Firms’ Internal Memos Posted on New Web Site
The publisher of a profane Web site that skewers troubled companies launched a new online service Monday showcasing the correspondence of top executives and managers.
InternalMemos.com is the brainchild of Philip J. Kaplan, a wisecracking high-tech contractor who touched a nerve in May 2000 when he launched a sarcastic Web site ridiculing dead dot-coms.
The name of Kaplan’s original site, which attracts as many as 4 million visitors per month, is a vulgar twist on the high-tech magazine Fast Company, which hailed the rise of dot-coms in the late 1990s.
Kaplan is taking a more straightforward approach with InternalMemos.com. The site contains about 800 memos sent to him during the last three years.
Access to one or two memos each day is free. Kaplan intends to charge a $45 monthly subscription to view all the material at www.internalmemos.com. Subscribers willing to pay $75 per month will get unlimited access to InternalMemos and Kaplan’s popular Web site focusing on failed companies.
Monday’s free sample featured a note from KFSO Communications advising its employees not to destroy any internal records from Jan. 1. 1997, through July 1, 2002, at the request of Kinko’s.
Kaplan eventually hopes to post thousands of memos ranging from highly sensitive information to mundane material like the menu in the corporate cafeteria. “I’m more interested in quantity than quality,” Kaplan said Monday.
