Letters To The Editor

American Demographics, Dec 1, 2002

Our Melting Pot

Thank you very much for your recent special section, "Diversity in America" (November 2002), which provided information on the income and buying power of racial and ethnic groups in the U.S. The graphics are fabulous and easily tell the story of our changing America.

I'm glad you continue to tell your readers about the untapped minority markets. I loved your cover story on black Baby Boomers (February 2001), "The Forgotten Baby Boom." You were also one of the early folks to write about how Latinas have money and that they are shopping. This was before Latina magazine got so heavy you could barely lift it. I also enjoyed your recent "Media Channels" story on the popularity of Latino radio (October 2002), "Look Who's Tuned In."

Keep up the great work. BOBBI BOWMAN Diversity Director, ASNE Reston, Va.

Let Your Fingers Do the Walking

As a former employee of Dow Jones when it owned American Demographics, I've always had a great deal of respect for your excellent publication. However, there is an error in the November 2002 edition.

My concern is with your article "The Reach of the Yellow Pages." While this article, in general, is very thorough, accurate and well-written, one sentence is inaccurate and inappropriately skews the potential for print Yellow Pages over the next five years.

On page 26, the story mentions my belief that Internet directories will take market share away from the print Yellow Pages over the next five years, as many homes gain quicker Web access. It continues: "Today, online lookups make up just 10 percent of all YP references and account for only 2 percent of revenue, he says. But assuming print usage remains flat and Internet searches continue to rise by at least 25 percent a year, by 2006 the Internet's market share of revenues could be as high as 35 percent, says Kelsey."

You should have replaced the phrase "revenues could be as high as 35 percent" with the following: "usage could be as high as 30.5 percent." If you take "10 percent of all Yellow Pages references," as it says in the paragraph, and compound this number by 25 percent a year from 2001 to 2006, the total comes to 30.5 percent. I was referring to usage - not revenues, as the article states.

This is not an insignificant change, in that revenues will almost certainly continue to trail usage by a considerable amount. JOHN KELSEY President and CEO The Kelsey Group Princeton, N.J.

Editor's Note: We regret the error. The sentence should have read: But assuming print usage remains flat and Internet searches continue to rise by at least 25 percent a year, by 2006 the Internet's market share of usage could be as high as 30.5 percent.

The Fountain of Youth

I was just reading the article "Chasing Youth" (October 2002) and found a discrepancy. Looking at the two charts on page 36, I noticed that the labels on the bars are the same for both charts. However, the bar heights are different. This led me to conclude that the chart on the right was mislabeled. I'm assuming that the heights of the bars are correct, so that the information is there, just mislabeled. Thought you might like to know. LYNNE R. HELTMAN Veterans Benefits Administration Washington, D.C.

Editor's Note: You're right. Thanks for pointing this out. We regret the error. The corrected chart is below.