Did you say dogging or blogging? Brits confused

By Jeffrey Goldfarb

LONDON (Reuters) - Proponents of the latest Web trends were warned Tuesday that the rest of the world may not have a clue what they are talking about.

A survey of British taxi drivers, pub landlords and hairdressers -- often seen as barometers of popular trends -- found that nearly 90 percent had no idea what a podcast is and more than 70 percent had never heard of blogging.

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Three Weeks Without the Web
By Cory Treffiletti

My name is Cory Treffiletti and I am an Internet-aholic. I recently moved back to New York from San Francisco, and it's been three weeks since I had Internet access at home. At first I thought: "This'll be easy. There's a Starbucks every 35 feet in Manhattan, and I can use their Wi-Fi when I need to log on. Plus, there's always a wireless hub somewhere for me to jump onto."

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You, Too, Could Be in Advertising

By David Cohn

At one point or another, everyone thinks they have a brilliant advertising idea. The problem is that it's impossible to get that idea to the right ears. Now a new website will act as the middleman between companies looking for fresh ideas and would-be advertisers.

Per Hoffman started Adcandy so the public could contribute their original advertising ideas and possibly even see them used to sell their favorite products. "People want to participate in all forms of culture, so why not commercials, for better or for worse?" said Hoffman.

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Blogs: A Better Form of Community
By Tom Hespos

What's with this notion of blog advertising being positioned as a way to "influence the influencers?" Excuse me, but 1998 called and it wants its selling proposition back.

I'm not just trying to be cute here. Lots of media plays have been positioned as a way to get to influencers over the years. Of course "influencers" is just a new-millennium spin on "early adopters," but I digress...

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Melding of cell phones and Wi-Fi will be cosmic, man

RSS Ego Searches

by Sharon Housley

Ego searches are free and simple searches designed to monitor blogs and news portals for mentions of your company, product, competitors or other specific keywords. Conducting ego searches not only allows you to stay informed, but also allows you to maintain a strategic advantage over competing companies. A number of new Internet services are freely available that make these 'ego searches' painless and easy.

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Carat: Traditional Media Flat, Decelerating; Digital Surging
by Joe Mandese

AEGIS GROUP, THE WORLD'S LARGEST pure-play media services company, Tuesday marginally upgraded its global ad outlook largely on the strength of accelerated ad spending in Asia. While it maintained its U.S. ad growth estimates--4.5 percent in 2005 and 5.0 percent in 2006--Aegis, the parent of Carat and several other media networks, said there are fundamental shifts taking place in advertising demand among the major media, with traditional media flattening or lagging and digital media accelerating. "We are seeing some interesting shifts in the allocation of advertising budgets," Aegis CEO Robert Lerwill said in the company's revised outlook. Lerwill attributed these changes to Carat's research. "Television's share of advertising spend is leveling out and newspaper's share of advertising is declining, with budgets shifting to the Internet." Noting that online ad spending has already overtaken radio's, Lerwill also said that Aegis also expects it to catch up with outdoor during 2005.

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Do's And Don'ts Of Emailing Press Releases

by Kevin Nunley

I'm a big believer in EMAILING press releases. Not only is email dirt cheap, email can often get you in front of editors a lot faster than regular mail or fax.

Here's why. Media outlets like radio stations, TV stations, and newspapers get a TON of press releases. During my 20 years working in radio and TV, we got bag loads of mailed press releases every day.

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Spamhaus: Yahoo major phishing site host

By Tom Espiner
Special to CNET News.com

Spamhaus has accused Yahoo of failing in the fight against online fraud, and Microsoft has admitted there is room for improvement.

Yahoo is playing host to thousands of phishing sites and doesn't have sufficiently well-trained staff to address the problem of online fraud, according to a leading anti-spam and security organization on Tuesday.

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Benefits of Being a Blogger

by Nicholas Dixon

I have been a blogger since September 2004 but only began to take it seriously this year. My blogging journey began when I stumbled upon a company owned by Google named Blogger.com that offered free tools to build a website.

