DIARY

March 4, 2003

Conference call

Steven was working with a reporter from Reuters regarding our second big press release: the ThankYou software. Steven called Pieter at about 8:30 PM and said that the reporter wanted to know more about our supercomputing feature plus how we would actually compensate artists. There were two minor problems. One, Pieter had no clue as to how this would work. Two, Pieter did not have time to figure this out. What he could do was look on the Internet and try to find enough material to make the story look real. Pieter located a bunch of articles, printed relevant sections, highlighted the most interesting parts and that had to be it. For as far as the rest, he would have to improvise. The conference call did not go smoothly but Pieter figured we had survived. The reporter “probably” did buy his story. Pieter used his best “not so perfect English” to make sure that things did not get too serious. One thing was for sure. After this press release he would need a story with some substance. He would need to bring in a company or a person to help us with the credibility of The Honest Thief. He could not continue bugging the press with hot air or his campaign would run out of steam quickly.