I asked for it. Following yesterday’s Minute, my inbox is flooded with responses from readers eager to vent on the subject of Spam. Everybody has an opinion and it’s a treat to read through. Here’s are some gems.

Yesterday, I issued a call to marketers to take a stand against SPAM. As it often happens with touchy issues like these, the reader feedback was off the charts. Most people agreed that spam is a terrible threat to the email advertising industry and marketers have to wage a war against it and soon. One email, however, presented an interesting counterpoint to that view and while I’m not entirely sure I agree with any of it, I thought it might be worth presenting to you, if only for the fun of playing devil’s advocate.

On the wings of Tom Hespos’ article about the threat of spam yesterday, the Wall Street Journal published an article about New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer, who has filed a lawsuit against email marketing company MonsterHut Inc.

If you think, based on all the research we’ve seen so far, that women were interested in making travel plans for the long weekend two weeks in advance, you’re very much mistaken. They were busy surfing the web for something much more important – the M&M global color vote.

I could send you off in to the long holiday weekend with a rundown of the IAB’s latest report of web ad spending in 2001, but I’ve got something much more interesting.

The newest findings from Jupiter Media Metrix reveal that more than two-thirds of U.S. consumers are not willing to pay for any services on the Internet, including enhanced email, instant messaging or file-sharing capabilities.

According to Nielsen//NetRatings, online gaming sites attracted more than 28 million visitors in April 2002, reaching nearly 24% of the active Internet population. Interactive online gaming is one of the most popular entertainment categories and continues to grow.

Affluent online investors are the dream targets of many an advertiser, but reaching them is often a tough assignment. Where do they hide? We took it upon ourselves to investigate.

I think it’s safe to say that the recession is officially over, at least in the offline ad world. Advertising for Q1 2002 shows an increase of 1.8% over the same period in 2001, according to preliminary figures just released by Nielsen Monitor-Plus.

Found this on CNet: “A recent study on Web usability indicates that children may account for a significant proportion of Web advertising click-through traffic.”