It was a typical south Mississippi summer day; a decade ago on a Saturday morning. I was volunteering at the local university equestrian center feeding horses and cleaning out barns as I did every Saturday. I did not want to go on this particular Saturday, as tornadoes were forecast, but I figured with our group of six volunteers, we could do the job fast, and get out fast. It started out like any other day. But it was a day that would change my life forever.

As most people who know me, I am an avid animal lover, particularly dogs and cats. Though I’ve owned many of both over the years, I find I prefer to own dogs, but find cats to be wonderful creatures as well. As we entered the 180 acre compound, lightening struck and nearly touched ground. I knew we were in for a rough day. Visibility was not very good as we continued working through the storm.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw three animals about two hundred feet in front of me enter the barn. I could not tell what type they were, the rain was too thick, but they appeared to be dogs. I left my wheelbarrow full of sawdust and ran towards the barn. Inside, I found three obviously stray dogs who had been out in the elements way too long. One was a chow mix, another a pit bull mix and the other I was not so sure but looked a bit like an oversize Benji terrier mix (I would later find out he was a bearded collie or polish lowland sheepdog (or mix of the two). Of the three, he was in the worse shape,and huddled in the corner. The other two were more socialized and gladly greeted me when I entered the door.

We decided to let the dogs live at the barn and feed them, rather than hand them over to the shelter as most were older, and these types more often get put down than not. We posted banners at the university and the chow and pit bull mix were adopted the next week. The third, whom I named “Thor” as he barked and chased thunder, was now alone in the barn. The horses became his friends. He was scared of humans, but every few days we came and filled a large bowl of water and dried kibble. He drank the water and only ate a few pieces of kibble. He appeared to want to be “a friend”, but he was badly abused, either hit by a car, or beat by an owner, limping badly, his beautiful gray fluffy fur one big mat, but his sad, soulful eyes, always caught mine. I can never forget that face that said to me “I don’t want to be here or in this kind of situation. I need help”. I know it sounds crazy, but every time I went to feed him, though he would not let me touch him, I felt that message from him.

So I called a veterinarian friend and told her the story. She promised to take him home and nurse him back to health, if I would promise to adopt him. I had just finished caring for four years for an ill mom, and this was just a few weeks after her death. I did not feel I had the energy to now take on the burden of a sick dog. I bowed out at first but she was persuasive. Since Thor did not allow human touch, she had to set a trap with some raw bacon in it. He fell for the bait and she tranquilized him, took him home, shaved all his hair which was one big mat of fur, and put him on drips as he was now skin and bones and almost dehydrated. I checked on him every few days and could see slow progress. Eventually he was letting us stroke his fur. He mostly lay on the rug in the living room and his limping decreased. After a month, he was wagging his tail and begging for attention.

I took Thor home, but had cold feet a few times, and took him by some other animal-lover friends but every time I did, he would be in the shotgun seat and show me those soulful eyes that seemed to now say, “You took me on. I am your responsibility, but…I will take care of you too”. Now I knew I was going crazy. Was I hearing voices? I took it as a message from the universe and took Thor home.

I figured I would have to housebreak him, socialize him, train him and everything else, but not so. He apparently either had a keen mind or was trained early on. The vet figured he was around

twelve at the time.

My office was downtown on the Ms. Gulf Coast (before Katrina ruined it), and there was one

problem. Thor became neurotic about being left alone when I left for the office. He howled like a wolf when I left, and neighbors complained. I shared an duplex office with mutual waiting room with a therapist, who happened to be a dog lover who fell immediately in love with Thor. She decided I could bring him to my office, if he didn’t enter the waiting room, unless her clients specifically asked to pet him, which many did. Since Thor now had become so socialized and gentle, the therapist considered it a part of her therapy for her dog-loving patients. And Thor loved all the attention.

