Articles by Andy Wang

Shares of popular women's network iVillage soared 233 percent on the stock's first day of trading on Friday, closing up 56-1/8 to 80-1/8. This climb was even more dramatic than it seemed. The initial public offering was originally priced at $12 (US$), but massive interest doubled the offering price. The stock was as high as $100 on Friday "There's ...

the South by Southwest Interactive Festival proved anything, it's that the future of music distribution is rather unclear. A Tuesday panel on the MP3 debate, which featured Michael Robertson, the founder and CEO of MP3.com, and Paula Batson of AT&T, quickly turned into a heated debate with spectators verbally attacking those on both sides of the issue...

The goal of many businesses is to create brand loyalty and attract lifetime customers who will eventually spend thousands of dollars over many years. This is what makes web-savvy college students such attractive targets for e-commerce companies Market research firm Student Monitor released a survey last month that reported that 95 percent of colleg...

There's no doubt that streaming media is going to affect how we purchase information and entertainment in the next millennium. However, the problem with this kind of new media right now is that it's often simply a pain for consumers. Downloading can be tedious, and sometimes unbearably slow. Right now, technology seems to be an enabler and a barrier at the same time...

Catalog company Lands' End (NYSE: LE), which sells apparel and gifts, reported disappointing, though encouraging earnings on Thursday. This is not a contradiction. Overall fourth-quarter earnings fell 38 percent (including charges) to $25.7 million (US$). But the mail-order company's stock climbed more than 10 percent on Thursday, largely because e-commerce sales more than tripled last year, climbing from $18 million to $61 million. Shares of Lands' End rose 3-1/4 to 34...

Many Internet stocks got a boost on Wednesday, thanks to positive comments from Merrill Lynch. You might remember that Merrill had a short-term rating of "reduce" for Amazon.com in late January. On Wednesday, Merrill rated Amazon.com "accumulate" and set a 12-month price target of $150 So what happened? Well, pretty much what you expected would hap...

Less than one week after Microsoft made many of its e-commerce plans public, Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL), the world's No. 2 software company, added some firepower to its e-commerce arsenal On Tuesday, Oracle announced the acquisition of E-Travel, which provides online travel management solutions for corporations.

Shares of office-products retailer Staples (Nasdaq: SPLS) and leading personal Web-hosting service Geocities (Nasdaq: GCTY) climbed on Monday after the companies announced a deal that would make Staples the exclusive office-supplies merchant on GeoCities Staples closed up 2-7/8 to 31-3/8, and in a great day for the Internet sector, GeoCities added ...

Shares of 7th Street.com (Nasdaq: SEVL) soared more than 80 percent on Friday after the multimedia training company announced a deal with America Online, and the stock is rocketing today, as well 7th Street.com, which sells downloadable tutorials for well-known programs on its Tutorials.com Web site, will become an anchor tenant in AOL's Computing ...

The world's largest domain-based Web-hosting company is about to get even bigger. Verio (Nasdaq: VRIO), which provides Web-hosting and e-commerce services for small businesses, announced on Thursday that America Online (NYSE: AOL) has chosen it to be the exclusive business Web-hosting partner for AOL and AOL-owned Compuserve Verio will pay at least...

Now it's Hewlett-Packard's turn. One day after Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) launched its online store, and two days after Compaq (NYSE: CPQ) announced its deal with Beyond.com (Nasdaq: BYND), Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HWP) made its major e-commerce plans public On Wednesday, Hewlett-Packard announced that it has partnered with privately held Ariba to launch Ari...

Beyond.com's quest to build a well-recognized brand name got a big boost on Tuesday, when the online software retailer announced it was chosen as Compaq's online partner for software and services The strategic agreement between Beyond.com (Nasdaq: BYND), which recently bought privately held competitor BuyDirect, and Compaq (NYSE:CPQ), the world's l...

For weeks, Drugstore.com has been saying that it has formed a partnership with Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO). On Monday, the companies made an official announcement, and Wall Street was pleased Yahoo! provides Drugstore.com with another excellent distribution channel," said Peter Neupert, CEO of Drugstore.com. "This relationship puts us in front of million...

Could the government put an end to all the euphoria surrounding eBay's stock? eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) announced late Friday that it is cooperating fully with a federal investigation into possible illegal transactions on the auction site. The inquiry will include an examination of eBay's roles in the transactions....

There aren't many stocks hotter than Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) right now, but Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS) isn't conceding anything in the heated battle between the online booksellers. On Thursday, Go2Net, Inc. (Nasdaq: GNET) announced that it has signed an agreement to make Barnes and Noble the exclusive book retailer on the Go2Net network The Go2Ne...

There aren't many stocks hotter than Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) right now, but Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS) isn't conceding anything in the heated battle between the online booksellers. On Thursday, Go2Net, Inc. (Nasdaq: GNET) announced that it has signed an agreement to make Barnes and Noble the exclusive book retailer on the Go2Net network The Go2Ne...

Looking for yet another reason to be bullish about Amazon.com? There's now an extremely compelling one. Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) announced on Wednesday that it owns approximately a 46 percent stake of online drug retailer Drugstore.com Drugstore.com is a privately held company that just officially launched its Web site today. The company, which se...

At the beginning of the year, Compaq (NYSE: CPQ) CEO Eckhard Pfeiffer declared that his company's "top strategic priority is Internet leadership in the industry." Well, for now, it looks like that strategy surprisingly includes making Compaq computers harder to buy on the Internet. Compaq confirmed Tuesday that it is has stopped selling its computers to Internet-only retailers...

Software reseller Beyond.com's (Nasdaq: BYND) merger with privately held rival BuyDirect.com is, of course, a significant deal. But potential investors shouldn't get too excited. Online software retailing is a hypercompetitive, low-margin business, and right now the combination of Beyond.com and BuyDirect.com still doesn't have the brand awareness or market capitalization of a CompUsa (NYSE:CPU)...

The roller-coaster ride that Egghead.com's (Nasdaq: EGGS) stock price has seen in the last year may be on the upswing again, thanks to a deal announced Tuesday with Microsoft and MSN. Under the new agreement, Microsoft's MSN Shopping site will feature Egghead as its primary merchant for computer software, and Egghead will also have an advertising presence on a variety of MSN sites, including MSNBC...