E-Commerce

B2B online marketplaces, or exchanges, can help companies reach new levels of accuracy, efficiency and profitability. However, although conducting B2B transactions online has become standard operating procedure, the way these exchanges are designed and run is anything but standardized. Companies can...

In part 1 of this article, "The High-Stakes World of Online Gambling," the E-Commerce Times looked at the state of the Internet betting industry and its remarkable popularity. Roughly half of the industry's revenues come from U.S. residents. Even with the potential for anti-gambling laws on the hori...

Just as Las Vegas pioneer Bugsy Siegel imagined a city of dice games and slot machines in the middle of the desert, entrepreneurs looked at the Web a few years ago and saw an audience hungry for online gaming. They were right to suspect there was gold in all those clicks. A December 2002 report by t...

The matchup many fans and advertisers had hoped to see in baseball's World Series failed to materialize this year as both the Chicago Cubs and the Boston Red Sox fell apart just short of advancing to the Fall Classic. Nevertheless, fans' feverish interest in the playoffs may have helped propel the o...

Declaring itself the early leader in the race to win market share in the digital music arena, Apple has announced it sold more than 1 million songs in less than four days after launching a Windows version of its iTunes music download site. Apple CEO Steve Jobs said his company's goal is to sell 100 ...

For large and small e-tailers alike, the traditional method of doing business online has been fairly standard. They present a bevy of products, build a secure purchase interface and advertise so that customers will come clicking to their virtual doorstep. In the past couple of years, however, some e...

Napster, the onetime file-swapping nexus that sparked fear in the hearts -- and bottom lines -- of record labels, has officially been tamed and will relaunch as a legitimate online music service, parent company Roxio has announced. Napster 2.0 will be available to U.S. residents on October 29th. Use...

Seeking an advantage in its brutal battle with Dell for dominance in the consumer computing market, Hewlett-Packard has announced it will launch a $300 million worldwide ad campaign aimed at the average technology user. The push is designed to support HP's August release of nearly 150 different cons...

Hoping to light a fire under sales of home PCs, Microsoft has unveiled the newest version of its Windows XP Media Center, which is designed to make it easier to download media and burn CDs and DVDs. The company also has debuted several content partnerships designed to emphasize the range of entertai...

In Part 1 of this story, The Mac Observer publisher Bryan Chaffin told the E-Commerce Times that the market standing of Apple's iPod will play a critical role in determining iTunes' success. However, the iPod faces increasing competition. Dell recently announced a new hard drive-based music player, ...

Before the year is out, Apple plans to launch a Windows version of its well-received iTunes Music Store. However, iTunes' success thus far -- Apple has sold 10 million songs through the Mac-only version -- has galvanized other sellers of digital music, which are launching Windows-based services at a...

At first glance, the consumer PC market can seem quite polarized. At one end of the spectrum are big players like Dell and HP, and at the other are small companies that assemble standard components into generic "white boxes." However, it is the middle ground that may be most worth watching. The com...

Perhaps no industry was as blindsided by the power of the Internet as the music business. The sudden rise of Napster pitted content owners against customers, and now, with the RIAA suing individual file swappers in an effort to stop rampant music piracy, a crisis is in full swing. Enter DRM, or digi...

Saying it wants to simplify consumer electronics and expand their use, Hewlett-Packard has embarked on an ambitious product rollout, introducing some 100 offerings in the at-home video, digital photography and entertainment spheres. In addition to those products, many of which are focused on HP's tr...

The ability to change prices in the blink of an eye, instantly responding to market fluctuations, seems as if it would be an attractive tactic to online retailers. However, so-called dynamic pricing has not caught on yet in the e-commerce world. As Forrester analyst Noha Tohamy told the E-Commerce T...