E-Commerce

Amazon is becoming a major challenger in the overall app marketplace, according to a new report from Flurry. Flurry looked at some of the top-ranked apps across three major app sources: Apple's App Store, Amazon's Appstore and Google Play. Together, the stores brought in 11 million daily active user...

In January of this year, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office issued a patent to Amazon for its "one-click" technology, thereby marking the beginning of business method patents in Canada. This came more than 13 years after Amazon's initial patent application, which was rejected by the Canadia...

Best Buy is taking an ax to its big box retail business model. The company plans to close 50 of its larger stores and test new store formats in San Antonio and Minneapolis. The formats will be so-called "connected stores" that will emphasize tech support and wireless products. They will feature chec...

It appears that Yahoo and shareholder Third Point are digging in for a contentious proxy fight. The companies have been tussling over who will fill four seats on the board of directors, with the two sides clashing on several points, including whether Third Point CEO Daniel Loeb should get one of th...

Research In Motion has said it will offer app makers a prototype of the next smartphone in the BlackBerry 10 line at an upcoming conference in May. Good news, but is it too little, too late? The phone will not be ready to roll into the market till late 2012. RIM ruled during the last decade, but it ...

The Federal Trade Commission this week urged Congress to impose new regulations on companies that collect consumer data related to Internet browsing habits. Under the policy the FTC suggests, data brokers, or the holders of personal consumer information, must allow consumers access to that informati...

Microsoft continued to expand its television offerings for members of its Xbox Live Gold service Monday by adding HBO Go, Major League Baseball video and Comcast's on-demand video service. Comcast Xfinity TV allows Xbox Gold members to access the cable carrier's expansive library of entertainment pr...

Effective landing pages are an essential component of successful online marketing campaigns and are probably the single biggest factor in determining whether or not you will convert a Web visitor into a prospect who is willing to provide contact information. Landing pages are custom-designed single ...

One of Yahoo's major investors, hedge fund Third Point, is calling upon shareholders to elect four of its nominees to the company's board. This is just the latest round in what could become a very nasty fight. "There are a couple of things happening," said Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT....

Amazon has moved to acquire Kiva Systems, a maker of robotic equipment that services warehouses. The purchase will be Amazon's biggest since it bought Zappos.com in 2009. Amazon agreed to pay $775 million for Kiva, which creates equipment, handling technology and software that helps large-scale vend...

Today we would say that the first implementation of PageRank was a form of crowdsourcing. The crowd was early webmasters, and they helped determine the relevancy of Web pages by linking to them. It didn't take long for "search engine specialists" to figure out how to game the system for fun and pr...

Following a stellar 2011 holiday season, and with U.S. retail sales having exceeded expectations in February, etailers have many reasons for optimism in 2012 and beyond. By any measure, e-commerce will continue to grow -- Goldman Sachs most recently predicted that global retail Web sales will reach ...

Cisco Systems has revealed plans to acquire NDS Group, paying $5 billion for the video software company as part of an effort to increase investment in its software and video services. NDS software ensures that paid digital content gets to appropriate set-top boxes, smart TVs and consumer gadgets, an...

Google is rumored to be at work on new technologies and methodologies that could significantly alter the way consumers search on the Internet, as well as how brands can expect to see their ads displayed. More emphasis will be placed on semantic search, a process that takes into account the meaning o...

Even before Google launched its new privacy policy earlier this month, consolidating separate privacy policies for more than 60 applications, legal issues had surfaced. Now, attorneys general from more than 31 States have accused Google of violating privacy laws because of complaints from users that...