Eubie's notes

C|Net: Spam volume keeps rising. “Spam has accounted for 38 percent of the 31 billion e-mails sent each day in North America in 2004, up from 24 percent in 2002, the market researcher said.”

Online Journalism Reviews: Why Beat Reporters Could Be News Sites’ Greatest Secret Weapon. “(O)n the Web, we’ve long realized the value of FAQs, primers and timelines. They work well in newspapers, but they perform even better on the Web, where they can be enhanced with images, be made multi-dimensional with links, can be expanded, collapsed and augmented by readers and — most importantly — where they don’t get thrown in the recycling bin after one short day of life.”

Wired News: RSS Attracts Really Serious Money. This is an interesting counterpoint to a discussion still going at Poynter Online’s Online-News discussion list about the business potentional of RSS feeds. You can scan the recent messages on Poynter about RSS feeds through this link and searching “RSS”.

RSS feeds lets people monitor a lot of news without going through as many hoops, including being exposed to the ads that fund the news operations. It changes the business model that many news publishers depend upon.

Bizjournals: Where have the jobs gone?

Business First of Buffalo: Health plans for retirees face big cuts

The Business Journal (Minneapolis/St. Paul): Web savvy: Local nonprofits turn to the Internet and e-mail for a new spin on fund raising — results are mixed

St. Louis Business Journal: Psychic city: Levin’s influence goes beyond RCGA

The Times of India: Now, outsourcing of media, publishing work

Bizjournals now offers RSS feeds for its daily updates and industry journals.

Debbie Weil of debbie’s blog was recently featured in a Washington Post article about business blogs, such as her own business, a public relations agency. I also read her pieces about online copywriting and web content

A couple of good entries from debbies blog include: Blogging your expertise and Seth Godin live… and interrupted.

NY Times: Safety Gap Grows Wider Between S.U.V.’s and Cars. My dislike of SUVs is getting more personal. The last two accidents that sent our cars to the body shop were from SUV drivers backing up into us. One even ignored the beeping telling the driver there’s something behind the car.

Denver Business Journal: More firms joining fight against faxes

Puget Sound Business Journal: Traffic tapers on MSN pages: Other portals pick up new visitors.

St. Louis Business Journal: Build-A-Bear primed to go public after major marketing push revitalizes sales, pumps up profit

Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal: Auto dealers try more incentives to boost sagging SUV sales

For those who hate site registration: Bugmenot.com lets you read NY Times, LA Times and other sites without registering. Here’s its FAQ. The scrimmage between publishers and readers continues. Tip from Digital Deliverance.

And readers don’t like pop-up ads either. NY Times: As Consumers Revolt, A Rush to Block Pop-Up Online Ads.

Update: (Aug. 20) Boing Boing: RIP, bugmenot.com

Update: (Aug. 21) Boing Boing: Bugmenot.com returns, spokesbugperson says some news sites trying to block it.