Work at home spammers sued
MediaPost
"THE FEDERAL TRADE Commission yesterday announced it has sued a Florida company under the Can-Spam law as part of a “Project Biz Opp Flop” initiative targeting purveyors of get-rich-quick scams."
Will the UK follow? How soon?
Daily bite...
DevShed On starting a business....
"be grateful. Our scars have the power to remind us that the past was real.
Hannibal Lecter, Red Dragon"
Romeo Marquez concludes from his experience of starting up in online business that...
"Now that I think of it, a service agreement is pretty much like a condom.
Using one is much safer than not, and will help to avoid an undesired
result"
The cost of ethics: Influence peddling in the blogosphere
OJR
J. D. Lasica writes on the ethics of relationships between blogs and advertising.... "Blogging is growing up. For better, for worse."
Couple Become Blogging Trailblazers
Forbes.com: "The potential of blogging itself elicits strongly divided opinions.
Denizens of the so-called blogosphere believe the practice is destined to revolutionize the way people distribute and get information, increasingly marginalizing traditional mass media outlets.
The Pew Internet and American Life Project finds that 27 percent of online adults in the United States read blogs, and 7 percent write them.
Critics, though, view all the fuss about blogs as the latest bout of Internet hyperbole, one that will eventually fade away ones readers realize they are rife with inaccuracies and mundane minutiae."
Ain't that what life's like and where meaning lies?
Or if you prefer like Don Quijote? The very first novel and primogenitor of Bridget Jones...although I much prefer de lillo on the minutia of life
'Spyware' Label Slapped on Legit Research Software
clickz.com
Tracking and stats hit firewall:
"Some anti-spyware programs zap comScore's tracking software from its own panel members' PCs, ClickZ has learned. The same programs likely pose threats to other online research firms' applications."
NYT Buys About.com for $410 Million
BizReport
"The New York Times Co. is buying About.com, an online consumer information company, for $410 million in cash from special-interest magazine publisher Primedia Inc., the companies announced Thursday. It was the latest acquisition of an online company in recent months by a newspaper publisher."
Climb every mountain...
Why Be An Apprentice When You Can Be The Next Trump?: "Peak Pitch '05 is the uniquely New Hampshire version of a business 'elevator pitch,' giving participants the opportunity to pitch their business plans to a variety of venture investors, angel investment groups, banks and individual investors as they ride together up a mountain on a high-speed chair lift. "
FakeBlogsWiki: Welcome to the FakeBlogs.info site!
FakeBlogsWiki: Welcome to the FakeBlogs.info site!: "Welcome to the FakeBlogs.info site!
This site is a clearing house for information about 'flogs', or fake weblogs created by corporate marketing departments as lame marketing exercises."
Marketing Books from BuildingBrands - PR disasters
Marketing Books from BuildingBrands - PR disasters
"Book Reviews Talespin: Public Relations Disasters " free chapter available...
The Dollars and Sense of Building to Standards
Digital Web Magazine
Alan K'necht's of K'nechtology Inc. article aims to set "the record straight" by preempting clients (external and/or internal) who ask, “How much is this standards thing going to cost me?” and “What’s in it for me?” when you start to talk about standards."
He reckons:
People simply don’t recognize how much it’s costing them not to code to standards. For too long, people have accepted poor HTML code and assumed there was nothing that could be done to improve it
If everyone was trained and followed the standards, how much easier and faster would it be for you to fix a Web page that you didn’t write or to indoctrinate a new employee? This equates to big savings.
Concludes: Ultimately, the push for standards-compliant code should come from the coding ranks. We need to enlighten all levels of management to the savings they can achieve by embracing Web standards. If the people on the front lines don’t take on the job of promoting standards to management and management learns of these savings first, you’ll be faced with a tougher challenge—why didn’t you know to use and push for standards-compliant code?
For more ammunition in the fight for Web standards and some cool coding tips, visit the Web Standards Project. These people are fighting on behalf of all of us to achieve standards compliance in all browsers and Web development tools.
SEO and Your Web Site Better search engine rankings with XHTML
McDonald's Tries Fake French Fry Blog
Micro Persuasion
"Steve Rubel picks up on
Kevin Duggan at Strategic Public Relations post on McDonald's fake Lincoln Fry blog. Duggan writes "I realized it is a fake blog. Even the post comments are bogus...while it is not deceptive, it still stinks. The site is so very camp to begin with; the fake blog is simply trying too hard."