In fact Blogger provides you with free several templates which you can customize in addition to a domain name hosted on their server. You can host your blog on your domain if you like to. Here are some benefits I found while blogging:

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Internet Marketing - Advantages & Disadvantages

by Christopher Smith

Everyone seems to be jumping on the internet marketing bandwagon lately. In the race to get their business online, many successful businesses forget to ask themselves some tough questions about what they are doing, what their expectations are and what their plan is to meet those expectations.

The internet can be a powerful tool that can put you on solid footing with bigger companies. On the other hand, the other companies may have more money to pay for advertising. Here are a couple of things to keep in mind as you analyze your internet marketing strategy.
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Weird Sells: Get Noticed On The Internet

by Mark Thompson

What is weird?, well in the 21st century it’s getting more and more difficult to define what is weird and what isn’t. According to the dictionary one definition is “Of a strikingly odd or unusual character; strange”. Surely that isn’t enough any more? A quick look at eBay and you will find hundreds of items that would comply with that definition. Toast with faces on it, Glass jars containing Ghosts and numerous examples of weird and wacky objects, (well weird and wacky according to the people who have submitted them.) The sheer number of them should preclude them from being classed as Weird. Mainstream Newspapers now have pages of weird news and no shortage of people willing to appear on them. The nightly news no longer finishes with heart warming local story it finishes with some weird local happening Weird is big news.

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RSS And E-mail: How They Can Work Together?

by Rok Hrastnik

For most marketers online e-mail is still the key marketing and communicational tool, with its use ranging from e-zine publishing, direct sales messages, loyalty campaigns to internal communications between team members.

But getting e-mail through due to spam filters and spam itself is getting increasingly difficult, while anti-spam legislation is putting even legitimate e-mail marketers to risk.

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Online Customer Service And Other Oxymora
By Shelly Palmer

Accurate horoscopes, airline food, pretty ugly, jumbo shrimp, vegetarian meatball, false fact, online customer service... are you detecting a pattern here?

Is there such a thing as online customer service? I assume there is, but it is becoming harder and harder to find. There is a new generation of Web-based businesses that feature incredibly low-priced ASP (application service provider) models for programming services, add-ins, e-mail, metrics, or other programming aids. Can we excuse bad customer service from low-end providers and low-profit businesses? Perhaps the free market will take care of it.

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WashingtonPost.com Sends Readers To Blogs
by Shankar Gupta

WASHINGTONPOST.COM HAS ENTERED INTO A deal with blog search engine Technorati that will make it easy for readers to find blog entries about Post stories. Technorati already has similar deals with Salon.com and Newsweek.com, but WashingtonPost.com marks the search engine's first major newspaper partnership.

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Keep The Referrals Coming

by Jay Conners

A key method of our survival in the business and retail world is referrals. Referrals are always nice, because they come from someone on the outside of your company who has enough trust and faith in you to refer someone in your direction.

When we receive a referral from someone, it seems like an easy way to get a sale, but keep in mind, referrals don’t come without first building relationships with your current customers, and within your business community.

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Nielsen: Online Ad Spend Soars 12.6 Percent
by Wendy Davis

SPENDING FOR ONLINE DISPLAY ADS rose 12.6 percent in the first half of 2005, according to a new report by Nielsen Monitor-Plus. That rate, although more than double the 5.7 percent growth in overall ad spending, was lower than projections by other online ad forecasters. JupiterResearch forecast earlier this month that spending for online display ads would reach $5.1 billion this year, up around 25 percent from last year's $4.1 billion. Other researchers and analysts anticipated even higher numbers. Goldman Sachs predicted that online advertising overall (including search) would soar by 28 percent for the year; Forrester Research predicted that all online advertising would climb by 23 percent this year; and research firm eMarketer predicted a 34 percent increase.

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Broad, Phrase, Exact, Negative - Four Google AdWords Terms You Must Know For Advertising success

by Rob Barrett

A few days ago, I was setting up my latest Google AdWords campaign. My brother was watching me work through the process, and he asked me:

'Why do you put quotation marks and square brackets around some keywords?'

