E-Commerce

Best Buy edged further ahead of rival Circuit City in the battle for consumer electronics and entertainment spending in the fourth quarter, with high-end TVs and other devices helping drive Best Buy's gains and costs associated with a restructuring plan dragging down Circuit City's. Best Buy's profi...

Cable giant Comcast extended its regional reach Tuesday with its announcement that it will buy privately held Patriot Media & Communications for around $483 million in cash. The deal gives Comcast control of a tightly focused regional network with about 81,000 video subscribers mainly focused in...

Continuing its drive to expand its reach beyond the Web, Google reached a deal to partner with satellite TV provider EchoStar to deliver television spots for its advertising clients. Together, the companies will create what they called the first automated system for buying, selling, distributing and...

In e-commerce, understanding the customer can make the difference between a company's online success or failure. As processes for collecting and storing data become more sophisticated and efficient, companies are able to keep databases of transactional and clickstream data that are larger than ever ...

Search giant Google may be joining the list of suitors for interactive marketing firm DoubleClick -- reportedly joining Microsoft, Yahoo and Time Warner's AOL in the potential buyer pool. Google is in talks with DoubleClick's majority owner, San Francisco-based private equity firm Hellman & Frie...

In an attempt to get a hands-on read of the efficiency and credibility of comparison search engines, I embarked on a buying experiment for an HP Media Vault mv2020 server -- specifically a Windows-based PC tower with two 500 GB Internal Drives, three USB ports for expansion, room for an additional 3...

Digital television broadcasts targeted for children will soon be available in Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge vehicles, starting with the 2008 Chrysler and Dodge minivans. The service, coming from Sirius Satellite Radio, will be called "Sirius Backseat TV." While the name implies it will be available only ...

The art of copying and stealing other people's content and ideas has settled comfortably into the mainstream across the globe. What formerly would have constituted an act of piracy is now a commonplace occurrence. Isn't it time to give these "borrowers" a tribute, host a gala dinner and hand out awa...

Just one look at firms such as Amazon, eBay, Wal-Mart and Target and it's readily apparent that these companies have likely spent millions creating and staffing their respective infrastructures. Businesses like Amazon and eBay at least had to learn to walk before they ran to the top of their market....

The navel gazing and gnashing of teeth over the Web 2.0 category reminds me of a chat I had with Joe Firmage back in 1996. He was on the road in Silicon Valley chatting up all the media types and analysts on the extraordinary potential for USWeb, the Web site building and intranet services company h...

Over-the-air music downloads just got less expensive, at least for Sprint customers. As part of a number of moves to boost its music download business, Sprint announced it will charge 99 cents for all songs purchased from its Sprint Music Store. The price cut, slated to begin early next month, will ...

Bidding to take a lead in the mobile search and advertising space, Yahoo on Tuesday said it would invite more publishers to take advantage of its mobile platform. The company said it was launching new services aimed at helping publishers get their content onto the phones of consumers and to leverage...

Just how is Web 2.0 affecting retailers? Well, retailers are getting absolutely hammered on price, and it's mainly because of the transparency of the Web. In response to increased competition on price, many are cutting prices even further. While there seems to be a fear among online retailers around...

The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council launched in September as a joint venture between Visa International, MasterCard Worldwide, Discover Financial Services, JCB and American Express to continuously improve the data security standard. The group couldn't have appeared at a better time....

Borders Group is severing its alignment with Amazon.com and will be unveiling its own book-selling Web site as part of a major company restructuring designed to "revitalize, refocus, and ultimately reinvent the company." Borders' arrangement with Amazon, initiated seven years ago as a seemingly good...