Uncategorized

In its youth, as it struggled for acceptance, e-commerce could count on the spirited support of a handful of influential stock analysts. One by one, however, those cheerleaders have put away their pom-poms. "Analysts got too powerful, and they've been forced to back off considerably since things ...

The folks behind the Webby Awards have teamed with Web tracking firm Nielsen//NetRatings to create what they see as the Internet version of sweeps. NetRatings will track traffic during May, and the most-visited sites will win Webby awards. This almost seems like a good idea at first glance, but a...

In spite of a post-September 11th drop in online travel bookings, Jupiter Media Metrix expects online air, car, hotel and cruise sales will reach $64 billion in the next five years, up from $24 billion in 2001. In fact, the lagging economy is driving travel buyers to the Web in ever-increasing nu...

Economic realities forced e-commerce and the Internet to turn away from voracious growth and focus on long-term viability in 2001, creating a slew of new challenges, according to a report released by Nielsen//NetRatings. "Shoppers came with different expectations," T.S. Kelly, director and princi...

The Web is haunted by the ghosts of failed dot-coms, but at least the ones that have survived now have a good understanding of what not to do. One "deadly sin" of bygone days was e-tailers' single-minded focus on low prices. "The problem with being a low-cost provider is that you're constantly in...

News flash: E-commerce grew fast ... in the year 2000. This pithy bit of earth-shattering news came courtesy of the U.S. government. To be more precise, it came from the Bureau of the Census. Rumor has it that the bureau is also planning an in-depth look at Y2K and is putting the finishing touche...

Auction giant eBay has struck a partnership that will let it cozy up to the catalog industry, which in general has excelled at combining its traditional sales channel with the Web. "[Catalog firms] have the infrastructure in place already, the customer sales reps, the warehouses," Harris Interact...

Despite numerous legislative, consumer and technological efforts to weed it out, experts say spam e-mail continues to proliferate, sparking increasing user irritation in the process. "There is now 16 times as much spam on the Internet as there was just two years ago," Gartner vice president Joyce...

According to auction giant eBay, government regulators have closed an investigation into whether the company engaged in anticompetitive practices in its battle with now-shuttered Bidder's Edge. "All the antitrust stuff, including the Bidder's Edge investigation, seems to have been much more of an...

It has been a tough year for the technology sector, but research firm Forrester said it expects the tech sector, propelled by a robust U.S. economic recovery, to turn around faster than previous projections indicated. "E-commerce growth will continue to expand independent of the tech recovery, bu...

Even as online shoppers multiply and increasingly mirror mainstream consumer profiles, sizable pockets of e-commerce abstainers remain. These neophytes, hampered by security or fulfillment concerns or inadequate Internet connections, still rely on the Web only for product research. To reach this u...

Canada experienced a spike in e-commerce activity in 2001 and progressed measurably in other e-business disciplines as well, according to a new report, which showed Canada leading North America in Internet connectivity. But Canadian consumers continue to purchase online much less readily than do Am...

Looking to accomplish on its own what it once hoped to do by acquiring HotJobs, Monster.com has launched its first local job site aimed at hourly workers. The non-exempt marketplace "makes up more than 70 percent of the U.S. labor market and has a turnover rate four times higher than that of the ...

Small-business entrepreneurs looking to make a splash on the Web need not drown in massive site construction costs. According to experts, if site builders are willing to start out with a no-frills approach, they can keep costs below US$1,000. "Your best bet is to pick those sites and products tha...

What do Girl Scout cookies, snow blower parts and a US$2 million waterfront home have in common? Recently, all have been the focus of flailing attempts at e-mail-based e-commerce. I was directly involved in one of these e-commerce experiments and, alas, it wasn't the $2 million house. The lesson ...