The second editions of the "Employee Survey Question Guidebook" and its companion volume, "Employee Surveys: Practical and Proven Methods, Samples, Examples" have been published by Performance Programs, Inc.. Used together, these books provide everything an organization needs to create, administer, and interpret an employee survey. For the first time, both volumes are available as e-books as well as hardcopy book format.

RightNow(R)Technologies (RNOW)  has signed its 100th higher education customer. This milestone underscores RightNow dominance in the market for colleges and universities, which it has achieved by driving significant improvements in student recruiting and retention while at the same time delivering quantifiable reductions in operational costs.

Madgex has completed an major upgrade to the jobs.co.uk site.  Building on the successful candidate/CV database functionality, the jobs.co.uk site is now able to link the candidate and recruiter via its user-friendly job board software. The system is simple and fast to use. Using Madgex's award-winning Origin Job Software platform, jobs.co.uk now offers job seekers a comprehensive job search facility, which links to the recruiters via a feature-rich response management system.






You Should Know
China:
Review of HR reform at Bank of China
Recently, on the list of "The Ideal Employer for Chinese Graduates in 2005" released by Swedish Universum Communications specialized in employer brand management, Bank of China looms over the whole list, ranking the top fourth. Surpassing such transnational banks as CitiBank, HSBC and Deutsche Bank, it tops all financial enterprises. (China Economic Net)

Global:
Why Microsoft is no Craigslist
Microsoft is going after Craigslist for its classifed ads, and the New York Times wonders if the online community can survive the challenge. To which we ask: Why wouldn't it?It certainly isn't the first time that Craigslist has been in someone's crosshairs, and it certainly isn't the first time that Microsoft has tried its hand at this game. Classified ads--which for decades constituted more than 40 percent of the total advertising revenue for many daily newspapers--were a lucrative target of Microsoft's Sidewalk city guides in the late 1990s. But that venture ended with Sidewalk being sold, and CEO Steve Ballmer said later that he would have kept Microsoft out of the media business if he could have done it all over again. Even if Microsoft does become a viable competitor to Craiglist with Windows Live Expo, ultimate success won't be easy. The wildfire popularity of Craigslist may have been a fluke, but that fluke now generates 3 billion page views a month--and, even more important, a kind of grassroots loyalty that few companies can replicate. (Cnet)

Craigslist Encounters: The Darker Side Of Craigslist
We here at SFist don't have that much bad to say about Craigslist. We've found housing, bought and sold things which we never thought possible and maybe even watched a movie about it. Yet, sometimes the dark underbelly of Craigslist rears its ugly head high enough so that it punctures the little dream clouds we are floating on. First, Craigslist gets sued because people are posting clearly discriminatory housing ads. Unfortunately, the mainstream news media picked up on it and gave midwestern house wives and our mothers another reason to fear "the Netscape." However, they do have a point, as it took us all of 30 seconds to find an ad that shows a strong, discriminatory preference. Generally we think that discrimination is bad, however, in the case of roommates it might just be easier for the ad to say something, rather than driving all the way to the inner sunset just to find out if a person is 420 friendly or not?  Oh well, at least the ads above charge rent. A second storm may be brewing as people are now accepting rent in a form other than checks. (SFist)

Focused on Internet search results, new ideas in advertising
As advertsing revenue decreases, the internet is increasingly utilized for advertising space. Newspapers are increasingly looking to the Internet to help them capture new readers and advertisers at a low cost. Here is what a few papers are trying to keep advertising revenue :

• Some newspapers are selling ads near their search results, like Google and Yahoo. Instead of competeing with these serach engines, some papers are offering search engines that focus on local results, giving readers more than just links to newspaper articles.
• McClathcy is experimenting with offering flat-rate fees starting at $50 a month for advertisers who want their ads to pop up first alongside search results. In contrast, advertisers must bid for spots on sites like Yahoo or Google and agree to pay a certain amount for each user who clicks on their ad.
• Newspapers are also experimenting with free classified ads for individuals, which has long been a major source of revenue for newspapers. This idea is to attract a bigger audience to the classifieds, then tr to sell other services such as upgraded placement of ads.