The offending
The Lincoln Fry Blog
Ability to post and read online ratings is the most revolutionary online communication
MediaPost : "THOSE OF US WHO LIVE by and are addicted to our e-mail and IM need little discussion of the power of the Internet as a communications medium. But among the most revolutionary, and perhaps least understood aspects of online communication, is found on almost any site where two or more are gathered: the ability to post and read online ratings, messages, opinion, and commentary...
Igougo.com - a destination that has over 300,000 visitors who post on their travel experiences -- has been around a few years and wrestled reputation systems pretty powerfully. They marry voting ("rate this review") with a thorough, but anonymous, profile of each contributor - their background, expertise, interests, experiences - so I have some sense of not only how others view their postings, but if that person has the experience relevant not only to a given country, but to MY needs in that country.
Who we are, what we have done, what people think of us. There are thousands of opinions out there that could matter to me. But they are not all equal. Reputation is the key to finding what matters. "
Gizoogle - Sizearch For Shiznit
Gizoogle - Sizearch For Shiznit: "One Stop Book'n - arrange yo tizzy hizzy now... wanna be gangsta ta claim Gift Aid, whiznich means tha Inland Revenue wizzy reimburse tha tax you have already paid on tha donation ta tha DEC n shit. T-H-to-tha-izzank you - every P-E-Double-Nizzy wizzle go ta alleviate acute suffer'n like a motha ...."
Ebay gets personal - no more auto responses..
Internet Daily
"The president of Ebay North America says the company will reduce one of its sellers' costs and get more personal with its customer service. In an online letter, Ebay's (EBAY: news, chart, profile) Bill Cobb said that while the company's recent price hike for having an online store will remain, it will reduce the price of listing some items for auction. He also said that over the next three months, Ebay will shut down most automated e-mail responses. 'You'll hear from a real human being,' he said."
ChangeThis :: Why Craigslist Works, by Craig
ChangeThis :: Why Craigslist Works, by Craig
Link to " a ChangeThis exclusive, Craig Newmark talks about the values that got his business from there to here. "
Forbes.com: Mozilla's Thunderbird Takes Off
Forbes.com: Mozilla's Thunderbird Takes Off: "A few months ago, I tried a beta version of Mozilla's free e-mail program Thunderbird. Despite the accomplishments of their Web browser Firefox, Thunderbird just wasn't ready for prime time. It was a little less than stable, and it choked when importing large volumes of e-mail archives from other programs.
Today I'm ready to reverse my previous judgement. In a few short weeks, Thunderbird 1.0, the first official release, has quickly grown into my own personal information command center. I've been using Thunderbird on four machines, two running Microsoft's (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) Windows XP and two running Apple Computer's (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ) Mac OS X. Not only is it an excellent, flexible and stable e-mail program, but it's also a powerful tool for efficiently keeping up on Web sites that I read regularly. "
Interview with Bill Gates
SPIEGEL ONLINE
"Microsoft founder Bill Gates, 49, talks about the thorny issues of computer security, competition, software bundling and how he lives with the downsides of his wealth and fame. "
Why you can't ignore blogs; blogging tips, what is RSS?
The MarCom Writer?
Dianna Huff: "Why You Can't Ignore Blogs" fine short articles covering the basics for anyone who needs convincing still about business blogs...
Top SiteScores - Silktide Ltd (UK)
Top SiteScores - Silktide Ltd (UK): "730 www.totaltravel.com 7.9 - Report"
Podcasting on the up?
Internet Daily: marketwatch.com "Aussies prep podcasting directory"
FT - Looking for "scuttlebutt" - Gain an edge in the blog zone
Yahoo! News - Gain an edge in the blog zone: "Every day I like to read several of these online journals written by hedge fund managers, analysts, venture capitalists and researchers for the latest analysis and any news that might not be hitting my radar screen from the traditional sources. Here are my top seven; please e-mail me with your favourites...
With 8,000 hedge funds and countless other investors there is almost no way to get an edge in the investment universe by looking only at traditional sources. What Phil Fisher called "scuttlebutt" in his investment classic Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits is more likely to be found now in the blogosphere than anywhere else.
The writer is a managing partner at hedge fund firm Formula Capital and the author of Trade Like a Hedge Fund. E-mail him at james@formulacapital.com"
Overture - 'Latent' Purchase Conversion Driving Online Buying
Overture - Advertiser Newsletter
" Finally, the comScore study tracked online buying behavior for 90 days following a CE/C search, and revealed:
Only 15 percent of online purchases occurred in the same user session as the search itself.
85 percent of conversions occurred in a latent (non-search) session.
Nearly 40 percent of all purchases occurred 5 to 12 weeks after the initial search."
