Articles by Andy Wang

For first-time automobile buyers, one of the few things as frustrating as visiting a car dealership is figuring out which insurance company to use. On Thursday, online auto retailer Autobytel.com (Nasdaq: ABTL) announced a partnership that could help customers avoid that hassle Autobytel.com has teamed up with InsurQuote -- a technology provider fo...

Music and entertainment retailer Musicland (NYSE: MLG) is hoping that e-commerce will turn its fortunes around. Musicland, which operates more than 1,300 brick-and-mortar stores including Sam Goody, Suncoast, MediaPlay and OnCue, announced Wednesday that it has launched e-commerce stores for all of its brick-and-mortar brands The move comes as Musi...

Banks like electronic billing because it is cost-efficient and can be faster than traditional forms of securing payment Now, three major banks are teaming up to streamline the process. Today, U.S. banking giants Chase Manhattan (NYSE: CMB), First Union (NYSE: FTU) and Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) announced that they are forming a new company that will a...

Last month, business-to-business online marketplace BizBuyer.com announced a $1 million (US$) seed round of financing from investors including eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) CEO Meg Whitman. Today, the buyer-drive marketplace -- founded in September of 1998 and based in Santa, Monica, California -- was greatly bolstered with the announcement of a $5 million commitment from @Ventures, the venture-capital arm of leading Internet incubator CMGI (Nasdaq: CMGI)...

In a direct blow to Amazon.com's (Nasdaq: AMZN) auction strategy, leading portal site Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) unveiled a new program today that is designed to help sellers with large inventories of items manage their auctions more efficiently The new service, known as Yahoo! Auction Express, allows businesses of any size -- or even individuals -- to ...

Starbucks' e-commerce plans have been the source of much speculation ever since news of the company's possible e-commerce and portal plans began to circulate last month. Things became a little more clear on Thursday, when the specialty coffee retailer announced a strategic alliance with Oxygen Media, a high-profile media company that publishes a network of Web sites for women and is working to develop a cable channel...

On Wednesday, the day the Nasdaq gained a record 103.16 points as concerns about inflation abated, software company Oracle Corp. (Nasdaq: ORCL) was the darling of Wall Street. Shares of Oracle, which develops software that powers companies including Amazon.com and Excite, climbed more than 31 percent, rising 7-13/16 to 32-15/16 Last Tuesday, Oracle...

Online marketing suddenly looks like a red-hot industry. One day after online advertising company DoubleClick (Nasdaq: DCLK) announced a $1 billion deal to purchase market research firm Abacus Direct, America Online (NYSE: AOL) grabbed a bigger piece of the online marketing pie On Tuesday, AOL announced that it had acquired complete ownership of pr...

Better Homes and Gardens magazine is trying to turn traditional shoppers into e-commerce enthusiasts. That was made clear on Monday when the magazine's parent company, Meredith Corporation, (NYSE: MDP) announced an integrated publishing program called "Shop Online." The new program will be launched in October in an attempt to encourage a targeted p...

Late Friday night, leading online auction site eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) apologized for a service outage that had crippled its site for nearly 24 hours. By that time, however, the damage had already been done. Disgruntled eBay customers vented their frustrations on online message boards and eBay stock fell more than nine percent, dropping 16-13/16 to 165-7/8 on Friday...

It seemed like only a matter of time before the various companies that have Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen as an investor started signing deals. One such deal was announced on Thursday. Mercata, a new e-commerce company that helps consumers get together as a group to receive discounts on merchandise, announced that it has partnered with online network Go2Net (Nasdaq: GNET) to create a new category on Go2Net's shopping channel...

In a move that could add shareholder value, leading utility software provider Symantec (Nasdaq: SYMC) announced today that it plans to spin off its Internet Tools business unit to create a new, independent company Symantec, which manufactures such well-known products as Norton Antivirus and Visual Page, plans to leverage its position in the Java de...

Leading online automobile dealer Autobytel.com (Nasdaq: ABTL) is increasing its reach in the $370 billion (US$) used car market with a new deal with top portal site Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO). Autobytel will offer thousands of certified pre-owned vehicles for sale through Yahoo! Autos, a service that allows users to research, buy and sell new and used cars...

Another company that defied Wall Street's downward trend on Tuesday was online superstore Value America (Nasdaq: VUSA). Shares of Value America climbed 23.5 percent, rising 4-7/16 to 23-5/16, one day after announcing six new board members On Monday, Value America, which has Paul Allen's Vulcan Ventures and Federal Express as major shareholders, ann...

Online investment bank Wit Capital (Nasdaq: WITC), which went public on Friday, suddenly has some major competition. On Monday, online investment bank E*OFFERING, which is backed by online broker E*Trade (Nasdaq: EGRP), launched its Web site Wit Capital has distinguished itself by offering individual investors access to shares of initial public off...

The latest boost for e-commerce is coming from the United States government. Online software superstore Beyond.com (Nasdaq: BYND) was a top performer on Wall Street on Friday, one day after the company announced a major deal with the Internal Revenue Service Late last week, Beyond.com announced that it, along with privately held Intellisys Technolo...

Online travel agent Travelocity.com reinforced its position as an industry leader on Thursday. This brings up the issue of whether Travelocity.com will fly higher and become a public company or remain part of holding company The Sabre Group (Nasdaq: TSG) On Thursday, Travelocity.com, which is owned and operated by Sabre, announced gross sales of mo...

Direct e-commerce company XOOM.com (Nasdaq: XMCM), which will soon become part of NBC's new Internet division, added to its wide variety of services on Wednesday with the acquisition of MightyMail Networks MightyMail Networks is the developer of MightyMail, an e-mail platform that gives companies an online one-to-one marketing strategy. XOOM.com ac...

Independent-label music is often tough to track down via traditional retail stores, and the Internet is now giving music fans better access to hard-to-find favorites Today, online music seller CDuctive.com announced the launch of its new digital download store, which features a variety of notable acts on independent labels.

Newly public online bookseller barnesandnoble.com (Nasdaq: BNBN) took a significant step toward taking away market share from industry leader Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) with a new e-commerce deal today Barnesandnoble.com announced a bookselling deal with portal site Snap.com, which is owned by NBC and CNET and should benefit greatly from the newly f...