Making a market in almost anything (Fortune 2005)

A fledgling website with some big-name backers, Intrade allows regular people to invest -- not bet -- on the current events they know best.

Editors note: Every Sunday Fortune publishes a relevant story from our magazine archives. This week, as online betting site Intrade shuts down due to a probe of financial irregularities, we turn to a 2005 profile of the company that made betting on quirky and not-so quirky events MORE

Their first trips to China

In a new essay collection, My First Trip to China, distinguished China watchers evoke the world's most dynamic economy as it used to be.

By David Whitford, editor-at-large

FORTUNE -- My first trip to China was in the spring of 2007. I was covering Michael Dell on one of his periodic expeditions to the far reaches of his global computer empire. I stayed at the Shanghai Four Seasons, where I had MORE

Can General Motors remake its rental car?

GM's Chevrolet Impala - a favorite of dreary rental lots - is getting a do-or-die makeover.

By Doron Levin

FORTUNE -- That Chevrolet Impala you may have rented on your last out-of-town trip has little resemblance to the one arriving at dealer showrooms in the next few weeks. General Motors Co. has completed the overhaul of Chevrolet, its biggest-selling brand, with a new full-size sedan it hopes -- check that, prays MORE