HOWARD STERN SURE CAN-SPERM -- By now, we've gotten used to receiving loads of spam in our in-box, but we were surprised last week to receive a load of sperm. Doubly so, by its sender: Howard Stern.

AN ENGAGEMENT YOU WON'T WANT TO MISS -- We don't like Mondays, but we have two reasons to look forward to the start of the next business week. First of all, it's Halloween, and we just love dressing up - not to mention the treats, and the tricks.

TAKING A FORCE TO TASK--We know a lot of you are wondering why the Riff hasn't yet weighed in on the Nielsen task force's report this week on the Media Rating Council. None of you actually asked us about it, mind you.

IMITATION IS THE SINCEREST FORM OF ADVERTISING -- So, let's get this straight. iPod, a device that is helping to propagate America's rip-and-tear culture, has been accused of ripping a tearsheet out of another advertiser's playbook? Specifically, an ad created by Apple iPod agency TBWA/Chiat/Day, has ripped off an ad created by Interpublic's Avrett Free unit for footwear marketer Lugz? At least that's what Avrett Free chief Frank Ginsberg claimed in Stuart Elliott's ad column in today's New York Times.

SPEED READING -- At a time when the print world is struggling with ways of improving its audience measurement and reporting methods, its next big hope may come not from print media but from something dubbed a dot-com. Print media stalwart Rebecca McPheters has just launched readership.com, a new business that will provide advertisers, agencies and publishers with what she claims will be "near real-time" information about the readership of magazines.

YOU CAN'T SPELL CONFUSION WITHOUT THIS -- What is it about fusion that always seems to cause such confusion? No, we're not talking about the promising form of nuclear energy, but the energy some people are promising to spend on a new form of marketing and media research. What's with all the fussing over fusion? Well, it's more about economics than it is about research.

FAJARDO, PUERTO RICO - OCTOBER 18, 2005 -- The American Society of Magazine Editors has released revised guidelines for editors and publishers of consumer magazines. It is the 13th edition of standards issued by the influential editorial group, and covers some new trade practices not previously addressed by the society, such as product placement in editorial content.

EROSION -- Maybe it's all the rain, but we're starting to feel a little hydrocentric. And it's occurred to us that digital media is a lot like water.

"IT'S A SAD DAY IN THE RADIO BUSINESS" -- That's what we heard from not one, but several people yesterday when it was learned that radio giant Infinity Broadcasting shorted out its research transistors. The truth is that it's an even sadder day on Madison Avenue, because the decision signals that radio - or at least one major radio player - doesn't seem to take the ad industry's push for accountability seriously.

TO BE CANDID, THEY ALREADY THINK IT'S BRANDED -- Well-intentioned magazine editors who've been struggling to keep product placement deals from sullying the perceived objectivity of their editorial content appear to be fighting in vain. Their cause is already lost say the branded content pulse-takers at Starcom USA.