I was a bit surprised to realise that I couldn't actually answer him - not in any definite way, at least. So, I set to work finding out what the matching options mean, and how they affect results.
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CBS News counters bloggers with 'Nonbudsman'
By Paul J. Gough

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - After a controversial run-in with bloggers last year that helped sink "60 Minutes Wednesday," CBS has hired a "nonbudsman" to write a blog that will go behind the scenes at the news division.

Former "Hotline" editor Vaughn Ververs will report his findings on "Public Eye," which debuts next month on http://www.cbsnews.com.

Ververs will be a kind of media reporter, mostly focused on CBS News, reporting and writing about how the news is gathered, produced and placed. In addition to providing Journalism 101, "Public Eye" also could offer extended versions of segments that appeared on CBS, interviews with correspondents and producers and maybe even the daily story meeting for the "CBS Evening News."

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Make Internet Marketing Work For You Via RSS

by Paul Jesse

RSS marketing is a tool used by many on the Internet to deliver advertisements, emails, customer support responses, ezines to clients and potential clients without the concern of Spam filters hindering the receipt of the email. Spam filters have created serious problems for companies marketing through email and almost 65% of the emails you send are not even opened by the recipient. This really will hurt your business if you do not find a way to get your information to clients and potential clients. That is what RSS marketing is all about, getting your information directly to the client and potential client.

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The Computer is Fast Becoming The Entertainer

According to the finding of a recent BURST! Media survey of 13,000 web users, 14 yrs. and older, the personal computer is rapidly replacing other ubiquitous appliances such as the telephone, radio and television as the household's tool of choice. Entertainment that used to be accessed on separate appliances is increasingly being played on the computer.

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RSS Won the Syndication Standards Battle

by S. Housley

RSS appears to have conquered the last hurtle in becoming the industry syndication standard.

Microsoft's inclusion of RSS into the newest version of InternetExplorer and reports that RSS will be in Longhorn's coming release appears to be the final nail in the coffin of the Atom specification. Even Atom's steadfast supporter Google, appears to have seen the light. Google had previously acquired Blogger, a popular blogging tool that uses the Atom specification to syndicate the contents of blogs created on the Blogger platform. In the past Google had strategically steered clear of endorsing the RSS specification hoping that Atom, would take hold.
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Verizon Slashes Wireless Broadband Fees
by Gavin O'Malley

CONTINUING ITS AGGRESSIVE BROADBAND PUSH, Verizon Wireless on Monday announced key expansions into several markets along with a 25 percent cut to its monthly subscription fee. The wireless carrier, owned by Verizon Communications and Vodafone Group PLC, dropped the price of its evolution-data optimized, EV-DO, monthly service fee from $79.99 to $59.99. At that price point, according to JupiterResearch analyst Joseph Laszlo, wireless service becomes a legitimate alternative to DSL and cable modem, as well as Wi-Fi services. "At these prices, wired broadband services and Wi-Fi now have some real competition," Laszlo said. "Just like people now forgo regular phone service for their cell phones, wireless Internet services will become a more attractive alternative."

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Reachout Throughout-RSS

by Syed Ibrahim

RSS has been around for more than seven years but until recently “Rss Technology” started penetrating its roots deep inside the soil of the so-called E-world.

Using this standard, web publishers provide updates, such as the latest news headlines, special announcements, press releases or weblog postings through their RSS content

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Bloggers Are Younger, Wealthier and High Speed Connected

According to a comScore Networks report detailing the scale, composition and activities of audiences of Weblogs, commonly known as "blogs," nearly 50 million Americans, or about 30 percent of the total U.S. Internet population, visited blogs in Q1 2005. This represents an increase of 45 percent compared to Q1 2004.

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Expensive Gas, Accelerated Shopping Carts
By Seana Mulcahy

We advertisers and marketers have dubbed this time of year summer's end. It seems like everyone is in that back-to-school rush, be it parents and guardians, kids, teachers, or just about anyone trying to navigate through a retail store (let alone find a parking space) this past weekend. To top it all off, gas prices have made everyone with a set of wheels aggravated.

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Yahoo! Revamps Web Hosting For Small Business
by Gavin O'Malley

HOPING TO ENCOURAGE MORE BUSINESSES to start their own Web sites, Yahoo! has redesigned its hosting service for small businesses. The revamped service emphasizes customization, brand autonomy, and a simplified checkout process for the 35,000 merchants who have already created Web sites through Yahoo!

