs can legitimately be presented as jazz. Joe Jackson's "Steppin' Out" and Sade's "Smooth Operator" come to mind.

The definition of jazz eludes technical specifics (it doesn't just come down to complicated chords, though that seems to be a reasonable starting point), but "Fields of Gold" is simply too linear for this label. What next, "Stand" by REM?

The curse continues. And here are five of the best reasons not to feel that bad for the sad sack Sox:

5) The better team won. Head to head, the Yankees won 14 of the 26 meetings this year against Boston. In addition, the Yankees won the American League East, consistently fighting off Boston in the standings (either directly or indirectly) when it counted. A storybook comeback might have been entertaining, but the converse doesn't reek of injustice.

4) Pedro lost. The Red Sox actually seem like a really nice, friendly bunch of guys, and I am sympathetic to any number of them individually. But Pedro sticks out like a sore thumb, beanballing Garcia, Soriano and Jeter and whining to the press. Someone like Johnny Damon is a first-class act that deserves to win someday; the same cannot be said for the goon that threw 72 year-old Don Zimmer to the ground.

3) The New York Times lost. The Times (which also owns the Boston Globe) bought part of the Red Sox -- and has since consistently failed to disclose this conflict of interest in covering its team and baseball generally (for example, in its editorial about a possible Major League Baseball strike). Just last week, a Times editorial disingenuously claimed that the thought of a Red Sox World Series was irresistible. Yes, if you own the team, that would certainly be the case.

2) No lucky breaks. The Yankees earned every run the hard way; the home plate umpire and the laws of physics (on Soriano's pitching mound grounder) both worked consistently in favor of Boston. Many observers consider Little's decision to leave Pedro in the game to be the defining moment, but nobody decided this except the Red Sox themselves.

1) The best possible ending. Even as a Yankees fan, I appreciated the dramatic appeal of the seventh-game walk-off win by the Arizona Diamondbacks in the 2001 World Series. Similarly, Aaron Boone's home run will take on a life of its own among the most electric footage of baseball history--something good for a sport that has increasingly struggled to remain America's pastime.

From the footer of Clorox Company consumer services letterhead:

"Quality household cleaning products, charcoal brands, barbeque sauces, salad dressings, car care products, and water filtration pitchers"

Although this makes me more suspicious about what is actually in Hidden Valley dressing, it's nice that you can drive to pick up things for the summer cookout, prepare things for it (including pure water), and clean up after dinner with products all from one company.

Sprint is running an interesting ad in today's Wall Street Journal. It portrays AT&T and AT&T Wireless as endlessly passing the buck to each other regarding landline and wireless phone service problems. Then it says that Sprint is one company you can rely on for everything. One of the specific benefits: "end-to-end accountability."

This, of course, is the exact opposite of AT&T Wireless's intended message--that it is a new, distinct, more nimble entity after independence from its increasingly stodgy namesake. (It has a license to use "AT&T" in its name; presumbly obtaining this permission was not exactly difficult.)

It's not clear that the "one company/one bill" message has fully resonated with telecommunications customers. Certainly on the consumer level, with automatic billing available, the benefits of dealing with one bill are minimal. People seem to care more about price and service reliability. Though I don't have any official data, anecdotally it is clear that I've overheard the word "Sprint" attached to unprintable language more often than other mobile service providers.

As for AT&T Wireless, it has just launched a new ad campaign with the tag line "Reach Out" -- a reference to AT&T's "Reach out and touch someone" of the past. This also involves a license, to use those words. I'm sure that was a bitter negotiation, too.

It's so nice when effective advertisements turn out to be true with no footnotes, fine print, disclaimers or otherwise.

The ads for Airtrain Newark say: Penn Station to Newark Airport in 30 minutes.

It takes 30 minutes. The NJ Transit ride is 20 minutes to Newark Airport station, and the monorail connection takes 10 minutes including waiting time. With a Jetsons-esque experience to boot.

Airtrain Newark, advertised as fast and convenient, is.

The two major sports teams of Madison Square Garden, owned and operated by Cablevision, are off to a bad start once again: the Rangers are 0-2, having been outscored 10-3; the Knicks have lost their first 4 pre-season games and are pinning their recovery hopes on a 37 year-old center.

So it's no wonder MSG is digging deep for new revenue streams with overall attendance sure to dwindle. The latest gimmick? Ticketed access to see the preparations of Garden events. You can watch certified Garden infrastructure engineers prepare the stage and lights for a concert, or prepare the ice for a Rangers game, or prepare the hardwood for a Knicks game. "Feel the excitement!" exclaims the electronic billboard on the 8th Avenue side of the world's most famous arena.

Coming soon: an all-access tour of Garden box office operations.