When Thor turned thirteen, something odd happened. He began staring at the walls and not responding to me. I rushed him to the vet who said it was some form of seizures and would need to be on barbiturates for the rest of his life, which might be a year at the most. I said “no”, took him home, and began a long research process. I looked at many diets and treatments. Suddenly I found a website that made sense. It was a small town veterinarian surgeon from Australia named Dr. Ian Billinghurst, who had authored a book titled “Give Your Dog A Bone”. It talked about a totally raw foods diet for dogs and cats. It didn’t have much science behind it, but a lot of testimonials and a lot of show dog champion breeders were now utilizing it worldwide. Some were claiming their dogs were living into their late teens and even twenties with few or even no vet bills. I was a skeptic but science had not helped so I put him on it.

The first month was a nightmare.

I felt certainly I might be killing my best friend, but Dr. Billinghurst responded to me via email when I wrote him and gave me instructions, advising me the dog was eliminating a lot of toxins from eating processed foods, and that he might be weak for a few weeks or even months. One month went by and I was awakened early in the morning by a big happy dog on my bed smiling and licking my face. He was a bundle of energy, more than I’d seen in a lot of puppies. I felt I was dreaming. It was Thor. His coat was shining and his breath smelled good. He only wanted to go out, or so I thought. I let him outside but he stayed in the backyard running around chasing birds, squirrels, etc.

I wrote it off as a fluke. The energy continued all day, all week, and even into a month. He simply was a happy healthy dog, the likes of which I’d never seen. As the months went by, he even became healthier. I was still waiting for the other shoe to drop, after all, he was already considered a senior almost geriatric dog (at least to most vets) but it was not to be.

Thor and I settled in the Ouachata Mountains of Arkansas where I’d had friends and relatives in 1999. He lived happily another eight or so years. The vet feels he was around 21 or 22 when he died

(they can tell by the teeth). He lived a full ten years after the “seizures” without one more seizure and one more vet bill until the very end when his heart finally gave out. He came back to life twice though, after I was sure we were putting him to sleep. The vet said “no”, but he’d have to go on Lasix, a heart med. I reluctantly agreed and he lived a decent comfortable quality of life for another two years.

Several times I felt certain it was time to put him down, rushed him to the vet, but the vet said “no, not yet”. He would administer some drug and Thor would rebound once again. Finally, when I was told he had now contracted liver damage from the heart medicine, and could no longer get out of bed, I took him to the vet and demanded that he had no quality of life. I was in tears. I did not want to put him down, but I did not want him in pain. I left him at the vet overnight and he seemed to worsen. The vet said he still had a chance. I finally said to the vet, “Look, I know that there can be pain with liver damage”; this does not happen with heart damage and dogs, they simply get tired and numb, but heart problems don’t have the same effect as on humans where there is noticeable pain so please, if you are not going to put him down, I know this dog well, and he’s not going to make it. The vet said to me, “Rick, I know your dog, he wants to be with you at home when he goes.”

This made no sense to me, I could feel his soul wanting to go. I demanded morphine, enough for around the clock. I took Thor home in a blanket and administered the first tablet. He slept but was still breathing. I gave him another every four hours. I wanted to be certain he was in no discomfort. I lay on the floor with him that night and set the alarm clock for every four hours. I gave him his pill, and after he went back to sleep, so did I. At 6 am, the alarm clock rang, and i opened the medicine bottle, but could see Thor was not breathing. He had died somewhere between 3 and 6 a.m. on November 17, 2006. He was in my arms when he died, oddly enough, still with a smile on his face. Dogs DO smile and he had a distinctive one. He was always happy, always, and being around people made him happier. Though I knew my dog very well, knew his energy and his soul, I would not have been right to put him down when I felt it was time. Thor *had* wanted to die at home and with me by his side, and I was there for him, just like he had been there for me through so many of the ups and downs of life. Even in death, he was smiling. Just one day before, I remembered, after picking him up from the vet, there was no smile on his face, and hardly any life left in his tired body. I felt so confused as I felt like I was trying to decide if I should have my own baby put to death, yet, I knew from experience with animals, keeping them alive too long, when/if there is too much pain, is not the right thing either. I also knew, and pledged, if he were to be put down, it would not be due to economics. And the economics of keeping a geriatric dog can be high. And one does not have the “fun” with the dog, one had when it was younger and full of life. It is like caring for a sick ailing parent, its needs often coming before our own.

