E-Commerce

As e-commerce continues to thrive, online retailers keep raising the bar higher for each other. Meanwhile, consumers these days don't just want lightning-fast online checkouts -- they expect flawless and customized shopping experiences too. At last week's eTail Palm Desert, Cliff Conneighton, senior...

Coming in on the heels of eTail 2007, it is clear that personalization is a hot topic in e-commerce. According to recent research, 87 percent of retailers want to jump on the bandwagon. And why not -- it was the No. 1 listed strategic action, with 41 percent of retailers surveyed stating that person...

Sony plans to offer a video download service for its PlayStation 3 gaming console, Phil Harrison, president of Sony's worldwide studios division, said in a recently published interview. The media company's long-range vision for the PS3 includes the download, storage and playback of high-definition m...

Sirius and XM -- the two providers of satellite radio service in the United States -- on Monday announced a plan to combine operations in a $4.6 billion merger, but by Tuesday the deal looked to face significant regulatory hurdles. The two companies agreed to a "merger of equals," which would create...

Warner Music Group acknowledged Tuesday it is still interested in purchasing EMI Group, its slumping rival in the troubled music industry, but such a deal is unlikely to solve the long-term problems facing both companies. New York-based Warner Music confirmed it approached EMI on Jan. 24 to discuss ...

If you're responsible for performance-driven online marketing -- particularly for Web-based sales or lead generation -- then your mission is to optimize a funnel. The online marketing funnel is an upside-down pyramid, sort of like a great, big waffle cone. At the top, you start with everyone who is ...

Online shopping has hit the US$211 billion mark, according to Forrester Research. It is no wonder, then, that a plethora of shopping comparison sites have sprung up, all purporting to help people find their way to -- and through -- the hundred of thousands of Web-based stores. Many of these comparis...

The United States is considering taking legal action against China for continued violations of intellectual property rights, as well as the use of subsidies in a broad array of manufactured goods. The U.S. may pursue its case to the World Trade Organization -- an action it has previously threatened ...

As massive snowstorms battered much of the Midwest and Northeast this week, it was 70 degrees and sunny in Palm Desert, Calif., during eTail 2007 Palm Desert, the 16th annual multichannel retail conference. Nevertheless, weather was merely an added bonus for the hundreds of attendees -- top executiv...

Recent high-profile data breach incidents have placed in the spotlight for many IT departments and corporate executives the importance of innovative solutions for effective identity and access management solutions. Imprivata, which specializes in identification and access management appliance soluti...

It was a David versus Goliath case that made international headlines. Russian authorities, determined to fight pirated software, came down hard on a school found to have 12 computers with phony versions of Windows and Microsoft Office. A court on Thursday dismissed the charges, calling the case "tri...

In a move that underscores the shift in classified advertising revenue from print to the Internet, the New York Times Co. on Wednesday announced a strategic alliance with Monster Worldwide to create cobranded job sites. The deal calls for the two companies to create Web sites for 19 newspapers owned...

Last year, the average click fraud rate of pay-per-click advertisements appearing on search engine content networks rose to 19.2 percent for the last quarter of 2006, the highest yet, according to Tom Cuthbert, CEO of Click Forensics. Click fraud occurs when online advertisers pay search engine comp...

Time Warner was finally able to complete the spin-off of its cable division Tuesday, a move that investors have long banked on as a way for the media giant to focus on growing its TV, print, movie and online businesses. Time Warner Cable became a standalone public company after a judge put a Chapter...

Google suffered a legal setback Tuesday as a Belgian court ruled that the search giant violated copyright law by publishing portions of a newspaper's stories on Google News without prior authorization. A higher court upheld an earlier ruling requiring Google to remove snippets of copyrighted news st...