5) Delta Air Lines. I had to cancel a trip for which I used frequent flier miles, and I wanted the miles re-deposited in my SkyMiles account. This required sending the ticket by mail to Atlanta, but it never made it there. It took nearly 45 minutes at the local ticket office to fill out the Lost Ticket Application and provide all of the required explanations regarding an award and re-deposit of miles. (This seemed to be the minimum possible time, as the ticket agent knew exactly what to do.) (But it worked, and the miles are back in my account as of this morning.)

4) Security at midtown office building. 7:30 p.m., Friday evening, after a day of due diligence and poring over obscure changes in an acquisition agreement. But while running out onto the street, I was ordered to return to the security desk-- to sign out. I never have to sign in because I have an ID card, but anyone that leaves the building after 7 p.m. must print his or her name on a sign-out form that is later used for...?

3) The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority. En route to the outlets in Lee, I took the Mass Pike for 8 miles from West Stockbridge/Route 41 to the next exit. The turnpike features EZ-Pass, so getting on was easy. Leaving the turnpike wasn't--an untimely traffic bubble forced me into a toll lane marked "Cash." Unlike in New York, "cash" toll lanes in Massachusetts mean exclusively cash, so the clerk required me to pay the maximum turnpike fare for a trip that would otherwise have been free of charge.

2) The U.S. Postal Service. They deliver, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's yours just yet. The usual daily carriers for my building let me take my mail even if the entire section of mailboxes is still open. However, when I tried this with a substitute carrier, she turned around in complete shock and ordered me to put my mail back in the mailbox. "Do you know what would have happened if my supervisor showed up?" she asked.

1) Health Canada / Santé Canada. While in flight to Dorval Airport in Montréal, in addition to a Canada customs declaration form, you receive a yellow piece of paper -- a SARS questionnaire. Each of three questions is followed by "yes" and "no," and you circle the appropriate answer: In the last ten days, have you been coughing? Have you had a fever? Have you been near anyone who has or could have SARS? This form is not handed in, however: you simply show it to the two customs agents at the airport and then, according to the printed instructions, keep the form for ten days. Maybe the form should be called "SARS Diagnostic Self-Assessment." At any rate, looks like someone in the yellow paper industry is well-connected with the Canadian government.

Recently, Nestlé Waters North America reached a favorable settlement with class action plaintiffs contesting the marketing and quality of Poland Spring water. The settlement stipulates, among other things, that the water is properly advertised as spring water and meets all the various requirements for that designation.

However, Poland Spring's PR strategy is not the one I would have chosen. In addition to defending its water, the company also chose to make frivolous and dishonest class action lawsuits a theme of its response. The logic was: there have been many absurd class action lawsuits; therefore, this one is absurd as well.

A communications staffer with Nestlé explained to me that if people see that someone is sued, they assume the allegations are true. I don't agree with this in the case of Poland Spring, a brand with enormous amounts of goodwill, stemming from its folksy TV commercial jingle ("Poland Spring, coming to you straight from Maine...") and unquestioned status as a quality beverage. By turning the agenda to class action lawsuits generally and not the quality of its water, Poland Spring increased suspicion instead of enhancing its image.

Many class action suits are idiotic and deplorable, especially what you see in the cascade of law firm press releases after any publicly traded company misses its earnings projections. But here, Poland Spring had all the tools it needed for a winning image restoration campaign. Turning attention to wasteful class action lawsuits generally was a plausible strategy employed in the wrong situation.

A welcome addition to baseball's postseason roster of television commentators has been former Yankee David Justice. His delivery is sometimes slightly shaky, but the analysis is great, providing perspective from his experience without being patronizing or overly technical. The one area in which he could improve is in providing insight into the particular dynamic of postseason play: Justice had one of the luckiest career paths of any recent player, traveling from the Braves to the Indians to the Yankees to the A's--all teams that consistently made the playoffs. No matter what happens in the regular season, pressure situations in October amount to a whole different ball game--just ask Derek Jeter or Byung-Hun Kim.

On the other hand, I'm not sure Chris Berman's style translates well to play-by-play. Berman's qualifications are unquestionable: his depth of knowledge and vocal delivery have singlehandedly defined ESPN SportsCenter and its various spinoffs. Berman's punctuated drama provides the perfect voice-over for a half-hour of highlight reels. But for the continuous narration of an entire game, his voice seems too heavy and not fluid enough. Televised baseball is still in search of the next Vin Scully, whose every phrase captured the rhythmic precision of a finely crafted poem.

While in Fort Lauderdale this past weekend I was able to listen to one of my favorite radio stations, Zeta 94.9 (WZTA Miami). While listening, I came across a great feature, "Nineties at Noon."