I say this because of the oddity of how he was when I found him, beat up nearly to death, abused and untrusting. Then, with just a bit of love and attention, he “lived in the now” and lived “life to the fullest”. He lived the way I wanted to live. Forgiving, loving unconditionally, caring. Things that had slipped my mind in the everyday hustle and bustle of life. Finally, I realized that the universe had sent me something very special. I was not as perfect as Thor at loving, but I was much better at it than before we had met. He was my teacher, not the other way around. He was who gave. I took and he still loved me, totally, unflinchingly.

I buried him 2007 on his favorite mountaintop behind my house, where he loved to chase birds, squirrels and anything else that moved. I miss Thor. Today is the anniversary of the day I found him on that stormy day in Mississippi. I get sentimental on anniversaries like this.

I could go into detail of the difference he made in so many lives, how he was trained to be a certified therapy dog and did so beautifully in nursing homes, how he made friends with every shop owner in our downtown hamlet and every shop owner knew his name, and only a few remembered mine. Thor had special stores he liked to visit on our walks, as the owners gave him more attention than some other owners. He immediately took a sharp turn into each of their stores during our 3-5 mile daily walks (until he was almost 18 by the way). Even the manager of the pristine Bank Of America building demanding I bring Thor in with me, rather than leave him outside. He was loved by all, and adored the attention.

Recently, I visited a close friend who owns a gorgeous great dane who had a similar temperament as Thor. The dane however was around thirteen while I was there, and had been on the same processed food diet as Thor had. My friend had learned about the raw diet before I arrived, but was not ready to put him on it. She did it correctly, unlike me, weaning him off of processed food with canned organic food for a month, and the dane was ready. When I looked in this dog’s eyes, I could see the soul of Thor, same beautiful energy, same special quality that made me realize, there are some special dogs out there who are “healers”. When they turn old, it is time to heal them.

My friend is doing just that and he is responding beautifully. Thor, of course, paled size-wise in comparison to this dane who could easily eat ten times as much. It takes a rare owner and lover of animals to commit to such a thing, but, as she told me, this dog was special and brought her so much joy and watched out for her over the years. I applaud her, or anyone who will make such a commitment to these wonderful creatures who teach us so much about unconditional love.

If you’ve not learned about the barf (bones and raw food), please google it. It remains controversial, but so what. If it did what it did for Thor, and the dane has been on it only a few weeks and one can see changes, the science behind it does not matter. These creatures are special and deserve the best.

I will never in a million years be able to repay to Thor what he gave to me, and until I recently met this beautiful, kind, great dane, I was not sure I wanted another dog. I will be shopping at the shelter next month and he/she too will be started on the b.a.r.f. diet. I hope this one takes care me half as well as Thor did.

Rick London is a writer, cartoonist and e-entrepreneur. He launched the critically-acclaimed Londons Times Cartoons. He has numerous cartoon gift and collectibles stores, many of them containing award winning dog cartoon products. A percentage of all sales benefits various animal causes.

Many people base their financial decisions on their emotions. This can be dangerous.

In fact, one of the main causes of debt is self-esteem issues. Often, debt can’t be eliminated by only fixing the financial. The emotional must be addressed as well.

And it isn’t easy.

The first thing you have to learn is that you must use credit wisely. You might be using it to boost your self esteem, but it often works the other way. Instead of helping you emotionally, it will drain you. P.T. Barnum said that debt robs a man of his self-respect.

Just think about how you feel when the credit card bill comes in. Think how you feel seconds after signing the receipt for a truly frivolous purchase. Your spirits might be temporarily lifted, but then the regret and shame sets in.

You can avoid this by simply not turning to your credit cards. Start learning how to live within your means.

When families become stressed by financial difficulties, they tend to fall apart. There can be yelling, fighting and stress between partners. Credit cards can lead to lying about shopping, lying about usage and lying about what bills are and aren’t paid on time.

When you are in debt, your whole life can begin to feel as if it is falling apart. Taking steps to get out of it will help you get not only your finances in order, but your family as well.

You will also find that there is more pleasure in seeing a large amount of savings than there is in seeing a large spending bill. Start a consistent savings plan. Watch it grow. The more it grows, the more you will want to contribute.

