Newsletters on and about the Net

Free on-line newsletters

• Infobeat: Why read the paper when you can get the daily news for free by e-mail? To sign up to receive a daily dose of world, U.S., entertainment, and technology news, go to the Infobeat Web site at http://www.infobeat.com and sign up. It's free, supported by ads in the mail and on the web site. You can even get Doonesbury by e-mail! (Suggested by Margy Levine Young.)

• The Daily Brief: Intelligent Network Concepts, Inc. sends out this e-mail newspaper, including a stock market summary and world currency rates. They request but do not require a small annual contribution for support. To subscribe, send a message to db-request@incinc.net with the word "subscribe" in the subject line, not the main text, of the message. (Suggested by John Levine.)

• The Economist: The British newsweekly, which we like a whole lot more than Time or Newsweek, sends out every Thursday a pair of e-mail messages containing the political news and business highlights of the week. To subscribe, visit the E-mail Services page at their web site. (Suggested by John Levine.)

• The Scout Report: Susan Calcari at the University of Wisconsin scours the Internet for new and interesting things. For information on how to subscribe, go to the Scout Report's Web page at http://wwwscout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/report/. (Suggested by John Levine.)

• Dummies Daily: IDG Books, the ``...For Dummies'' people, run a series of Dummies Daily mailing lists on topics like computing basics, the Internet, and various popular programs. To sign up, go to their web site at http://www.dummiesdaily.com. (Suggested by Margy Levine Young.)

• Net-Happenings: If you want to know what's new on the Net every day (or sometimes several times a day), sign up for the net-happenings list. You'll get a listing of new Internet resources for the day. To sign up, send a message to listserv@lists.internic.net with the message subscribe net-happenings yourname in the text of the message (not in the subject), substituting your actual name for "yourname." To unsubscribe, send the message signoff net-happenings to the same address. (Suggested by Margy Levine Young.)

On-line newsletters about the Internet that cost money

• Matrix News is a monthly newsletter about the Matrix, the Internet and all systems that connect to it at least with e-mail. Lots of news about countries connecting to the net, book reviews, and more. Sample articles and subscription info is on their web site. Inexpensive, about $25 per year. Also available on paper at extra cost.

• The COOK Report is a lengthy monthly newsletter on the technology and politics of the Internet. It can be dense reading, but it certainly tells you what's happening. Frequent interviews with major Internet infrastructure figures. Quite expensive, $100 or more per year depending on type of subscription. Info on their web site or e-mail.

Dead tree newsletters that cost money

• Privacy Journal isn't particularly about the Internet, it's a monthly newsletter by long time privacy advocate Robert Ellis Smith about threats to your personal privacy in the electronic age, and what it reports can be truly horrifying. (And remember, if you think you have nothing to hide, does that mean it'd be OK to put a video camera in your bedroom?) List price is $125 a year but usually there's a discounted price for prepaid personal subscriptions. You can e-mail the publisher at privacyjournal@prodigy.net.

Updated: Jun 12, 2003