Until now, merchants were given two generic checkout pages to choose from. Now, each is encouraged to customize their checkouts with the same tools they used to design the rest of their sites--controlling the font, colors, and button appearance, as well as the content displayed in designated navigation areas across their sites, from initial browsing to checkout.

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What You Can Publish Via RSS

by Rok Hrastnik

Contrary to popular opinion, RSS is not only good for delivering content from your blog, but has much more marketing and publishing potential.

In fact, RSS can be used to deliver a great variety of content and content types. If you can break down your content in to individual stories or individual pieces, you can deliver it via RSS.

Just to give you an impression of the power of RSS, here are some examples of content you can publish using it …
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Report: Adware Less Prevalent, Harder To Remove
by Wendy Davis

THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT the biggest adware companies are making strides toward ensuring that their ad-serving software isn't installed without users' knowledge. But the bad news is that some smaller players now illicitly install ad-serving programs that are proving far more difficult to remove than in the past, according to a report released this week by Webroot Software Inc., a company that markets anti-spyware software. "The penetration rates of mainstream adware companies are slowing," states the report,"Q2 State of Spyware." But, the report continues, "extremely pernicious forms of adware" have arisen to fill the void.

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Just An Online Minute...The New, Slow High-Speed Lines

Verizon and Yahoo! made headlines this week with their new co-branded DSL service, which will be offered at just $14.95 a month. The package appears to make broadband available at competitive -- and in some cases cheaper -- rates than dial-up access.

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Arbitron Reveals 'Pod Meter,' PPM Measures Radio Podcasts
by Joe Mandese

IN A DEVELOPMENT THAT MAY say as much about the future of radio broadcasting as it does about the future of media audience measurement, Arbitron Tuesday announced that its new portable people meter system could successfully track podcasts. While the ultimate potential of podcasts--listener-generated radio programs distributed over the Internet--may be debatable, the technology is one of a progression of digital media applications that are transforming how, when, and why people listen to the medium, and are requiring both radio broadcasters, and the company that measures their audiences, to become more resourceful. In fact, Clear Channel Communications, the nation's largest radio broadcaster, recently issued a request for proposal inviting media research firms to step forward with new "state-of-the-art" methods for measuring radio. Arbitron, which has been trying to convince the radio industry to support the costly rollout of its new PPM system, believes it has the method. In fact, Arbitron worked with Clear Channel on its field test using PPMs to measure podcasts.

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An Invitation Into the Conversation
By Cory Treffiletti

Have you spoken with your consumer lately? I mean really engaged in a dialogue with them?

If you said "no" to this question, then you're probably behind the times. If you said "yes," then you're probably half-way there (the rest of the way is in my definition versus your definition of a "dialogue").

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Report: B-to-B Ad Growth Fueled By 'eMedia,' Not Print
by Michael Deibert

A PAIR OF NEW REPORTS reveal that ad revenue for business-to-business publications continues to grow, but the main engine of that growth is no longer print. It's coming from so-called e-media--online and digital editions--and from events and trade shows. That is evident from a new section in the just-released 2005 edition of investment banker Veronis Suhler Stevenson's annual Communications Industry Forecast, which for the first time documents the growth of non-traditional B-to-B revenue sources.

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The Powers of Nature
By Shelly Palmer

If you have not already done so, and even if you have, I urge you to visit http://www.redcross.org or call 1-800-HELP-NOW (1-800-435-7669) and donate whatever you can to the hurricane relief efforts. Also, The American Red Cross, with support of the worldwide Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, is launching a Web site and hotline to help assist family members who are seeking news about loved ones living in the path of Hurricane Katrina. Call 1-877-LOVED (1-877-568-3317) or visit the family links section of their Web site.