The greatest lesson to learn from debt is in learning from your mistakes. Experience is a great teacher. Make it your mantra not to repeat your financial mistakes. But you should also take the time to invest a little in educating yourself. Read articles, go to counseling and talk with your friends about their experiences.

It will take time, hard work and sacrifice. But the emotional rewards are far better than the material.

Start with sitting down with your partner and discussing the situation, both emotional and financial. If you become heated in the discussion, walk away for a time. Don’t try to hash it all out at once, do it only one hour at a time. This keeps you fresher and less emotional.

Separate your spending from your feelings of worth. Ask yourself why you spend. I know that I overspend frequently partly because I’m afraid I won’t have the things I need. I grew up without much money and am afraid of returning there. I didn’t see that the spending was putting me in that situation, not removing me from it.

It isn’t complicated. Usually the emotional reasons are just below the surface. You need to bring them up, get rid of them and move on. Your finances depend on it.

Martin Lukac (http://www.MartinLukac.com), represents http://www.RateEmpire.com and http://www.1AmericanFinancial.com, a finance web-company specializing in real estate/mortgage market. We specialize in daily updates, rate predictions, mortgage rates and more. Find low home loan mortgage interest rates from hundreds of mortgage companies!

Buying foreclosed properties is a profitable option for every property buyer. With little knowledge of some essentials, you are most likely to profit while buying a foreclosed property. Here are some tips that may help to secure a good deal.

Look for a Pre-Qualified Property:
For getting the perfect property, prior financing is required to ensure your claim for getting the perfect property. The pre-qualified situation also helps in bargaining over the deal. Choose a lender who has an interesting offer for your needs.

Gather Information About the Process:
A good deal can not be completed until and unless you have entire detail of the property and the process associated with it. You might attend foreclosed property auctions to get good offers. Working directly with a property dealer can also generate good leads.

Think About Your Preferences:
Buying a property involves a large amount of money. Therefore, it is better to decide what type of property you would like to buy. You can think about other determining factors such as location, housing area, and many such others prior to make a financial commitment.

Know your Preferred Area:
Foreclosed properties are available across many locations of the city. As a buyer, you have to decide the right location for your home. While by living in a commercial area you can benefits from good health facilities, educational institutions, shopping centers etc., a country side residence can be the right place live a life away from city chaos. So, choose carefully.

View the Properties:
Once you are prepared with a list of potential properties, you may like to check out the properties. Viewing properties in person will help you to choose the best deal. Do not forget to check the home from all the aspects of your choice.

Acquiring a foreclosed property can be highly profitable - of course, only if you’ve planned for it after a through research.

Myself webmaster of http://www.ushomeauction.com an online resource of the foreclosed home, foreclosed properties and foreclosed home listing.

Nowadays, a lot of speculation is going on regarding the healthcare organization which is striving hard against several legal cases, grievances and proceedings. These problems have affected the entire hospital staff such as doctors, nurses, hospitals, clinics, and most importantly the public.

These days the major problem associated with healthcare system is that novices and inexperienced practitioners are being held by various clinics and thereby increasing the jeopardy of negative incidents. And because of this reason, more and more medical cases and accidents are taking place and normal public is becoming victims of such negligence. This has led to an increased number of mismanagement and negligence legal cases.

It’s quite evident that the legal charges are subject to the boost in the requirement of the area of expertise, i.e. if the field of expertise is in high demand it will entail higher legal charges.
Because of the increasing indemnity expenses and legal charges, more and more qualified and skilled doctors are compelled to retire prior to the customary their retirement years.

The legal charges have considerably mounted so high that many clinics in the United States prefer high income patients. These charges have resulted in an abandoned and poor patient care condition, extra piles of accounting jobs to be finished, and thus an enlarged requirement for supplementary office assistance.

To further aggravate matters, some people selfishly take advantage of the system for their personal needs. These reasons and alterations unswervingly impinge on the value of healthcare system. Hence we should find ways to purge these hiked legal costs rather than increasing them.

