Articles by Andy Wang

In an effort to simplify the car-buying process, online automobile dealer Autobytel.com (Nasdaq: ABTL) has launched a new online banking center that will allow buyers to compare loan rates from up to four lenders. The center is partnered with online loan marketplace LendingTree and online credit automation company CMSI (Nasdaq: CMSS) The free finan...

Kinko's, the brick-and-mortar copy center king, announced today that it has formed an alliance with iPrint, an online provider of print shop technology. The new service will offer custom printing solutions to both businesses and individuals Kinko's is using iPrint's iKiosk technology to power the new service. Customers can now design and order prod...

Vitamins.com, the online supplier of vitamins and other nutritional supplements, announced today that it has raised $22.5 million (US$) in funding and will now be strategically allied with retail drugstore chain Phar-Mor. The round of financing was led by Acacia Venture Partners in San Francisco, with several other venture capital firms participating. Investors include CIBC Capital Partners, Demuth, Folger & Wetherill and Grove Street Advisors...

Direct e-commerce company Xoom.com (Nasdaq: XMCM) announced today that it has acquired 100 percent of e-mail security company Private One, Inc. The move is an effort to strengthen MightyMail, the direct marketing e-mail solutions provider that it acquired in June. Financial terms were not disclosed Xoom.com will integrate Private One's secure encry...

Online apparel retailer Styleclick.com (Nasdaq: IBUY) has signed a broadband content syndication agreement with Intertainer Inc., an interactive network that provides entertainment-on-demand to both cable and telecommunications companies. Styleclick.com's content will appear on Intertainer's service when it launches to consumer audiences in the fall...

As it drives toward its upcoming initial public offering, Akamai Technologies has strengthened its hand by hiring banking veteran Timothy Weller to be its chief financial officer. The company offers content-delivery services that speed up performance for e-commerce sites, portal sites and news sites Weller had been an equity research analyst at inv...

As part of a year-long campaign to transform itself into a full-service destination site, E*Trade (Nasdaq: EGRP) announced Monday that it has become the leading investor in online mortgage bank LoanCity.com's second round of funding. New Enterprise Associates provided much of the funding for LoanCity.com's first round LoanCity.com offers a technolo...

StarMedia Network (Nasdaq: STRM), a leading online network for Spanish and Portuguese-speaking audiences, will now offer its users direct access to online grocery shopping. The network surprised some observers by forgoing well-known players like Webvan and Peapod in favor of LatinGrocer, an online grocery service that caters to the same target audience...

Dell Computer (Nasdaq: DELL) leapt past Wall Street's expectations after the markets closed on Tuesday, reporting strong e-commerce sales and record earnings for the second quarter of 1999. Net income rose to $507 million (US$), a 47 percent increase over the $346 million reported for the second quarter of 1998. Revenues grew to $6.142 billion, a 42 percent increase over the $4.331 billion reported a year ago. Dell's earnings per share of 19 cents were two cents better than the consensus estimate of analysts...

InfoSpace.com announced today that it has signed an agreement to purchase INEX Corporation, a Toronto, Canada-based company that provides solutions for merchants to build, manage and promote online stores. This deal will allow InfoSpace.com to offer its affiliates tools to build e-commerce businesses Internet infrastructure company InfoSpace.com (N...

Buyingedge.com, a company that is attempting to shake up the world of online auctions, has gotten a vote of confidence from one of the Internet's biggest kingmakers On Thursday, buyingedge.com, which is a subsidiary of enterprise software developer Information Management Associates (Nasdaq: IMAA), announced that it has completed a $10 million (US$)...

Modem Media.Poppe Tyson (Nasdaq: MMPT), which builds and markets online businesses for large companies, has landed another significant deal from a corporate heavyweight. Today, Modem Media announced that General Electric (NYSE: GE) has committed to a contract worth more than $11 million (US$) through September 30, 2000 Under the terms of the contra...

Here we go again. On Friday, leading auction site eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) suffered another embarrassing outage that will be costly in more ways than one. eBay's site was down for about 14 hours on Friday, beginning at 4:30 a.m. Pacific Time. In June, eBay also suffered a major outage. That 22-hour outage led to an estimated $3 million (US$) to $5 million of lost revenue for eBay, largely because the company refunded listing and transaction fees...

Online grocer Webvan Group Inc., announced Friday that it has filed for a $345 million initial stock sale to raise money to build and equip its planned brick-and-mortar distribution centers While the Foster City, California-based company didn't disclose how many shares would be in the IPO, their price range, or other details in its preliminary fili...

Monday was a historical day for the era of Internet postage, as the U.S. Postal Service approved the technology of online postage companies E-Stamp and Stamps.com (Nasdaq: STMP). Monday was also the day Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) made its own major push into the emerging market On Monday, Yahoo! launched its own Postal Center. The new area on Yahoo! wil...

The era of after-hours stock trading is nearly upon us, and online investment bank Wit Capital (Nasdaq: WITC) is aiming to capitalize on this growing market. On Thursday, Wit Capital announced a deal that will make it a founding partner and the first company to provide information for America Online's (NYSE:AOL) new after-hours trading center Under...

Just two days after the successful initial public offering of Chemdex (Nasdaq: CMDX), which provides e-commerce solutions for the life sciences industry, business-to-business community network VerticalNet (Nasdaq: VERT) gobbled up one of Chemdex's competitors. Today, VerticalNet announced the acquisition of labX.com, an online trading community for used and excess scientific laboratory equipment. Terms of the deal were not disclosed...

High-end brick-and-mortar furniture retailer Ethan Allen Interiors (NYSE: ETH) is doing some redecorating of its own. Today, Ethan Allen announced that it plans to start selling furniture and accessories on its Web site in late September. The company is undergoing an online makeover, with its Web site currently being redesigned "We have been watchi...

As analysts have recently pointed out, leading portal site Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) has no problem getting people to come to its site. Now Yahoo! is working toward getting its visitors to stay awhile. Today, Yahoo! announced a deal with online bank Telebank (Nasdaq: TBFC) that will allow Telebank customers to view their account information on Yahoo! T...

After the beating that most Internet stocks have taken in the last few trading sessions, eBay's (Nasdaq: EBAY) earnings report, released Monday, had a calming effect for investors, but only for a little while The online auction leader beat analysts' estimates by a penny per share on Monday, reporting net income of $5.1 million (US$) or four cents p...