BBC News Online has had “Talking Point” which includes brief reader emails and a poll for years, but I can’t remember the last time they let random readers contribute bylined stories – in this case one on Googling for your postcode to see what the neighbors are up to – complete with a photo of the contributor.

I wonder if Tad Piesakowski got paid for this or for an earlier story on his broadband woes.loans dollar 200,000 personal5000 dollar from loan bankfha loan home financing 100credit with bad 30000 loanloan scholar academict student loan day bill 91jeff about and rich sloanloans in lot michigan down 0 Map

To me the most interesting thing about this article revealing the contents of Saddam’s email box is not the contents themselves (though there are a surprising number of people who want to help the guy out, apparently) but the fact that it is published at all. If someone at Wired had hacked into, say, Tony Blair’s email box do you think they would have been allowed to publish those results?poster serenity moviesex female pics free free ejaculation moviessex movies flashmovie sex samplein disney subliminal messages movies sexualmovie thumbs shemaleclips silvia saint moviedipping skinny movies Map

Arts & Letters Daily has bitten the dust. Oh nooo! Won’t somebody please come up with a few £s to pay Tran Huu Dung and Denis Dutton to do their fine work of coming up with good arts and culture links? Meanwhile, people who like A & L can check out Denis Dutton’s Philosophy & Literature site which looks rather similar and Arts Journal.

(Later) I also just discovered that Satirewire has bitten the dust (though at least it was because of creative burnout instead of dotcom flameout).

Mr Spock’s nudes – it’s premium content, of course. I wonder how many subscriptions they will sell with this bizarre cross-over content?

Also see “Terror Sex” which Salon came up with just days after 9/11 (and which, to their discredit, scores of publications seem to have followed up on).michigan home 100 loan equityon 100 loan financing landloan store 12 20,18 paydaybad credit loan 125 mortgageunsecured bankruptcy chapter 13 loan personalunsecured 2 high loan risk personalmonthly 2 loans payment mortgageloan payday get 20 29 Map

In a further (and quite clever) attempt to find revenues, Salon is promoting Userland’s Radio weblog software by hosting user’s weblogs themselves and pledging to keep an eye on them, this holding out the tempting prospect of having your weblog made famous by Salon. The downside is that it promotes software that will cost you money over (correct me if I am wrong) software that is just as good and costs nothing like Moveabletype (which I use). The (British) Guardian’s approach is more interesting – they are producing a contest to find the best British weblogs (which doubtless will also dramatically increase the number of links from British weblogs to the Guardian).

At the end of June one of the longest running and best-supported online-only publications, Salon, told the SEC it might be on the brink of bankruptcy. Just a few days earlier it announced its Q4 2002 results. There’s been an ominous silence since…

The New York Times is publishing a weekly digest summarising some of the more entertaining comments from readers in its “Reader’s Opinions” virtual community. This backs up what I have always said – that the best way to encourage user participation (if you are a media organization) is to demonstrate that you are paying attention to it by using it from time to time. Now if it publishes these in the paper as well as online that would be really something…add slvr ringtone to mp3ringtones airtel downloadpolyphonic home alabama ringtone sweetcarter wayne 2 ringtone lilfree nokia ringtone tone 6310iringtones aladdin htmphone alltel ringtone downloadalltel phone music ringtone free Map

… but instead of being published in weekly magazines, this one – The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber – is being serialised on the Internet by The Guardian. The first chapter was enjoyable – I look forward to the next 17.ringtone free nokia 62552 ringtone sidekick putringtone ctu sprint 24ringtone cellular us free 3586i6225 ringtone nokia freea act fool ringtoneringtone act foolcent best 50 ringtone friend nextel Map

I have been working my way through the streamed audio archives of This American Life – a radio programme I frequently plug on these pages – and I started listening to a collection of pledge breaks. These are the short pieces public radio in the US uses to drum up money from its listeners. I suddenly realised that although I am accustomed to feel like I am just evesdropping on something that is not really aimed at me, the fundraising message is just as valid for me as it is for the people it is addressed to in America.

I have been listening to TAL for more than a year and altogether I have heard and enjoyed more than a hundred hours of their programming. Yet I had not given them a dime though unlike conventional radio listeners I am actually costing the show money as I listen because each time they send more audio across the Internet they have to pay (for bandwidth and for additional hardware). So I tried to find a way to send TAL some money – there is nothing on their website even asking for it. And I contacted their broadcast network, PRI, but they only accept cheques.

Eventually, I emailed Elizabeth, who runs the TAL website, she passed on my request to Todd Bachmann, who is Production Manager for the show and I called him up directly and gave him $75 to salve my conscience.

And I found out a strange thing – I am the first person to do this! To the best of the knowledge of Todd and the guys at PRI, no overseas listener has ever asked to donate money even though they have been streaming their programmes over the web for years. Can I be the only person out of the 40,000 people every month who listen to the programme on the Internet who feels they should contribute a little something to make sure this stays on the air?

Come on, people! If through my prompting I managed to persuade you to listen to This American Life and you liked it please call Todd Bachmann on +1 312-832-3411 and pledge now. Tell him I sent you…

A heartening tale of how two business models that aren’t supposed to be profitable on the Internet – self-publishing using e-books and virtual community – have turned out to work profitably together for at least one person – a publisher of fantasy books.

It’s the sort of thing I would have said ought to work but in the last few years a lot of things that seemed as if they would work have proven unprofitable. Glad to see this actually does work. It may be that the particular audience of fantasy readers he is addressing is fanatical enough that they represent a special case…