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Two Methods Of Marketing Using Joint Ventures

by Abe Cherian

Whether you're a contractor a local merchant with 150 employees, whichever, however or whatever, you've got to know how to keep your business alive during rough economic times. Anytime the cash flow in a business, large or small, starts to tighten up, the money management of that business has to be run as a 'tight ship.' This is where an Honest Joint Venture will help increase, not only business sales, but strong business relationships. When things go together, they're said to be complimentary. An example of two items that might go together are flowers and baskets. If you're in the market for one of these two items, you might be in the market for the other.
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Verizon Cuts Broadband Price
by Gavin O'Malley

RESPONDING TO INDUSTRY COMPETITION, VERIZON Communications and Yahoo! said Tuesday they were reducing the cost of their co-branded high-speed Internet service from $29.95 per month to $14.95 per month. The move appears to be an about-face for Verizon, whose CEO, Ivan Seidenberg, reportedly dismissed the suggestion of price cuts as recently as June. Subscribers to the service get download speeds of up to 768 kilobytes, uploads at 128 kilobytes--the slowest speeds offered by Verizon--along with Yahoo!'s premium services, including antivirus protection, on-demand music videos, and unlimited photo storage.

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The Huge Marketing Potential Of A Simple Blog

by Ian Canaway

A Blog (also known as Weblog) is traditionally a webpage where pre-surfer or a blogger “logs” all pages he/she finds interesting. In other words, it is a Web page that contains brief, chronologically arranged items of information. Typically updated daily, blogs often reflect the personality of the author.

Weblogs provide a series of annotated links to items such as news stories, and often include personal rants. They are maintained by one person, most commonly someone who is involved in Web design or some other tech-related field.
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Google To Offer Free Messaging, Web Phone Service To Gmail Users
by Shankar Gupta

GOOGLE TODAY VENTURED BEYOND THE realm of search with the launch of an instant messaging and Internet telephone service program. The feature, "Google Talk," will be available for free to all users of Google's e-mail program, Gmail. The program allows Gmail users to message or talk via the Internet to any other Gmail users who have installed either Google Talk or another compatible program.

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Mitsui, Dentsu Invest In U.S. Internet Companies
by Shankar Gupta, Thursday, Sep 8, 2005 6:00 AM EST TWO JAPANESE

COMPANIES, MITSUI AND Dentsu, Wednesday announced deals with American media companies, marking three Japanese companies in two days to unveil major financial deals with the U.S. media and advertising sectors. Mitsui & Co., Ltd. said it had invested in Feedster, a developer and distributor of an RSS platform. Feedster, based in San Francisco, boasts an index of over 13 million RSS feeds and blogs. Tokyo-based Mitsui owns businesses in sectors ranging from iron mining and steel production to consumer products and services.

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The Copyright Debate and RSS

by S. Housley

RSS is commonly defined as really simple syndication. So, this means that any material contained in a feed is available for syndication, right? Well no, not exactly. It means that the content contained in an RSS feed is in a format that is syndication friendly, if the copyright holder allows for syndication. Offering a feed for syndication does not in fact grant any legal rights to anyone to reuse the feeds content beyond what the Copyright laws grant as Fair Use.

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Start-Up Unveils Searchable, Wiki-Ready, Do-It-Yourself Web Kits
by Gavin O'Malley

FUSING TWO WEB TRENDS, SEARCH personalization and consumer-generated content, a fresh Internet entrant named Jeteye Inc. will announce the beta launch of its shared search platform. The company, started by Internet pioneer David Hayden, is based on wiki-ready Web kits dubbed "Jetpaks." Similar in appearance to a Web page, the Jeteye-branded Web-files can include users' self-selected search results from any popular engine, photos, blog-like comments, and links, as well as links to other Jetpaks. Users can then send their personalized Jetpacks to Jeteye members and non-members alike, and make them searchable within the Jeteye search index.

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It's a Web Buying Spree for Big Media

Thursday, September 8, 2005; Page D05

Sharon Keating, a lawyer in New Orleans, grabbed her laptop as she fled Hurricane Katrina with her family in a three-car caravan. For the past 11 days, Keating has been blogging about her evacuation on the home page of About.com, a Web site owned by the New York Times Co.

