Spotlight Features

Nielsen//NetRatings recently estimated that the number of online users grew 16 percent from July 2000 to July 2001, with nearly 60 percent of Americans now online. The Internet, NetRatings said, is "now reaching the latter half of mainstream America," with late adopters helping to push Web use to...

When Buy.com announced that its ability to accept credit cards -- and therefore its viability as a business -- was in doubt, the admission shed new light on some important but often overlooked partners for many e-tailers: credit card processors. With the help of its founder and soon-to-be-owner S...

The back-to-school shopping season might not be the biggest quake on the e-commerce Richter scale -- holiday gift-giving tends to rock the e-tail world more. Even so, the return to the classroom provides a welcome excuse for e-tailers to convince consumers to shake off the summer doldrums and sta...

The bad news for more than 40,000 dot-com workers came when their employers told them they were no longer needed. For some, the worse news might be the reception they get on the job market -- or the adjustment in expectations and work habits they have to make in order to find new employment. "W...

If you live in an area where online grocery service does not exist, you might need to be more patient than ever. In the new age of online delivery, Net grocery providers have become extremely cautious not only about what cities they will venture into, but even which neighborhoods within a given c...

With tax rebate checks from the U.S. government beginning to arrive in consumer mailboxes, some e-tailers are hoping the extra cash will make its way to their bottom lines. According to many industry experts, however, online businesses should not head for the bank quite yet. Due to the nominal a...

The growing use of "pro forma" financial results -- that is, when companies report income or loss figures excluding a host of supposedly "one-time" charges -- is drawing attention from critics who say companies may be publishing pro forma earnings to make quarterly earnings reports look better th...

Analysts agree that Internet and technology investment is a virtual desert these days. According to figures released by Venture Economics and the National Venture Capital Association, capital investments fell in the second quarter, cutting overall spending by 61 percent in the past year. The quest...

Securities analysts, once regarded as independent authorities on the value of publicly traded companies, are finding their status diminished amid investor lawsuits and reports of conflicts of interest, particularly regarding cases involving high-tech stocks. Merrill Lynch's recent $400,000 settle...

In mid-April, two days after Yahoo! announced plans to lay off 12 percent of its workforce in the face of a prolonged advertising slump, fellow portal iWon.com gave an Atlanta, Georgia man a US$10 million prize. While Yahoo! has given up only a tiny portion of its dominant market share to iWon so f...