Archive

The idea was simple: Build a large catalog of consumer items and make it accessible in a structured format, unlike what already exists in wide-open search engines like Google. Give users tools similar to what they get on financial Web sites. Give a unique online business experience to both the buyer...

Reports continue to circulate that the FCC has enough votes to rule that Comcast illegally blocked traffic between peer-to-peer Internet applications and that the government will soon set down guidelines for the Internet service provider that could serve as a precedent regarding the hotly debated to...

Verizon Communications beat Wall Street expectations on Monday, thanks to a strong showing by its wireless business. Second-quarter revenue grew to $24.1 billion, a 3.7 percent increase compared with the same period a year ago. Second-quarter earnings grew to $1.88 billion, up from $1.68 billion dur...

The two giants of satellite radio are about to become one. The FCC has approved the merger of XM and Sirius, ending a year-and-a-half struggle to finalize the deal. The move will give the newly combined company unprecedented power in the world of satellite communications; however, it will come wit...

If you told Rhett Frandsen 10 years ago he'd end up being a professional widget-maker, he probably would have called you crazy. "Back then, widgets were only something you read about in your economics book," Frandsen laughed. "Until Apple coined the phrase, everybody had sort of agreed upon the fact...

Although Yahoo Music Unlimited subscribers have known since February that their music service would end in September, they may have been surprised to learn this week they would need to back up any purchased tracks on an audio CD by September 30 if they wanted to keep them. Failure to do so could lea...

Microsoft is forging ahead with plan B, now that its proposed merger with Yahoo is all but dead. It is expanding its relationship with Facebook to broaden exposure of its Windows Live Search as well as increase its own search ad business. This latter goal, of course, had been the point behind the fa...

Hasbro, maker of the word game Scrabble, has issued the ultimate double challenge to social network Facebook and its wildly popular Scrabble-like application Scrabulous: a lawsuit alleging copyright infringement. The suit, filed Thursday in a New York district court, claims the application violates ...

Sony announced Thursday that the new iteration of its Reader digital book will be able to read electronic books published in the .epub file format, a file type gaining acceptance among major trade book publishers, many of whom have committed to begin publishing forthcoming e-books in the format. Beg...

During the best of times, raising capital is no walk in the park. Today, however, the task can be daunting. After the Bear Stearns debacle and the problems of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, it is more difficult to raise capital than at any other time in recent history. Given today's environment, a comp...

Juniper Networks, a provider of networking systems, has tapped 16-year Microsoft veteran Kevin Johnson to be its CEO. Johnson led Microsoft's platforms and services division, which oversees product development, marketing and strategy for the Windows and online services businesses. As it announced Jo...

British parents who don't know what their kids are downloading on the family computer may want to start paying more attention, thanks to a new antipiracy agreement among the six largest Internet service providers in the United Kingdom. The U.S. music industry will no doubt track developments in the ...

As though in defiance of current economic trends, Amazon delivered Q2 earnings that gave investors little to complain about. Net income increased 102 percent to $158 million, or 37 cents a share, compared with net income of $78 million, or 19 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter. Net sales, or r...

Proponents of the beleaguered Child Online Protection Act suffered yet another blow Tuesday when a federal appeals court deemed the law unconstitutional once again. The 1998 law, known as "COPA," aims to keep children from viewing pornographic materials on the Internet by making it a crime for comme...

The world of online business communication has introduced two industry-changing elements for small business: more customers and more competitors. Circa 1999, you were ahead of the competition by simply having a Web site to preview your service or products. By 2004, Web transactions were the norm, an...