A report over at eMarketer.com begins with a statement and a chart of data that seems a little shocking. (I certainly filter much more than 20% spam!) After a brief glimpse at the chart, it appears that the conclusion being drawn is laughably unsupported.

Check it out: rather than interpreting the Number of messages received versus the type of email received as an average of their surveyed audience, they are drawing conclusions as if the x-axis represented the age of the recipient, and the data the percentage of their inbox. Doing a little math with their paradigm, it appears that people aged 0 are getting 7% business-related material, and a total of only 44% of their mail (what’s up with the missing 56%?) People aged 11-30 (again, with their reasoning) are receiving 158% of their mail. (Maybe they’re stealing from the 0-year-olds)

The scary thing is that this site sells this report as part of a bigger package, and they charge $695 for it! Yes, $695 for flawed conclusions! What it should say is that 41% of people receive 50+ spam emails every week, or something actually supported by the data shown.

I’ve seen typos and other snafus on this site before, but this really takes the cake. Way to go, eMarketer, way to go.

Screenshot here

Heck yeah, BigCrumbs.com is legit! I just got my account credited for $11.50 off a purchase I made at Target.com, which was in addition to the 10% discount that I got at the time of purchase. If you haven’t already, I highly recommend that you sign up for this site.

Well, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration. But this article seems to think Microsoft is winning the next-generation-gaming race in the user-friendliness department, which is a shocker.

Read it at The New York Times

I found this great online program when looking for coupon codes the other day: it’s called BigCrumbs, and can save you some serious cash this Christmas. (Or any time, for that matter) You sign up for a free account, then whenever you go to shop at certain online retailers, you just make sure you click the link from BigCrumbs.com.

The online retailer tracks the incoming links, then automatically takes a percent off your order (For Target.com it’s 10%!). Then, BigCrumbs also gives you a rebate back in about a month, so you’re saving, plus getting cash back. Pay with Discover (or some other cash back credit card) and this really starts to stack up.

Better yet, it’s got a referral program where you can get a smaller percentage from orders that people place who you refer. Granted, this won’t make you rich, but it might save you a few bucks. Try it out, and use my referral link here:

Sign up for BigCrumbs.

So I’m kicking myself for not getting a pre-order on a Playstation 3. Why? Because for an item that retails for $600, I saw someone pay over $9,000 on eBay! That’s right, you can have a decent used car for less than the price of what some overeager gamer or parent of a spoiled kid is spending on a “next-generation” video game console.

But then again, this happened with the X-Box 360, the Playstation 2, and maybe the good old school X-Box. (I can’t remember the latter) All so that these people can waste yet more hours of their life in a fantasy world.

All I can say is, for $9,000 you can buy a computer that will blow the PS2 out of the water, and a monitor with a heck of a lot more horizontal scan lines than 1080.