1. ON INVESTING
Black Friday? Bah!
Shopmas is on, but don't
believe the hype about
retailers’ big haul until the
real numbers are in. G5
ON SMALL BUSINESS
Rap for that cash
Some in search of angel
investors have ditched the
elevator pitch for over-the-
top hip-hop videos. G2
IN OUTLOOK
A reluctant savior
A look at the history that
keeps Germany from
stepping up to fix the
euro-zone crisis. B1
sunday, december 4, 2011 AX FN FS LF PW DC BD PG AA FD HO MN MS SM
ABCDE
Business
G
CURRENCIES
$1=78.05 Yen; Euro=$1.3405
THE WEEK
AS OF FRIDAY AT 5 P.M. UNASDAQ 2626.93
185.42, 7.6% US&P 500 1244.28
85.61, 7.4% UGOLD $1747
61.30, 3.6% UCRUDE OIL $100.96
4.19, 4.3% V10-YEAR TREASURY
$6.40 per $1,000, 2%UDOW 12019.42
787.64, 7%
Seven who
exceed defining
M
onday morning at Ford’s
Theatre, seven extraordinary
people will receive an award
from The Washington Post and
Harvard’s Kennedy School of
Government for being one of America’s
top leaders. At a time when inspiring
leadership seems to be in such short
supply, it’s worth celebrating those who
are doing it and reflect on the reasons
for their success.
The seven are:
 Sheila Bair, who led the FDIC
through the financial crisis;
 Chris Christie, the brash and dogged
Republican governor of New Jersey who
has managed to make dramatic cuts to
state spending while enhancing his
popularity with voters;
 Jared Cohen, a wunderkind who was
so successful helping the State
Department use the power of Twitter
and You Tube to spread American ideals
around the world that Google hired him
to run its internal “think/do” tank;
 Freeman Hrabowski, who as
president of UMBC has turned a
commuter college into an nationally
recognized incubator for minority
talent in science and math;
pearlstein continued on G6
Gaming your
financial life
W
e don’t talk about money
enough. There are lots of
discussions about consumer
spending habits, especially this time of
year, but the therapeutic
conversations that keep people from
making major financial blunders often
never take place.
So Syble Solomon, who gives
lectures on the psychology of money,
came up with a creative way to get
people to open up about their
finances. She’s created Money
Habitudes, a deck of cards ($14.95,
LifeWise) that individuals, couples
and groups can use to explore how
certain attitudes support or sabotage
their financial lives. This simple but
extraordinarily insightful game is the
Color of Money Book Club selection
for December. When I come across a
tool that I think is useful, I’ll
recommend it instead of a book. The
point of my picks is just the same: to
expose you to good personal finance
information.
color continued on G4
STEVEN PEARLSTEIN
MICHELLE SINGLETARY
The Color of Money
It’s a ‘social’
network
And it’s best
to steer clear
if you value
your privacy.
Page 4
BLOOMBERG
Libor loses luster
Investors say the system
that sets the benchmark
to determine interest
rates is rigged. G3
Q&A
Mobility matters
Austan Goolsbee talks
with Ezra Klein about
Europe’s growth and why
the euro won’t survive. G3
An upstart grabs
a seat at the tableWhile OpenTable seems to have cornered
the winner-take-all market of online
reservations, CityEats looks for an opening
BY TIM CARMAN
For the diners who use OpenTable,
the online reservation service is a snap:
Log in to the Web site, find the restau-
rant you want and, with any luck, grab a
table for the hour you desire. It costs
nothing but the time it takes to book a
reservation.
But to the restaurant owners who
benefit from all those diners using
OpenTable, the service is often viewed
as the 800-pound gorilla they can’t live
without. The company can steer thou-
sands of eaters to a restaurant every
month, while draining thousands of
dollars of revenue at the same time. It
helps restaurateurs manage tables on
their dining room floors but clutters
their host stands with clunky terminals.
It provides a forum for diners to post
feedback and reviews but doesn’t allow
restaurateurs the chance to reply to the
more pointed comments.
In short, some restaurant owners say,
OpenTable is vulnerable to a competitor
with a different and perhaps cheaper
plan for putting diners in seats.
Over the years, a number of compa-
nies have tried to unseat OpenTable,
Savvydiner.com and DinnerBrokera-
mong them, with no obvious success.
But a new entrant into the market has
generated hope among some restaura-
teurs that the online reservations Goli-
ath may have met its David.
CityEats launched in the Washington
area last month with several high-pro-
file restaurants on board, including
Mike Isabella’s Graffiato and Cathal
Armstrong’s four-star Restaurant Eve’s
Tasting Room, along with dozens of
others with less marquee value. They
were attracted to CityEats not just for its
lower prices and tablet-based technol-
ogy, but also for its parent company: the
Scripps Networks, which owns the Food
Network, the Cooking Channel and the
Travel Channel.
“That was definitely an important
aspect for us, that CityEats is funded
well and organized properly,” Arm-
strong says. “I think they’re a pretty safe
bet for competition to OpenTable.”
That’s easier said than done. This is,
after all, a winner-takes-all market. As
OpenTable likes to point out, the com-
reservations continued on G5
JONATHAN BARTLETT FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
What
restaurants
pay to fill
the tables
Open Table
Monthly fee: $200
Fee per diner: $1
Charges 25 cents
per booking made
on restaurant’s site.
Charges $7.50 per
diner for off-peak
reservations made
through the 1,000-
point program.
CityEats
Monthly fee:
$175 to $250
Fee per diner: 75
cents
About 80 area
restaurants have
signed on. Backed
by Food Network.
Does not charge for
diners who book on
restaurant’s site.
Urbanspoon’s
Rezbook
Monthly fee:
Transitioning away
from a $200
monthly charge
Fee per diner: $2
Nine area
restaurants use it.
Does not charge for
diners who book on
restaurant’s site or
Facebook page.
Reservation
Genie
Monthly fee: $49
Fee per diner: $2
No local restaurants
use this service. Fee
per diner is $2 in
cities that offer the
Concierge
Association
Partnership. Does
not charge for
diners who book on
restaurant’s site or
Facebook page.
Livebookings
Monthly fee:
Free to $139
Fee per diner: $1
Three local
restaurants use this
service. Restaurants
are charged the $1
fee only when
reservations are
made through one
of LiveBooking’s
partner sites, such
as American
Express or TimeOut
online.