Eubie's notes

Wired: Extra! Extra! Read All About You More newspapers are asking more information about readers. “To convince advertisers to spend online, newspapers say they need to get enough data about their users to tailor ads to the most receptive possible audience. Thus, it’s necessary to have enough data about its audience to determine, say, how people live within driving distance of a particular store, or which readers would be most interested in offers from luxury-car dealers.”

Warren Buffett’s annual letter to shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is great reading. It was posted midnight Saturday and continues to be discussed today at Motley Fool and CBS MarketWatch.

Current: Scout’s honor: a father’s unlikely foray into the woods by Peter Applebome
Finished: Jennifer Government by Max Barry

Audio book
Current: Lost victories: The military genius of Stonewall Jackson by Bevin Alexander

This to that.com tells you what to use when glueing things together.

Statistical Abstract of the U.S., especially Mini Historical Statistics

Wired News: Outsmarting the Slick Ad Boys. Add rich-media ads to those being blocked by users or by ISPs such as Earthlink. Double Click says rich-media ads get more viewer clicks than other type ads, but some say the clicks drop over a short time as people grow weary of them.

Click Z: Beyond Pop-Ups looks further at the contradiction that while consumers say they don’t like pop-ups, they have good response. The article says the good response is short term.

The article cites a report commissioned by Web behavior firm Bunnyfoot Universality. “The study reveals 60 percent of Web users mistrust ‘any company that uses — or even hosts — pop-ups.’ ‘Brands undoubtedly committing commercial suicide by insisting on using pop-ups,’ the company’s director of business behavior said in a statement. ‘Pop-ups are therefore not just a huge waste of money; they are also extremely negative for a brand.’

Wired News reports on Hewlett-Packard Labs study that finds the most-read webloggers regularly borrow topics from lesser-known bloggers — often without attribution.

So why should bloggers be different than some newspapers and national media?

From Wired’s article: “These findings are important to sociologists who are interested in learning how ideas grow from isolated topics into full-blown epidemics that ‘infect’ large populations. Such an understanding is also important to marketers, who hope to be able to pitch products and ideas directly to the most influential people in a given group.”

A Chicago Tribune writer changes name and profession of a source quoted about a riot by Aborigines in Sydney. Reader complains, papers investigates, paper suspends writer, writer says he did it to protect the source and has no regrets. This is the quote: “These people always complain. They want it both ways ? their way and our way. They want to live in our society and be respected, yet they won’t work. They steal, they rob and they get drunk. And they don’t respect the laws.”

To me the quote is proof of why the name and profession should not be changed. So who was he protecting?

Lost Remote: 31% of Internet users were online as the watched Academy Awards on TV. Sounds like wireless internet access and laptops are mainstream. Also I read recently that ESPN had designed its web site for viewers who are online as they watch its shows.

NY Times: Medicare and Social Security Challenge. Analysis article saying both systems will be broke and that politicians continue to ignore the problem. Article was on the heels of comments by the Fed’s Greenspan that Social Security benefits need to be trimmed. Bigger issue is Medicare because of the uncertainty of how much medical costs will rise in future decades.