The survey found 67 percent of Internet users over 40 were not interested in writing blogs, followed by a 63 percent lack of interest in social networking.

However, the survey does point to some possibilities for reaching the age group in other ways, most notably e-mail.

Three quarters of respondents said they respond to e-mails with more than half reporting they purchased items promoted by e-mail. But there is a catch: you must be viewed as a trusted brand or expert.

More than 80 percent of survey participants said they’ll trust your information if it comes from an expert or authority on the subject. Alternatively, e-mails that come from a known company or brand are trusted more than the blind query.

Are the over-40 crowd worth going an extra mile? The short answer: yes. Around 40 percent of the U.S. population is over 40 and boomers will spend more than $4.6 trillion by 2015.

Sugar Network CEO and publisher Brian Sugar said it had become “silly” to give NBC a 50 percent cut of advertising money when that amount could hire a team of 20 to sell in-house ads.

Started in 2006, a SugarPop celebrity blog grew to a network of 17 sites. In 2007, NBC invested $5 million in Sugar. NBC Universal Women Lifestyle and Entertainment president Lauren Zalaznick will remain on the Sugar board.

The impetus for Sugar to leave NBC may be visitor numbers that have jumped to 4.6 million in June, up from 2.1 million in 2007.

The departure leaves NBC with its other women’s-oriented sites, led by iVillage. Earlier this month, NBC and GE invested $5 million in BlogHer.

The Blog, simply entitled “Stolen Content” educates WordPress.com users about scrapers that have been pulling content from WordPress-based site, provides information for filing a DMCA notice with them and even provides a link to the stock letters section of Plagiarism Today.

The site, which has been online since March, has been growing steadily and is now being updated almost every day. Each posts provides the location of the scraper in a non-linked format, the IP address of the site, the WHOIS information for the domain, the host information and the email address to report a copyright infringement.

This makes it dead simple for anyone interested in reporting the site for infringement to do so, providing all of the tools they need in one place to hit back.

A Community Effort

Perhaps the best part about the Stolen Content site is that it is a community effort. The site solicits help from users via its tips form and use those tips routinely on the site.

This provides a great way for a blogger on WordPress to report an infringing site and get some practical help about what to do with it in quick manner. Furthermore, by making the information public, the likelihood that the host will receive multiple DMCA notices is increased, making it more likely that the site will be removed entirely from the service.

Perhaps best of all though, by targeting scrapers that are going after WordPress.com sites, the contributors are alerting other users to infringements that they might not have known about about previously.
Conclusions

If you’re a WordPress.com user, you should subscribe to this site. Not only could it alert you to infringements of your content and help you put a stop to it, but it gives you a chance to give back to the community by adding your own tips to improve the site.

However, it is important to note that the goal of this site is not to stop all scrapers or spam bloggers that abuse content on the domain, but to help shut down and frustrate some of the larger ones. There will always be more scrapers than one site can stop.

On that note though, if there is anything that I can do to help or if any WordPress user needs assistance with a tough case, please feel free to write or to post to the Performancing Legal Issues Forum. I am happy to help.

“One Less Independent Blog In The World,” screams the headline for a story written by tech blogger and entrepreneur Michael Arrington.

Arrington sees the move by the GigaOM Media network, spawned by Om Malik, as confirming his theory that little quality independent blogs will be rolled into larger networks that will be acquired by even larger media companies, finally shattering the image of blogs as independent voices.

But wait. The Tech Crunch creator holds out promise for those bloggers toiling away for a few Adsense pennies - and the comment harkens back to the days of corporate America.

“They keep the larger blogs honest, and the best of them will grow into large properties in their own right,” Arrington wrote.

Yes, my friends, the circle is unbroken. Blogs - once the outsider to the big media - are still viewed as outsiders: this time to the big blogs.

That leap of faith was likely softened by the fact Mac Rumors was pulling in 40 million page views a month and riding a way of iPhone buzz. Also likely boosting the popularity of Mac Rumors is no longer being hidden in the shadows created by Think Secret, the site that broke a number of Mac product announcements before it was sued by the Cupertino, Calif. company and sold as part of a legal settlement.

