E-Commerce

Search leader Google blew away analyst forecasts for profits and revenue Thursday, turning in a third quarter financial performance that seemed certain to put to rest any doubts about the company's short-term growth prospects. Google's revenue came in at US$2.69 billion, up some 70 percent over the ...

The Western World realized decades ago that small and medium enterprises, or SMEs, are really the main drivers of the economy. While big businesses are still necessary to preserve and maintain structure, they face considerable challenges. The mega corporations of the last century have increasingly l...

Amid heavy speculation over possible copyright issues, major record labels are vying to profit from Google's acquisition of YouTube -- as allies. Specifically, three of the world's largest music companies -- Vivendi's Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music and Warner Music Group -- quietly negotiated...

Recognizing the mutual benefit that accrues to helping their online merchants succeed, e-commerce hosting companies, along with e-tailers themselves, are driving demand for software applications that can help them better manage and grow their businesses. This final installment in our five-part serie...

Keynote Systems on Wednesday announced new indices tracking best-in-class e-commerce sites. The new indices track the speed and reliability from the end user perspective of 24 leading online retail sites across three categories: apparel, books and music, and electronics. Conducted by Keynote Competi...

Yahoo said softness in parts of the advertising market led to a 37 percent drop in quarterly profits and prompted a lower-than-expected forecast for the fourth quarter. The Web portal did say its new paid search ad delivery platform, known as Panama, was now up and running and on track to be fully o...

The rise of digital marketing has opened up a world of opportunity to win customers that goes well beyond search engine optimization, banner ads and link exchanges. This is due in part to the evolution of the Internet, which is sparking creative ideas that leverage new online platforms for guerilla ...

Google is planning to deploy a solar electricity system that will have a capacity of 1.6 megawatts at its famed million square foot headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. It will be the largest such installation on a corporate campus in the United States and one of the largest in the world, the compa...

Yahoo Small Business, one of the most popular options for merchants to establish their first online presence, started to roll out a major upgrade Monday, revamping the way it gets merchants set up to focus more on immediate sales results. The e-commerce platform, known as Yahoo Merchant Solutions, g...

Sirius Satellite Radio said Monday it would launch a Web-only version of its subscription satellite service, a significant step for the company as it tries to generate enough revenue to earn back major investments in on-air talent. Sirius will launch Sirius Internet Radio, which it described as a CD...

Every e-mail, ad and search engine marketing placement entices a click by making a promise. Most of the time that promise is immediately broken and the brand behind it is tarnished. Marketers work very hard at enticing that first response. We treat the click as the objective and consider the battle ...

It wasn't so long ago that technological or economic reasons -- or both -- stood in the way of many people who aspired to launch a retail business online. That's changed drastically in a short span of time. Professional quality e-commerce hosting services, along with a growing range of easy-to-use ...

Michael Yang and Yeogirl Yun are hardly strangers to the realm of comparison shopping sites. The dynamic duo founded mySimon.com, which became the largest price comparison shopping site on the Internet, with over 10 million users in 2000. After raising US$30 million in investment capital, mySimon wa...

Microsites -- highly focused mini Web sites within larger ones that encourage consumers to create content -- will be growing in popularity among larger online advertisers in the coming year, according to a report from JupiterKagan. "The use of promotional microsites will grow most strongly among the...

Google's US$1.65 billion purchase of video-sharing site YouTube -- made official late Monday after several days of speculation -- could dramatically alter the playing field for competing Internet giants. The YouTube acquisition is being hailed as a bold thrust that could turn two weaknesses in the G...