E-Commerce

Accel Partners is launching a $100 million fund to identify -- and fund -- entrepreneurs at every layer of the big data stack, in particular, those developing projects for the Apache Hadoop platform. The Accel Big Data Fund is aligned with Cloudera, which is pushing development in Hadoop. These pro...

American Express is extending its financial reach to the wild world of tech startups through a new multiyear digital commerce initiative. The $100 million program is designed to help identify and develop innovative technologies to aid the company's digital transformation and strengthen connections ...

Google has introduced Google+ Pages, an element of its Google+ social network that has been much anticipated by corporate brands. Pages provides a public placeholder on the Google+ network for any entity -- not just companies. A sports club like FC Barcelona, for example, could have its own page. Or...

The countdown to Cyber Monday has begun. Is your online business ready for the holiday shopping spree? We're all too familiar with sluggish online shopping experiences that have left us frustrated or caused us to leave the site altogether before we've completed a transaction. As the holiday shopping...

A coalition of film studios, record labels and media entities led by the UK record industry lobby group BPI recently sent a letter to British Internet service provider BT demanding that the company block access to The Pirate Bay website. The group said that if BT doesn't act within two weeks, the ma...

Google may be taking aim at one of the few digital screens and content sources it doesn't dominate -- paid television. The search engine provider is reportedly considering offering paid cable-TV services to leverage its high-speed Internet access project under way in Kansas City, where it is plannin...

After weeks of widespread uncertainty and speculation, Groupon made its final preparations before going public Friday. After enjoying considerable growth and popularity since its launch in late 2008, enthusiasm for Groupon has seemed to wane considerably in recent months. Critics have questioned whe...

Amazon.com launched a free e-book lending library for Kindle on Thursday. The library is open to Amazon Prime subscribers and includes over 5,000 books that users can borrow for free. The list includes hundreds of current and former New York Times bestsellers. Books can only be borrowed and read on ...

Research In Motion is launching a music app for BlackBerry users that it hopes will spread via its incentives for users to share songs by BlackBerry Messenger. Called "BBM Music," the service is rolling out in Canada, the U.S. and Australia, with more countries expected to go online later. The music...

Google will limit usage of its Maps API starting early next year. Starting early 2012, websites and apps using Google Maps APIs can generate up to 25,000 map loads per day for each API and up to 2,500 map loads per day for APIs that have been modified using the Styled Maps feature. Exceeding these l...

Google might soon quit surprising you with ridiculously off-target ads in your search results and Gmail. Or, you may finally find out how they deliver ads that are strikingly right-on. The search leader has announced an upcoming feature called "Why These Ads?" The company will also launch an Ads Pre...

The crumbling wall between TV and the Internet may soon be reduced to dust. YouTube is preparing to debut 100 TV channels, partnering with dozens of media companies, Hollywood production companies, and celebrities including Madonna, J-Z, Ashton Kutcher and more. The subjects range from health and fa...

IBM debuted industry-specific data analytics tools for the healthcare and communication sectors at its Information on Demand conference. These packages are part of IBM's drive to help companies manage their information processes and data storage needs as efficiently as possible. For the communicatio...

Is $185,000 the right price for a single generic top-level domain? No, it's definitely not. If a gTLD is supposed to provide worldwide exclusive use of a name identity with unlimited sub-name-brand-extension-domains, this amount is insufficient for ICANN to add critical features to the same applicat...

Unexpectedly high customer losses for Q3 sent Netflix stock into a tailspin in after-hours trading Monday, driving share prices down more than 30 percent overnight. The online video and DVD-by-mail provider lost 800,000 customers during the quarter behind it, and it projected a net loss for the quar...