Spotlight Features

Word of mouth is one of the strongest marketing mediums available -- so strong that some struggling dot-coms, desperate to save advertising dollars, are begging their customers to help spread the word about their products and services. "Word of mouth is very powerful in terms of buying power," F...

In the days when everyone believed that the future of the economy lay in cyberspace, many dot-coms unwittingly built financial houses of cards by investing substantially in their online brethren. Taking equity stakes in other dot-coms was "the cool thing to do a year ago, when everyone was livin...

The last time Amazon.com linked arms with a brick-and-mortar retailer struggling for an online foothold, the results were impressive. Amazon partnered with Toysrus.com and helped force onetime category thoroughbred eToys to drop out of the race for good. So now that Amazon has agreed to work w...

A channel surf across the e-business landscape reveals mixed signals when it comes to the success of TV network-backed Web sites. "Part of it is they don't sell; that's not what they do," IDC analyst Jonathan Gaw told the E-Commerce Times. "They are content-focused because that's their strong sui...

Gone are the days when visiting dusty warehouses and digging through bins of junk were the only ways to buy bargains from the government. Now a number of government agencies have gone high tech and are using Web sites like eBay to auction off surplus property, ranging from jalopies to jewelry. A...

The venture capitalists who got blindsided when the dot-com bubble burst lost a whole lot of money -- real money, to be sure. The question is, who were VC's biggest losers -- the companies and individuals who poured dollars into e-commerce businesses, only to find no riches at the end of the rai...

When does e-mail become spam, the universally hated, unsolicited bulk commercial e-mail that clogs in-boxes and frustrates Web surfers? Is it as simple as getting permission? More importantly, do the rewards of e-mail marketing outweigh the potential risk of alienating existing customers? A n...

With the first 100 days of his presidency coming to a close at the end of this month, U.S. President George W. Bush has yet to articulate a formal e-commerce strategy. As a result, there is some disagreement among experts on how much Bush will help the industry. Forrester Research group dir...

In the age of streaming stock quotes, after-hours trading and 24-hour financial news coverage, many Wall Street analysts have become stars. From Merrill Lynch's Henry Blodget to Anthony Noto of Goldman Sachs, stock analysts have become household names and financial power brokers. But are they...

Months after the slowdown hit the U.S. economy, a consensus has failed to materialize on which came first: the dot-com shakeout chicken or the economic downturn egg? "The implosion of tech companies and the evaporation of their funding is more a symptom of the economic slowdown than a cause," B...

Just over a year ago, investors were pushing each other out of the way to place "buy" orders for soaring tech stocks. Today, the crowds are forming instead at lawyers' offices. From Amazon.com to Priceline.com, Oracle to PlanetRx.com, a host of once high-flying technology companies has been hit ...

Although the number of electronic income tax returns filed through the first week of March in the U.S. rose 36 percent compared to last year, many more consumers are spurning online tax filing methods because they do not provide enough security, ease and versatility. According to the U.S. Intern...

In the midst of a losing season on the business pages, can high-tech companies swing a ninth-inning rally on the sports pages? Opening Day for major league baseball is upon us, once more putting the spotlight on tech firms who have signed agreements -- for as long as 30 years and in excess of US$10...

When the Andersen professional services firm recently surveyed e-commerce customers, nearly half said that e-tailers who also sell from a physical location provide better customer service. More than three-quarters of respondents said they have had both online and offline contact with e-tailers. ...

The pressing question for e-tailers this year is whether consumer apprehension about the overall economy is going to cause a drop in online spending. So far, Internet spending levels have increased steadily year after year. But with consumer confidence hovering above a low, is 2001 the year th...