About Author:
Pauline Go is an online leading expert in legal industry. She also offers top quality legal tips like :
Free Legal Advice Help, Medical Malpractice Lawyer Tips

With the rate of Miami bank foreclosures and other foreclosures in South Florida one of the highest for a metropolitan area anywhere in the country, there are all kinds of homes coming onto the market. But what often gets overlooked when we hear about foreclosure statistics for the area is the remarkable amount of people who are being evicted and have nowhere to go after bank foreclosures take place.

Eviction officers are saying that in no point during their careers have they ever had to put as many people out as they do nowadays. For Miami-Dade county, there were already 4,726 evictions during the first four months of 2008, a number that is up by 1,157 over the same period in 20007.

Some people who are not even homeowners are getting evicted due to Miami bank foreclosures. In many cases, renters who are paying off a landlord for monthly rent end up being evicted as well because the landlord who owns the property can no longer keep up with mortgage payments. Since they can’t raise rent to keep up with the rising cost of adjustable rate mortgages, these homes go into foreclosure, hurting two lives instead of just one.

With the foreclosure surge carrying steadily on and the cost of living and gas prices going steadily up, it seems that many more homeowners will be put out by year’s end. With taxes, a struggling economy and job market and prices rising on everyday goods, it’s becoming harder and harder to make ends meet.

Miami bank foreclosures are predicted to continue at high rates well into 2009, and that means evictions will too.

With the rate of Miami bank foreclosures and other foreclosures in South Florida one of the highest for a metropolitan area anywhere in the country, there are all kinds of homes coming onto the market. But what often gets overlooked when we hear about foreclosure statistics for the area is the remarkable amount of people who are being evicted and have nowhere to go after bank foreclosures take place.

It has long been known that an e-newsletter is a useful addition to your marketing and public relations efforts. They are, after all, a warm, powerful communication medium that encourages a strong, lasting relationship between you and your readers.
There is some new clarity in the world of online newsletters thanks to research coming from the Nielsen Norman Group in their latest report, E-mail Newsletter Usability. They conducted three rounds of user studies with a total of 93 participants in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong and Sweden. The three studies were as follows:

First Study. This study focused on testing e-newsletter usability in terms of subscribing, unsubscribing, and maintaining the user’s account. It was primarily done in a laboratory setting (with other parts being done through phone calls) with researchers observing subjects as they read e-newsletters and tried to subscribe and unsubscribe.

Second Study. This was a remote study that examined in a detailed way the users’ experience receiving and reading e-newsletters that they’d already subscribed to on their own initiative. A total of 101 newsletters were studied over a four-week period, 65% of which were of personal interest and 40% were for business purposes. The 5% that overlapped these categories were counted twice.

Third Study. This study used an eyetracker to record where users were looking when they looked at Web sites, tried to subscribe and unsubscribe, checked their e-mail inboxes and read their e-newsletters. Also, the researchers compared Real Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds to e-newsletters and observed participants in their offices during a normal work day in order to learn how newsletters and news feeds are used in a demanding, information-rich environment.

The results of this study are both interesting and useful to anyone who either has, or is contemplating, an e-newsletter for their business.

Justify Your e-Newsletter

Three of the four main reasons that the study participants mentioned as why a given e-newsletter was the most valuable had to do with relevance and timing. The e-newsletters that fell into this preferred category were all able to justify their place in the inbox with highly relevant and timely information. Past relevance and generally interesting content don’t cut it. There has to be a purpose behind the e-newsletter and it has to offer something that is important to the reader today. According to the researchers, the top reasons for preferring a given e-newsletter (given by over 40% of the participants) are:

• Informs of work-related news or company actions (mentioned by two-thirds of users)
• Reports prices/sales
• Informs about personal interests/hobbies
• Informs about events/deadlines/important dates

There is, however, a bit of flexibility here. While e-newsletters are, indeed, about giving information, they are also about relationships. That means you can get away with a bit of irrelevancy every now and again since a reader who doesn’t find anything interesting in this month’s edition will probably just delete it rather than unsubscribe altogether, especially when you put some time and effort into improving your user’s experience.

High Usability is Key

Your customers need to be able to manage their subscription very easily and that is a goal that the very design of a e-newsletter supports nicely. The two most likely reasons for this are:

Simple Functionality. Users are either getting on or getting off a mailing list. This is a simple function that is easy to design in a straightforward way.

