DOG-COM CORRECTION

By: Karim Mostafa The Times Learns That Petsmart.com Is No Petstore.com



It's a dog-eat-dog world for dot-coms these days, making it difficult
for newshounds to keep up with the food chain.



Tuesday morning's New York Times gave prominent play to a
correction in the business section that said Petsmart.com really is
still in business. The correction follows a Sunday article in the
Times that recorded the downfall of various online retailers,
incorrectly placing Petsmart.com among such casualties as Boo.com and
Toysmart.com.


The Times story resulted in a deluge of calls from both the
press and customers. 'It's hard to get work done when we're dealing
with damage control,' says Mark Siegel, marketing director at
Petsmart.com of Pasadena, Calif. 'It seems that somebody got confused
by names.'


In this case, Petsmart.com was mistaken for Petstore.com, the online
retailer that really went to the dogs on June 13. Petstore.com let its
employees go and sold its remaining assets to Pets.com (of sock-puppet
spokesdog fame).



'It was a simple typo that we didn't get to change at the last minute,'
says Winnie O'Kelley, deputy business editor at The New York
Times. The newspaper did correct the story on its Web site by 12
noon on Sunday.



Petsmart.com is moving full steam ahead with an IPO in the wings, says
Mark Siegel, marketing director at Petsmart.com. 'We did stress the
need for a high-visibility correction,' he says.



The New York Times' policy is to publish a correction whenever
there is a factual error with most corrections appearing the following
day on page A2 in the corrections box.


This correction appeared on page one of 'Business Day' because it was
published a day late, explains Katherine Mathis, vice president of
corporate communications at the Times.


'If it has an extreme impact on people's business, we will publish a
prominent correction,' O'Kelley adds. 'We wanted to make it clear to
our business readers and investors.'



Siegel says the Times story was also picked up by The Tampa
Tribune and The Plain Dealer in Cleveland. He says these two
papers are also publishing corrections.