The nation's top-ranked online newspaper site continued to fly high in the third quarter.

Howard Dean's runaway success on the Web notwithstanding, a new study finds that Republicans are more likely to rely on the Internet for political information.

At a time when a traditional media resource like Consumer Reports is going through some Web-related soul-searching, users are looking to the major shopping site for far more than just old-fashioned price comparisons

Tucked away in DoubleClick Inc.'s fourth annual study of consumer attitudes toward e-mail is what might be the first look at the way men and women view e- mail. The study, which was conducted by Beyond Interactive, surveyed 900,000 consumers, split between men and women with an average age of 42.7.

For the last few years, wireless email has been hyped by media and technology pundits alike as "the next big thing." Their reasoning seems to be that of all potential outside-the-office applications, email is both the most crucial and the most trusted by otherwise technophobic users.

Back on December 2, 1999, in the inaugural edition of Just an Online Minute, I wrote, "Have a cigar - MediaPost has a new addition! Starting today, I'll dare visit your inbox for a minute each day - just one minute - to highlight online media."

Yesterday's minute about paid search certainly ruffled some feathers. My inbox is flooded with responses and aside from those people who didn't read closely enough to see that I wasn't in any way bashing paid search, most readers agree that the paid search hype should be closely monitored.

In light of all the new announcements in the paid search arena this week - Yahoo and Overture officially sealing the deal, AOL and Google expanding their partnership and MSN giving LookSmart the boot - it may be worth a minute to take a step back from the astronomical financials (Yahoo is shelling out about $1.9 billion for Overture, based on yesterday's stock prices) and look at paid search from a more philosophical perspective. Mainly, is paid search over-hyped?

The web world seems to be fairly predictable this week. First off, it's official. Overture Services, Inc. today announced that its stockholders have approved Yahoo's proposal to acquire Overture and the acquisition will be completed after the close of Nasdaq trading today.

Interland, Inc. released the results of its nationwide 2003 Holiday E-commerce Survey which revealed the integral role an online presence serves, with 78 percent of small businesses interviewed indicating their company benefits from having a Web site. Of those surveyed, 51 percent agreed with the statement that their Web site primarily provides company credibility.