“What is wrong with you people? Are you crazy or just nuts? How could you possibly have run that story? Why are you endorsing what they did? And just where do your real interests lie anyway? Why the @#$% did you publish that story?”

I get this series of questions, or some variation thereof, more than rarely but less than frequently, so let’s say occasionally throughout the year. Usually, it comes in reaction to a story which we have linked on one of our daily newsletters: USGNN.com, glassBYTES.com or dwmmag.com. And usually, the person firing the questions at me is pretty fired up too.

On the USGNN side, stories about glass breakage or glass falling out of buildings or balconies usually incite such passions. With glassBYTES, any link about Safelite or do-it-yourself windshield repair is sure to elicit some similar emotions.

So I decided that, just about once a year, I would attempt to answer this question. And since it is December already, now it seems like a good idea to do so.

First off, let me provide some background about the daily E-newsletters, usgnn.com(tm) and glassbytes.com(tm). They are designed to be a daily electronic newspaper for each of the industries they serve. They are not generally circulated outside their respective industries. They include the news, good, bad and messy, along with a compendium of what is going on in each industry. All of us here, myself included, take a good deal of pride in them. I often hear from people that their respective newsletter is their most important business tool. That is very gratifying to know.

Each daily E-newsletter includes staff-written original stories and a ton of links to other stories concerning the industry that are on the web. All original stories are marked as being staff written and, usually, the author’s name and email is included. For links, we take you right to the source of the story. For original stories, we have done the research, written the article and what we print we believe to be true and accurate. If, heaven forbid, something is wrong, we correct it quickly.

Links are included so you can see what is being said about the industry to different audiences, including your customers and consumers. They include stories in the consumer press as well as the publicity that your competitors are getting, which is by its very nature, self-promotional. We run the links so you can see what’s out there, not as a positive endorsement or negative notice.

Glass falling out of balconies? I don’t know about you, but I would sure want to know what the general public (or architects, developers, builders etc.) are reading in the consumer press. Very often, that information is in need of correction or clarification and you can’t correct what you don’t know about.

Do-it-yourself repair kits? If I repaired windshields in Hoboken, I would sure as heck want to know if some Hoboken automotive blogger decided to explain how to do-it-yourself. And then I would correct him. I have even heard of repair companies being successful in doing so and gaining some publicity for themselves.

And what of giant companies, like Safelite, on the auto glass side? Well, they are the largest auto glass installer in this country and if I competed with them, I would sure want to know as much of what they are doing, what press they are getting and why, as I could.

This is why we provide all this information. We, you, us—we are all in this together for the good of our industries. The daily E-newsletters are powerful tools because knowledge is power, and those who know how to use both are better off than those who don’t.