Accountability. User subscription decisions are often based on how easy it is to subscribe. If it is tough, subscriptions drop until the design is simplified.

The most recent study results showed that task completion for subscribing and unsubscribing were 81% and 91% respectively. This is remarkably high when compared to 66% for other types of Web designs, though, according to the researchers, “They’re still lower than anything we would deem a truly great user experience.” One example of the benefits of improving this deals with the number of subscribers. “If, for example, a newsletter with 50,000 subscribers ensured that everyone could correctly operate its subscription interface, it could add an estimated 11,700 subscribers on average.”

What keeps it from being the best that it can be is time. True, the time it takes to complete these tasks has never been particularly onerous and it has been dropping in recent years (4 years ago it took 5 minutes to subscribe to an e-newsletter, today it takes 4 minutes) but the time involved is still a problem for most users. According to the researchers, “The slower the subscribe or unsubscribe process, the less people will like the site. For each additional minute it takes to subscribe, you will lose 0.3 satisfaction points on a 1 to 7 scale, and for each additional minute it takes to unsubscribe, you will lose 0.6 satisfaction points. As indicated by the numbers, users are substantially more critical of a slow unsubscribe process. Once they want out, they want out quickly.”

Of course, that satisfaction rating of 7 would mean that these processes are done instantaneously, something that will have to await thought-controlled computers, but the message is clear: Extreme simplicity has a great, positive impact on your customers and it is worth pursuing.

The Irony of Remaining on Unwanted Mailing Lists

We have all done it, decided that we no longer want to receive mailings from a given source and yet, for some reason, we never manage to unsubscribe and sever that flow of unwanted information. Why? The researchers with the Nielsen Norman Group have some answers for that as well. It turns out that part of the reason goes back to functionality but a bigger part is emotional. That’s right: E-mail newsletters evoke highly emotional reactions, while Web sites are seen more as tools to be used and put away. Users make actual emotional connections with newsletters.

Other reasons found in the studies for why people stay on unwanted mailing lists include:

Low Usability Expectations. Users assume that unsubscribing would be difficult and time-consuming so they elect to simply delete the newsletter’s current issue.

Fear of Spam. People are afraid that asking to be removed from spam lists only confirms that their e-mail address is valid and that it would then be sold to spammers. Unfortunately this does happen, though not as often as some might think, and it does damage the prospects and reputation of legitimate e-newsletter publishers.

Easier Options. Spam-blocking software and anti-spam features offered by e-mail clients and services are often easier to use to stop unwanted newsletters than it is to go through the unsubscribe process.

Many of these issues go back to past problems with spam and usability, but you must be able to overcome them. Your customers have to trust that when they opt-out, their decision will be respected and their e-mail address will not be sold or otherwise distributed. They have to know that anything they have to do vis-à-vis their account will be simple and easy to do. Your processes should be at least as easy, if not easier, than the latest anti-spam software on the market.

How People Read Your e-Newsletter Counts

By now there is no surprise in the fact that people read what is on a computer screen a lot differently from the way they read a paper document. People read a paper document as a whole unit. That is, they read it from top to bottom and generally pay attention to everything in it. That is not the case with Web sites and it is certainly not the case with e-newsletters.

In 2006, Jakob Nielsen described an F-shaped reading pattern for web users. He and his research team recorded 232 users looking at thousands of Web pages and found that the main reading behavior of the participants was fairly consistent with the dominant reading pattern resembling an F and showing the following three components:

• Horizontal movement across the upper part of the content area, forming the top bar of the F.
• A second horizontal movement that is a bit below the first and covers a shorter area. This forms the lower bar of the F.
• A vertical movement that can be slow and systematic or quite fast. This forms the stem of the F.

People are more likely to read through the top and then bounce through the headers and graphics, scanning the rest of the content until they find something that catches their interest. Generally, users scanned the content to pick out the few things that interested them, whether that was specific content types such as an OP/ED blog or specific topics such as certain companies or technologies. From the point of view of someone putting an e-newsletter together, the results of this eyetracking research leads us to a couple of conclusions:

• Important things should go up top and to the left.
• Interesting graphics are good, interesting faces are great.
• Layout styles that support scanning over reading are far more useful. Your users must be able to quickly grasp each issue’s content and zero in on specifics.
• Writing that supports scanning over in-depth reading is, likewise, far more useful.

