Call me a crank, but I simply can’t resist this one any longer. In their race to appear better than Jupiter Media Metrix after the breakup, Nielsen//NetRatings has made a really obtuse move.

First, a warning: I’ve been rather calm about things lately, but today I just can’t resist a rant, so here it goes. The question of the day is, “Why do some researchers feel the need to pass off well-known facts as brand new findings?”

Do online ads reach business leaders effectively? Yes, they most certainly do. At least according to the latest Forbes.com survey of 286 C-level executives, all registered users of Forbes.com. The survey confirms that they use the Web frequently and actually pay attention to the ads.

The majority of U.S.-based software marketing executives voted Internet marketing as the big winner in 2002 according to a nationwide survey jointly conducted by Smith & Suita and Marketing Innovations about “What Matters Most when Marketing in a Tough Economy.”

It’s March Madness on the web. According to Nielsen//NetRatings, surfers flocked to the Internet from home during the week ending March 10, for the latest news and analysis of the men's NCAA basketball tournament. Various sports sites such as SportsLine.com, SportingNews.com, ESPN, Fansonly.com, CNNsi and FinalFour.net all posted gains in traffic.

Volvo’s at it again. As you may remember, in October of 2000, Volvo showed great confidence in web marketing by launching - with much fanfare - its new S60 sedan exclusively online. As a result, Volvo said in January of 2001 that there's little chance they'll use the same Internet-only strategy again. This year, they’re trying something completely different - integration.

In the Interactive TV: Reality & Opportunity report released today, eMarketer estimates that the number of US households with interactive television (iTV) will jump by 74% from 12.7 million last year to 22.1 million in 2002, representing over 20% of all US households.

The biggest story of the day is L90. Now that eUniverse has scrapped their plans to merge with the company, many people in the industry are calling L90 a mini-Enron.

comScore Networks has released the results of its latest netScore report of worldwide and U.S. Internet surfing activity for the month of February 2002, and while it looks like the overall Internet population maintained the peak level achieved in January, specific preferences of Web users around the world reveal the broad and varying role of the Internet in so many aspects of people's lives.

A few days ago I reported that according to Taylor Nelson Sofres' CMR, ad spending took an even bigger hit in 2001 than originally forecast - total measured media spending was down 9.7% to $98.21 billion in 2001, from $108.81 billion in 2000. A number of people emailed back asking where online media fit into the picture, since there was no mention of online ad spending in the report. Well, that question was answered this morning by CMR’s Internet division CMRi.