Archive

'Tis the season to read about e-tailers' dreams of record-breaking profits during the holiday shopping frenzy. Meanwhile, amid anxious promotions and analyst promises, there are plenty of credit card companies with their own holiday hopes. Remember, merchants pay tiny transaction fees that add up to...

Microsoft and long-distance company MCI will test a co-branded Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calling service meant to help the two companies have a hand in the massive shift of voice-based calls from traditional land lines to the Internet. MCI Web Calling for Windows Live Call will be integrat...

Online holiday sales are on a pace to crack US$26 billion this year -- an 18 percent leap over last year, according to JupiterResearch in New York City. "Reports we've seen from Mastercard and Visa indicate that online transactions are up sharply during this period relative to last year," Jupiter Se...

The roles of customer relations managers have been made more complex by both globalization and the virtualization of organizations. Clients initially encounter customer relations managers during the sales cycle. In some outsourcing firms, the chief executive officer is also the main client relation...

State-run venture capital funds are increasingly financing early stage technology companies, picking up some of the slack left by private venture capitalists in the wake of the stock market bubble's burst, experts tell the E-Commerce Times. Thirty-six states have venture funds, and the largest is Ma...

Hoping to bridge the gap between traditional cable television and the Internet, three heavyweights from the two fields said they had forged a partnership to develop ways to make the two data-transport channels more open to each other. Comcast said it would work with Cisco Systems and Nortel as the f...

It's the sixth week of the all-important online holiday shopping season and the latest stats are in from Nielsen//NetRatings. The Internet media and market researcher declared today that online holiday shopping has grown 33 percent year-over-year, according to its Holiday eShopping Index. The Nielse...

Further boosting its portfolio of social-networking properties while underscoring a push to refine search results by using Web site descriptions, Yahoo has acquired Del.icio.us, a site that enables users to store and share Web site bookmarks. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. Privately held ...

Seeking to take advantage of the many exciting online bargains this holiday shopping season? Be cautious about those e-mail promotions. Some of them contain more than deep discounts and free shipping offers -- they may contain malware. Security vendors and messaging companies alike report heightened...

Yahoo has launched a service that attempts to connect those with questions to a community that might have the answers. Yahoo Answers offers 23 categories in which to ask a question not easily answered by a Web search. "When it comes to locating facts, such as the capital of India, Web search rocks. ...

In a move that signals the growing importance of gaming on hand-held devices, Electronic Arts (EA) said it was buying mobile game developer Jamdat Mobile Inc. for US$680 million in cash. The agreement calls for Redwood City, Calif.-based EA to pay $27 in cash for all outstanding shares of Los Angele...

I have come to realize that the world of WiFi, its amazing applications, and its revolutionary possibilities are only just beginning to emerge. One such application is WiFi gambling. Frankly, I never gave wireless gaming a thought, until a company called Diamond I, a provider of hand-held modules to...

Even those who sell them for a living acknowledge that the day may never come when electronic greeting cards replace paper cards. But eCards are already far more than just a time-wasting diversion or a low-cost alternative to the real thing. ECard companies are increasingly finding users willing to ...

Sony is spinning off its Internet subsidiary and the initial public offering is drawing strong interest from Japanese investors, suggesting that interest in Web-focused stocks has international reach. Sony Communication Network, which operates the So-Net Internet service in Japan and other Web inter...

Taking aim at VoIP leader and new eBay acquisition Skype -- and to a lesser extent at established phone companies -- Yahoo is poised to roll out an Internet calling service that will enable low-cost calls between computers and traditional phones. The service, set to launch in the next few days, acco...