Started nearly 10 years ago by soft-spoken software engineer Craig Newmark, Craigslist went from a small e-mail list of local events and parties to become a national and international phenomenon providing local residents with a cheap, simple way to sell junk, find a new job, or find a mate quickly. And as it has grown to encompass 45 cities -- with more to come -- Craigslist has resisted buyout offers and paid advertising while becoming a powerful alternative to daily newspaper and alternative-weekly classifieds -- especially in its hometown.

David Holthouse was arrested Saturday for allegedly stalking the man he wrote about in Westword's May 13 cover story. In "Stalking the Bogeyman," Holthouse described a plan to kill the man who he says raped him when he was a 7-year-old boy. He put that plan aside after his parents discovered the assault. Holthouse says the stalking charges came after he asked a friend to watch the alleged rapist's house to make sure the man wouldn't retaliate against Holthouse's parents, Sean Kelly reports in the Denver Post.

According to a report conducted by NOP World for Nokia, mobile phone users say they would pay 28% more than their current mobile fees for mobile content services. On the other hand, among respondents who have never used mobile content, 48% say they would if the services were cheaper. The key to these somewhat conflicting findings is the age of the respondents, with younger people more apt to pay more for the services.

In a study sure to be controversial, Deutsche Bank says TV ads don't work for mature package good brands. The study, released on the eve of the TV buying upfront, examined 23 household, personal-care, food and beverage brands using customized marketing-mix analysis from Information Resources Inc. It found only 18% generated a positive return on investment (ROI) in the short term (a year or less) from TV advertising. Less than half (45%) saw their TV investment pay off long term.

The Conference Board reported Thursday that its help-wanted index dropped one point for the month of April to 38. The index for March was 39. For the same period last year, the index stood at 37.

The new reality of TV is that many of the country's biggest advertisers, including Coca-Cola, General Motors, and Procter & Gamble, are finding alternative ways to put their goods and their messages in front of consumers, and they're doing it with some of the money that used to pay for prime-time television commercials. Revlon is running minimovies in theaters, American Express airs short films on its Web site, and General Motors' Hummer H2 gets almost as much face time as the crime specialists on CSI: Miami . In a March survey of the Association of National Advertisers, more than 40 percent of those asked said they planned to move part of their next-year ad budgets to other outlets, such as the Internet, outdoor advertising, product placement, cable, and special events.