It also points up another necessity for a successful e-newsletter: Know your audience. It seems almost silly to say, but you need to know who you are writing for. You need to know what they are interested in and that is the content you need to be providing. These data show that people skim in search of what they want and don’t spend time on things that they don’t care about so give them what they want.

A Word on Real Simple Syndication (RSS) Feeds

The researchers found that RSS feeds got a mixed reaction from the participants with some liking them and others not. One thing they discovered was that most people don’t know what RSS means. In fact, 82% of them had no idea what the acronym stands for. That, in and of itself, is reason enough to quit calling them RSS feeds. There is enough jargon in the world, so why not just call the things News Feeds? Another thing they found was, whether they liked using news feeds or not, users scan headlines and blurbs in feeds even more ruthlessly than they scan newsletters. If your content doesn’t reach out and grab them, they pass it by. Some of the general findings, according to the researchers, are as follows:

Some people liked viewing information from multiple sites in a single centralized location instead of having to go to each site. Some users also liked scanning a list of headlines without seeing any content that they didn’t ask for. A final benefit some users appreciated was the ability to determine when they would go and view their news items. This is in contrast with newsletter arrival times, which users can’t control.

On the other hand, many users had negative feelings about feeds. People who are already suffering from information overload resent having to go to yet another source of information. In contrast, email newsletters arrive in a tool that people already use, so they don’t add yet another thing for over-burdened users to do. Email is also easier to archive for later use, whereas feeds have an ephemeral nature.

Several participants in our study had stopped using the feeds on their My Yahoo! page. Many previous studies have found that users are reluctant to spend time customizing portals, so it’s not surprising that some users simply decided to stop looking at that part of the page rather than edit their preference settings.

Finally, some users resented the fact that news feeds are divorced from the context of the publisher’s website. These users preferred the serendipity that came from visiting a full-fledged website that offered optionsbeyond the current headlines.

News Feeds with a Purpose

While news feeds are no replacement for e-newsletters, considering that they are far colder and that they don’t build relationships the same way newsletters do, news feeds do have a place in the information delivery world. For those users who prefer to have headlines available in a single, centralized spot, news feeds can be a great supplement to an e-newsletter. Another venue is a site that has a heavy focus on news and breaking stories. For broader consumer and mainstream business audiences, news feeds are less useful and such an audience is usually better served by a high-quality e-newsletter.

A Final Word on Grabbing and Holding Your Audience

Consider this: You have less than a minute to grab your reader. Current research points to something in the neighborhood of 51 seconds. True, that is better than a typical Web site, where 20 seconds is the norm, but that is still very little time. Here are some pointers:

Write a killer subject line. With the subject line of your e-mail, you have a chance to catch your reader’s interest before they ever open the mail. Don’t waste it. Distill your top topic into a punchy 50 or 60 characters (yes, characters) and let that introduce the e-newsletter.

Catchy, informative headlines. Remember, people scan rather than read, so make sure your headlines tell them something that will hook them into drilling down into your material.

Solid Content. Make it relevant, make it interesting and make it meaningful. This is where you earn your spot in their inbox and you have to earn it every time your e-newsletter shows up.

Remember the F: Scan-friendly layout. Make sure your most important stuff is near the top and that your headlines run down the side. You don’t want your reader to miss something important because you didn’t make it easy to find.

High Usability. When your readers have to do something, whether that is subscribe, unsubscribe or simply maintain their account information, make it as simple and straightforward as possible. Making things difficult, especially making the unsubscribe process difficult, is the surest way to breed resentment. All you will do is kill your chances to do business with that person while adding to the content of their spam folder or wastebasket.

Your e-newsletter can be a great way to both market your goods and services and build up a strong relationship with your customers. It is worth the effort and the investment, so take it seriously and do it well. Good luck.

Charles Cooper is the Web Editor and blogger for http://www.gowithabc.com, the Web site for America’s Best Companies. He is also a staff writer for America’s Best: The Magazine for Small Business Owners.