E-Commerce

Hulu, the TV-network-owned site for watching television programs over the Internet, has announced a new paid subscription service that promises to give users greater freedom to watch their favorite shows online. Hulu introduced the new service, called "Hulu Plus," Tuesday in a blog post authored by ...

A few months ago, the Globeandmail.com's Barry McKenna reported that "Canada has earned a dubious distinction as a world hub for illegitimate file-sharing websites and a leader in Internet piracy." In addition, Canada is in the "embarrassing position of harboring five of the top eight remaining unau...

Google will no longer redirect mainland China Internet users to its Hong Kong site at Google.com.hk. Instead, it will display a link to the uncensored Hong Kong site on its Google.cn landing page. The Hong Kong page also gives mainland users access to such services as music and text translation. Th...

The early-entry, established companies continue to wrestle for dominance in the streaming music space. We have Pandora, Jango, Last.fm, and Google Music is yet to come. Now, though, a small newcomer is in the game, and it joins the fray with an angle. mSpot has just finished its private beta period ...

Incorporating social media strategies into your marketing plan is no cut-and-paste job. You've got to know your clientele and what appeals to them, and you have to engage them in a conversation rather than simply spew offers at them. In fact, if you don't have the desire to commit yourself to social...

There is a new mindset is pervading the world of digital assets, particularly in a cost-conscious economy. Organizations are looking to maximize the value of all their digital assets, both to reduce up-front costs and to increase ROI. Back in its early days, "Saturday Night Live" spoofed a real comm...

Designing company websites has evolved into an art form, and much attention is paid to selecting the appropriate colors, using the right graphics, and making sure the content best reflects the corporate messaging and brand. These are absolutely areas of importance, but often companies design their w...

Microsoft has introduced several changes to the design and content of its entertainment results on Bing, including ways to link searches to the content they're looking for more directly. The changes are ultimately intended to make this portion of its search engine far stickier. That, of course, is h...

The White House on Tuesday released its plan to fight intellectual property theft, including more than 30 recommendations designed to encourage all branches of government to take a more aggressive stand against piracy. The Joint Strategic Plan, which was required by the 2008 PRO-IP Act, creates a ju...

Complicating the global financial crisis are many potential short and long-term impacts on B2B markets, particularly in the market where my own operations are based, China. From one perspective, the crisis could turn out to have been a good thing for small businesses, forcing them to become more eff...

Social networking platforms can be powerful tools. Twitter strikes fear into the hearts of repressive regimes, and Facebook was nearly single-handedly responsible for the revival of Betty White's career. So how can something with that much influence be easy and unintimidating for a small-business ow...

The Federal Communications Commission has voted to forward what it calls a "third way" toward broadband regulation. Following a big legal loss in April, when a federal circuit court ruled that the FCC had no authority to regulate Internet traffic, the agency has been scrambling to find ways to stay...

Less than a year after its product launch, Google Commerce Search has arrived at its 2.0 iteration. The most notable change is a new pricing structure that allows retailers with up to 50,000 products in inventory to acquire a license to the hosted solution starting at $25,000 per year. That's a 50 p...

AOL has found a buyer for its social networking site Bebo. Although the sale price is undisclosed, it is rumored that Los Angeles-based private equity fund Criterion Capital Partners snapped up the site for $10 million. If true, that price represents a steep drop from what AOL paid for it two years ...

What's the path to profit in the digital age? Publishing companies, particularly those in the newspaper and magazine business, have been wrestling with that question for at least the past decade. Rupert Murdoch, chairman of the media conglomerate News Corp., thinks getting readers to pay for online ...