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in reach within its market; we have other, less
obvious strengths (including outstanding cus-
tomer service from our circulation distributors).
But faced with the loss of much of our clas-
sified advertising, the nationalization of local
retail and declining readership among younger
people, we don’t have a formula for enduring
profitability. (We do, however, have one part of
that formula: a great newspaper.)
Social Code, a social media technology company,
became our fastest-growing business. Total rev-
enue almost doubled, and the management
team, headed by Laura Graham O’Shaughnessy,
set ambitious plans for 2013 and beyond.
My 2011 letter contained excited words about
Washington Post Social Reader on Facebook.
More than 30 million people downloaded it. A
year later: as a Facebook app, it’s all but gone.
But the WaPo Labs team has changed Social
Reader into an Internet site (SocialReader.com);
we have high hopes for its development. Sign
up, discover some interesting news stories and
send us your ideas for improvement.
Late in the year we acquired Celtic Healthcare,
a small company (it will be about 1% of our reve-
nues), but a well-run one in a growing business.
Celtic oers home health care (think nurses,
and physical and occupational therapists) on a
doctor’s prescription when a Medicare patient
is sent home from the hospital. It also oers
hospice services. CEO Arnie Burchianti and
COO Kurt Baumgartel were therapists in the
Pittsburgh area. They have expanded Celtic
wisely and maintained high standards of care.
They’ll continue to run it for us.
We’ll be looking to acquire companies, in busi-
nesses we can understand, making steady prof-
its with strong management.
We made one other important “acquisition” in
2012, repurchasing 301,231 shares of our own
stock. Having gone public with 20 million shares
outstanding, we now have 7,427,501 shares
outstanding.
Our outstanding board of directors added a
wonderful new member in Dave Goldberg, CEO
of SurveyMonkey and former CEO of Yahoo!
Music. In my years of looking for advice in
Silicon Valley, Dave’s is among the very wisest
and best.
DONALD E. GRAHAM
Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Ocer
February 22, 2013
SOCIAL CODE, A SOCIAL MEDIA TECHNOLOGY COMPANY, BECAME OUR FASTEST-
GROWING BUSINESS. TOTAL REVENUE ALMOST DOUBLED.
// 2012 ANNUAL REPORT // 5