The hour-long theme highlighted the extent to which decade names as proxies for musical styles always seem to be selective. "Nineties at Noon" showcased a disproportionate share of hits from a much narrower period, 1994-1997, when airwaves were ruled by The Smashing Pumpkins ("Tonight, Tonight"), Blur ("Song Two"), The Toadies ("Possum Kingdom") and others. These songs define "The Nineties." A song such as "Life Is a Highway" by Tom Cochrane--a top-ten hit from the summer of 1992--does not seem to be included in what immediately springs to mind when one invokes the phrase "nineties rock."

This selective categorization is not new, however. When people talk about "Eighties music," they usually mean early-to-mid eighties, beginning around Rick Springfield's "Jessie's Girl" and ending somewhere near "Don't You Forget About Me" by Simple Minds. And any "Seventies" theme party or club is synonymous with disco, whose lifespan was basically limited to the last three or four years of that decade.

Why 1994-1997? 1994 marks the time roughly when the grunge revolution became sanitized enough so that alternative pop hit mainstream. By 1995 there were at least four New York City area radio stations espousing an "alternative" format (K-Rock, WLIR, WNEW, and Westchester County's 107.1). Everywhere you turned, you heard Dave Matthews, Oasis, Collective Soul, Pearl Jam, Bush, Sponge, Better than Ezra, Live, and The Presidents of the United States. But by 1997-98, inevitable overexposure had taken its toll; Oasis essentially disappeared, while Matthews and Beck changed their sound. A song such as "Infected" by Bad Religion, enthusiastically played and re-played incessantly in 1995, never would have stood a chance.

5) Chocolate-covered cannoli. Cannolis frequently suffer from a filling that is too sweet. However, Columbus Gourmet's chocolate-covered cannolis employ just the right amount of slightly bitter chocolate to temper the filling. Generous chocolate chips on each side round out a nearly perfect dessert.

4) Small garden salad. Fresh mesculin greens surround an elegant mixture of shredded carrot, bean sprouts, cherry tomato and occasionally green pepper. The vegetables are always fresh. The individual serving is slightly too large for an appetizer portion, but the deli will include the salad free of charge with purchase of a hot panini.

3) Baked potato. Never mind the pre-made stuffed variations at twice the price; the plain baked potatoes here turn out to be flawless. They are just the right size, and the deli is smart about cooking: they are prepared such that with another minute in the microwave, it comes out hot but retains its authentic baked potato feel. It is served in aluminum foil so easily endures a short walk home.

2) Basil-pesto salmon. Sure, salmon itself is hard to screw up, but even the finest restaurants submerge a perfectly cooked piece of fish in cream sauces. Basil and pesto are ideal accompaniments to salmon filet, and the particular variety here boasts the ideal balance of these two strong flavors. The prepared foods consultant will gladly customize the amount of sauce to your liking.

1) Apricot chicken. This boneless, skinless cutlet carries an apricot-based coating that represents everything apricot chicken should be: a sauce of just the right sweetness, in a coating of just the right thickness, on a cutlet of just the right size. Moist but not mushy, it performs well with the white rice that is available as a side dish. It may be the best apricot chicken available on the Upper West Side.

Columbus Gourmet is on Columbus Avenue between 72nd and 73rd Streets. 1,2,3,9: 72nd St. B,C: 72nd St.

People complain about meteorologists--they can "always" be wrong but keep their jobs. But what about all the talking heads on CNBC? Every minute, a relentless current of hindsight-fueled technical babble ("value dip," "momentum inflection") explains every ebb and flow of the markets.
Particularly entertaining is the analysis offered by TradingMarkets.com, prominently featured on Yahoo Finance. (Check out this sample.) We are presented with colorful charts and a flood of ticker symbols cited in rapid succession, which must mean expert analysis. Verification of past predictions or technical methodologies is, of course, not readily available.
"A Random Walk Down Wall Street" is the last book I will buy about the stock market. Don't waste a minute waiting for the next "Trap Door Pattern;" find a nice index fund, and go about your day.

From now on, I'm not listening to the new menu options when I call customer service numbers. My call to the New York Times today required a real person as opposed to their interactive voice response system--I needed to confirm that a previously scheduled vacation stop had now been deleted.
Upon hearing "Please listen carefully to our new menu options," I pressed zero and was routed into the queue. A few minutes later, my call was answered by a representative who, it turned out, was totally on the ball, knew everything about my account settings, was very fast and helpful, and was able to send me on my way in less than 2 minutes.
As for IVR systems generally, they would be much better if they confirmed settings changes in one, fast recitation instead of at various stopping points along the way. When I schedule vacation stops using the Times's IVR system, years seem to pass while a synthesized voice articulates, with all the speed of growing grass, my home address for confirmation even before I can key in the relevant dates.

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