Articles by Elaine X. Grant

After much posturing, Travelocity(Nasdaq: TVLY) agreed to be puchased by Sabre Holdings (NYSE: TSG) after all. Sabre on Monday upped its buyout offerto US$28 per share, increasing the value of the deal to about$420 million. The company's original offer, made last month, was for $23 per share, or about $345 million A special committee formed to cons...

Online shoppers were outnumbered in February by surfers interestedin the Olympics and taxes, but e-commerce sites --including those dedicated to flowers, gifts andgreetings -- were still among the most-visited Web locales, according to a report by Jupiter Media Metrix(Nasdaq: JMXI). Despite the fact that e-commerce had a relatively slowmonth in Fe...

Face it: If you shop online, your life is an openbook. In the Internet age, privacy is a thing of thepast. But that does not mean users are helpless to control howtheir personal information is used online. They can take a number of steps to safeguard private data and avoid potential e-commerce danger zones....

When it comes to recruiting top talent, Internetcompanies face a much different picture than they dida few years ago. In those days, workers gleefully quit their jobs with brick-and-mortarcompanies to sign on with Internet startups.

Just over a year ago, business-to-business (B2B) e-commercewas all the rage. So, what happened? According to a report released by GartnerG2, movingbusiness processes online turned out to be harderthan it seemed initially.

EBay continues to stand out as one of the few clear-cut successes in the online world The auction giant has been consistently profitable at a time when other Internet companies are languishing in the red or closing down altogether....

The online shopping population in the United Stateswill double from 66 million to 132 million by 2006,according to a new report released by Jupiter Media Metrix(Nasdaq: JMXI) "It's easy to assume that because online sales growthhas begun to decelerate, the online population must bestabilizing. In fact, this is not the case," thereport said....

With the holidays over, Internet users worldwidedid more surfing than shopping in January, accordingto a new report from NetRatings(Nasdaq: NTRT), which measured at-home Web use in 29countries In fact, Internet use skyrocketed in January, with peoplespending more time online, viewing more pages andlogging on more often than they did in December, th...

EBay (Nasdaq: EBAY)stock fell 7.74 percent to US$49.11 in trading Wednesdayafter analysts expressed concerns about the auctiongiant's recent transactions. The stock rebounded to $51.35in early trading Thursday Earlier this week, EBay said it plans to purchaseTaiwanese online auction company NeoCom for $9.5million. The company also said it will clos...

EBay (Nasdaq: EBAY)is making a bid for China's Internet auction businessby purchasing Taiwan-based online auction companyNeoCom Technology for US$9.5 million in cash, plus anadditional payment to be determined when the deal closes "It's obviously a move to get a foothold in Asia, andit's just $10 million, which EBay can easily afford,"Morningstar.c

Online real estate company Homestore (Nasdaq: HOMS)has admitted it overstated revenue from January 2000 toSeptember 2001 by up to US$158 million, promptingNasdaq to initiate proceedings to delist the stock Homestore said it plans to challenge the decision byrequesting a hearing next week before a Nasdaq panel....

Online hotel bookings are on the rise, with researchfirm Forrester(Nasdaq: FORR) predicting that consumers will spend US$30billion between 2002 and 2006. But according to aForrester report, the new Hotel Distribution System(HDS), a cooperative effort between five major chains,will not challenge the top players in the market HDS -- formed by Hilton,...

Online casinos are serious about getting people to trytheir luck on the Web. According to a new report by Jupiter Media Metrix(Nasdaq: JMXI), Internet gambling outfits increasedonline advertising 170 percent from December 2000 toDecember 2001, drawing 13.6 million Web users to their sitesin December 2001 "The growth in online advertising among virt...

Web research firms Jupiter Media Metrix (Nasdaq:JMXI) and NetRatings (Nasdaq: NTRT) will not join forces after all. The two have called off a deal under whichNetRatings would have acquired Jupiter Media Metrix forUS$71.2 million in cash and stock Jupiter may have been left at the altar,but the company is already anxious to date again. "With theterm...

An agreement over value-added tax (VAT) reached thisweek by the European Union (EU) could cause troublefor U.S. Internet companies and international trade,according to a report by Gartner The proposal could be "a significant problem" for U.S.e-tailers, Gartner analyst French Caldwell told the E-Commerce Times.

Greeting card sites that do not charge a fee to send aheartfelt message will fare better than pay sites thisValentine's Day, according to a new report Charles Buchwalter, vice president of media researchat Jupiter Media Metrix(Nasdaq: JMXI), said that like many Internetcompanies, some greeting card sites have turned touser fees in order to decrease...

More and more airline tickets are being sold online.Eventually, the lion's share will be sold not bythird-party sites like Travelocity and Expedia but bythe airlines themselves. The airline business carries high costs and lowmargins, and air carriers are always trying to save abuck -- usually at someone else's expense. Whileemployees and passenger...

By the end of 2002, more than 600 million people worldwide will haveaccess to the Web, and they will spend more than US$1trillion shopping online, according to a study by research firm IDC. "Once people get over the security andprivacy hiccups, as well as other problems that arenot directly related to e-commerce, and have access towider product of...

A U.S. Department ofCommerce survey has found that more than half theU.S. population is now connected to the Internet. In addition, 39 percent of Internet users are making purchases online The study was based on U.S. Census Bureaustatistics and included data gathered from more than 137,000people. It found that in September, 143 million U.S.resident...

They may be bitter rivals in some ways, but Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT),IBM (NYSE: IBM), Intel (Nasdaq: INTC), Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) and a host of other tech companieshave agreed to cooperate -- at least until they can comeup with a set of open standards to ensure Web servicescompatibility The new alliance has given itself a catchy name: Web ServicesI...