San Francisco, CA – AdBrite, the Internet’s Ad Marketplace, announced Monday that over 70,000 websites are now part of its advertising network. The company also unveiled a new Behavioral Targeting product it claims is the first to target such a wide audience.

The 70,000 market was set in June, less than six months after passing 50,000 member sites in January. AdBrite said it is second only to Google among number of sites. The advertising network said it serves ads to eight of the 20 largest U.S. online media properties.

AdBrite also announced a new Behavioral Targeting service, Open Targeting Exchange (OTEx), allowing advertisers to show ads to users interested in purchasing products or services spanning 14 major categories and over 3,000 sub-categories.

Behavioral advertising categories include Automotive, Business & Finance, Careers, Consumer Electronics, Dating & Singles, Health, Music, and Travel. The service is currently available to a select group of advertisers on an invitation-only basis.

“Advertisers are now able to target consumers on sites that they can’t reach elsewhere, and tens of thousands of site owners have been introduced to behavioral targeting for the first time,” AdBrite CEO Ignacio Fanlo said in a statement.

In a related development, ValueClick is expected to announce a set of predictive behavioral tools that allows marketers to target anonymous users based on their online actions as well as improved targeting for a number of consumer segments.

“What makes Precision Profiles unique is our access to a critical mass of anonymous consumer online experiences and the way our technology dynamically categorizes and transforms them into hundreds of interest segments,” Matthew Boyd, senior vice president, ValueClick Media, told MediaPost, sounding a note similar to Fanlo.

This traffic boost comes just as Gawker chief Nick Denton slashes pay-per-view bonuses to $5 from the $7 ppv figures cited earlier this year. In a classic memo, Denton told employees it could have been worse, according to Radar Online.

“[Gawker Media Managing Editor] Noah [Robischon]’s calculations would suggest a rate of $4.15. I’ve got it up to $5.00 per 1,000 views. Not as bad as it could have been, and you would still all have been in the black if this rate had been applied retrospectively, but it will still demand higher targets for each of you.

So, more page views, but lower pay and more lashing from the head-honcho. The term “sweat shop” is becoming more apropos for some high-profile blogging outfits.

Leave a comment on whether you like this look or our previous one.

Professional Blogging News has been largely idle for the past few weeks as I’ve prepared a series of sites, the hub of which is Associated Blogging. Professional Blogging News content is now syndicated through AB and will be available for reprint to Associated Blogging Members.

Professional Blogging News has expanded its coverage beyond the financial aspect of professional blogging to also report on the content deals being made between traditional media and bloggers, such as the recent $30 million acquisition of PaidContent.org by the UK-based Guardian Group of newspapers.

I’m working on a posting schedule, so readers can known when certain features will appear. The weekend will be devoted to opinion pieces from yours truly, for instance. We’ll also post a masthead of new contributors as well as continue accepting applications for contributors.

In that regard, August 1, we will be launching the following blogs, all of which will be syndicated through Associated Blogging. (If you’d like your posts syndicated, and receive more attention for your blog, we encourage you to contact us.)

The blogs set to open are:

Wired Consumers (a blog covering Amazon, eBay, PayPal, iTunes and other similar services.)
Wired Wall Street (a blog covering the deals and financial up-and-downs of technology firms.)
Wired Environment (a blog providing ways for everyone to stay geeks, but in a ‘green’ way.)
Wi-Fi Reporter (the world is cutting its leash and going wireless. this blog covers that movement.)

We are also offering contributing writer positions (with the same benefits as those described above) for the following blogs that will launch August 1:

• Online consumer news (posts about eBay, Amazon, PayPal, etc.)
• Business news (posts about deals happening with tech companies.)
• Wireless news (posts about Wi-Fi, WiMax and Femtocells)
• Media news (posts about television network activity and news of Hollywood studio happenings.)

To apply, use the “Contact” link.

Ed