Wrong!! They just watch shows with longer commercials or have 2 days a week without bingo. OH! you know ones I mean. The ones that answer every e-mail with an auto responder. I've had occasion to carry on a conversation via e-mail 5 e-mails deep all from auto responder. Never was able to locate a human being at that "BUSINESS"

And then you have my very favorite, those that simply don't bother answering e-mail at all. I haven't been able to put my finger on what motivates these people. I do have it narrowed down to a few possibilities. One is that they just don't give a damn and can't be bothered. Another might be that they are so unfamiliar with their e-mail program that they're just not able to jump over all mental hurdle's associated with answering an e-mail.

Then we come to one that I'm really leaning towards. They are just so busy making money hand over fist that answering e- mail ( even if it's just to say, got your e-mail, not interested don't bother me again ) just isn't in their business plan any longer.

I do have a hunch, that some of these folks have been so in undated with spam e-mail that they have turned their business over to a small program called an e-mail filter. There's just one problem, that filter really, really can't tell difference between my legitimate business e-mail to you that for whatever reason contains word "greatest" and spammer you blocked by adding that word to your filter.

There are a great number of words in english language that can be used in subject lines and bodies of spammers e-mail. If your using any of them as filtering words, ( other than big 10 ) you are without a doubt blocking some of your legitimate business e-mail.

I know I'm missing a great number of indicators that it's a "DIVERSION" not a business, so I'm open to your suggestions and will include best ones ( with proper credit given ) in my next article on this subject titled "How WE Know It's Just A Diversion"

Pricing for both of new services has not been disclosed yet. For those of you who are counting your pennies, have no fear, as they're still allowing free submissions which is now being called "Lycos InSite Lite." Inclusion takes 4 to 6 weeks and there's no guarantee you'll be listed at all. Go to http://home.lycos.com/addasite.html to submit your site.

Seeing so many of search engines charging for submissions makes me yearn for good old days when submissions were free. There are only a handful of engines and directories left that you can still submit to without a fee. I guess nothing good ever lasts forever, especially when it comes to search engines and Net.

For more on Lycos's new services, or to sign up to be notified when they go live with it, go to

http://search.lycos.com/searchservices/