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Just An Online Minute....Blog Spam

While everyone agrees that the blogosphere is growing at a phenomenal rate, it's unclear just what that rate is. Consider: The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that there are now 12.5 million blogs, compared to 6 million in April; the San Jose Mercury News wrote on Friday that there are at least 70 million blogs worldwide
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Dell Computer To Respond To Bloggers' Complaints
by Shankar Gupta

DELL COMPUTERS, INC., WHICH CAME under fire this summer from blogger Jeff Jarvis, says it has new procedures for dealing with the blogosphere. The company's public relations department monitors blogs, looking for commentaries and complaints--and, starting about a month ago, began forwarding complaints with personally identifiable information to the customer service department so that representatives can contact dissatisfied consumers directly, said Dell spokeswoman Jennifer Davis. The move appears to have been triggered by a series of "Dell Hell" posts penned by Jarvis about his problems with a Dell computer. Jarvis first wrote about the topic in June, and continued posting updates through the summer.

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Blogs Send Katrina Aid Sites Traffic, Donations
by Shankar Gupta

HOURS AFTER ONE OF THE worst disasters in U.S. history, hundreds of bloggers directed their readers to charities accepting donations for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, inundating sites like RedCross.org and SalvationArmy.org with traffic and donors. According to numbers from Nielsen//NetRatings, traffic at RedCross.org surged 184 percent from August 30 to August 31, jumping from 390,000 unique visitors to more than 1.1 million. The 1.1 million unique visitors to RedCross.org was roughly equal to the number of visitors for the entire month of December 2004, during the Southeast Asian tsunami disaster relief effort, Nielsen's report said. As of Friday, $110 million had been received in online donations, out of a $197 million outpouring of public support, according to a Red Cross spokeswoman.

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Top 7 Reasons Why Your Business Should Use RSS

by Mustafa Khundmiri

In today’s online world of high-speed websites and giant portals, every established Internet business boasts of delivering content via RSS.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary), a simple XML based technology allows anyone to easily share content on the web. It’s a brand new way of reaching out to your users and subscribers without the fear of getting flamed or being slammed of illegal mailing.
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For the Niche Film Audience, Studios Are Appealing by Blog

Movie studios typically advertise on television and in newspapers in search of the biggest possible opening-weekend audience. For a new film, "The Constant Gardener," Focus Features is intent on building its audience in a different way: by taking aim at readers of niche Web sites and blogs.

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New Orleans to enjoy free Wi-Fi access

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There is some welcome relief today for those people left wading through the remains of New Orleans - T-Mobile has announced it will offer free Wi-Fi access across Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama until the end of the week, and "possibly beyond that if the situation warrants it".

That's how eWeek.com puts it, under the deliciously inappropriate headline "T-Mobile Opens Wireless Floodgates in New Orleans". T-Mobile hotspots can be found in locations including Borders, FedEx/Kinko's, Starbucks, Hyatt Hotels, Red Roof Inn motels, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and US Airways. Those wishing to avail themselves of T-Mobile's generous offer are pointed in the direction of the listings for Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

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Function Follows Form
By Shelly Palmer

Form follows function is the gist of the functionalist philosophy of design. The concept is that you probably can't use a computer monitor as a fork and vice versa. So, the design of something should follow its form. Uber-architect Frank Lloyd Wright turned the concept into a religion and admonished, "Form follows function - that has been misunderstood. Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union." Look around you. Our world is replete with examples of this fundamental construct.

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Yahoo-Verizon to offer cheap DSL

Tuesday, August 23, 2005; Posted: 11:40 a.m. EDT (15:40 GMT)

SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) --Verizon Communications Inc. and Yahoo Inc. have teamed up to launch acheaper high-speed Internet service designed to compete against cable operators and dial-up service providers.

For $14.95, subscribers will be able to download Web pages via a digital subscriberline at speeds of up to 768 kilobits and upload data at 128 kilobits.

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Communications Networks Fail Disaster Area Residents

By Arshad Mohammed and Jonathan Krim

Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, September 1, 2005; Page D01

Victims of Hurricane Katrina struggled to communicate with each other and the rest of the world yesterday, using everything from text messages to ham radio as most telephone service in New Orleans and coastal Mississippi remained devastated.

The near-blackout left outsiders desperate for news about loved ones, and in some cases created life-and-death situations as aid workers struggled to get information about people stranded by rising floodwaters in New Orleans.

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