Articles by Keith Regan

Providing more evidence that the IPO market for Internet offerings is slowly reviving, debuting DVD rental site Netflix sold 5.5 million shares of its common stock at the top of its price range. The shares were slated to hit the market at US$15 each Thursday after final pricing late Wednesday at the top of the company's $13 to $15 range. Netflix s...

In the future, we all will spend our days at our computer terminals, playing video games over the Internet against people we've never met At least, that seems to be the vision dancing like a sugarplum in the heads of those who have targeted online gaming as the undeniable, certifiable next big thing on the Web....

Apologizing for "inappropriate communications" but not admitting wrongdoing, Merrill Lynch has reached a US$100 million settlement with New York and other states. The deal ends the first phase of a potentially lengthy investigation of Wall Street analysts' behavior during the tech stock boom of the 1990s. Merrill Lynch will pay $48 million to the ...

Every now and then, just for kicks, I type the Kozmo.com URL into my browser. I'm not sure what I expect will happen, but the result is always the same: nothing Maybe it's just wishful thinking, but given the comebacks of late -- Furniture.com and MotherNature.com, for example -- isn't it about time for the return of some truly interesting dot-coms...

Less than a year after its controversial debut, travel site Orbitz has announced plans to raise as much as US$125 million through an initial public offering. Orbitz informed the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of its intention to go public in a filing Monday. Underwriters include Goldman Sachs, Legg Mason Wood Walker and Thomas Weise...

The driving force behind Sears' US$1.98 billion purchase of Lands' End was the clothing brand itself. But Lands' End's reputation for merging catalog and online sales and providing high-quality customer service played a role as well. Now, with the merger moving quickly toward a mid-June closing, it is not yet clear how Lands' End's online strategy...

The best way to learn is by doing. Along the way, e-commerce has found that some ideas that seemed promising at first are best left in the dustbin of technology history. A host of solutions to various problems have been tried, and in many cases discarded just as quickly "Good companies are flexible enough to try something and [then] pull back if it...

The strange saga of music swapping site Napster took another twist as media giant Bertelsmann announced it has reached an agreement to purchase the site and said most of the key executives who resigned last week will return. The deal calls for Bertelsmann to pay up to US$8 million to the venture capitalists who backed Napster when it first emerged...

In an effort to reach the 85 percent of consumers who do not yet buy travel online, Orbitz has announced it will make its airfares available to travel agents. The company will work with Aqua Software Products, a unit of Navigant International, to provide travel agents with direct desktop access to its fares and its online search engine, starting i...

Two more companies have accused online payment firm PayPal of using their technology without permission, and the company's relationship with MasterCard may be in jeopardy, PayPal disclosed in its quarterly report. Loss of MasterCard compatibility would be a significant blow because 15 percent of all money transferred via the PayPal network during ...

It's that time of year again: Radio stations around the country are giving away prizes to lure listeners. The shopping spree is always a big favorite. The idea of spending US$10,000 of someone else's money is quite appealing But why stop there? Bill Gates and Microsoft reportedly have as much as $40 billion in cash. That has not escaped the notice ...

Languishing Napster's high-profile CEO and its cult-hero founder both have quit abruptly, leaving the once-soaring music-swapping site facing an uncertain future. Founder Shawn Fanning, who invented the Napster file-swapping system while a college student in Boston, announced his departure just hours after the exit of Konrad Hilbers, a music heavy...

The days of huge consumer catalogs are numbered; a few years ago, Sears ceased publication of its famous catalog, and many other firms have followed suit. Fortunately, companies that traditionally sold their wares in this way faced a relatively easy transition to the Web. After all, the move basically involves converting a print catalog to electro...

Yahoo! is learning an important life lesson, courtesy of the French courts: Make a mistake, and it will always come back to haunt you The only unusual thing is that Yahoo's mistake -- allowing Nazi memorabilia to be sold on its auction site in France -- is doing its haunting in ultra-slow motion. It's like a bad French film, and Yahoo! must be wond...

Auction giant eBay has renegotiated a long-term advertising deal with AOL, which now must meet performance targets to keep the partnership active. EBay also warned its members that it will begin testing an in-house pop-up ad campaign in coming weeks.

When Amazon.com executives said earlier this year that they planned to build their business by lowering prices whenever possible, the statement raised more than a few eyebrows. While the e-tail giant has claimed its efficient operations make it possible for it to be profitable while always selling for less, what surprised observers most was that A...

Seeking to repair an embarrassing discrepancy between the pay of its top executive and the company's staggering financial losses, E*Trade said Friday that it has rewritten the contract of CEO Christos M. Cotsakos. Under the terms of the new contract, Cotsakos will repay about US$21 million worth of compensation he received during 2001, including $...

Jupiter Media Metrix and Nielsen//NetRatings have settled a long-pending patent lawsuit in a deal that calls for NetRatings to provide struggling Jupiter with a much-needed capital infusion. According to the settlement's terms, NetRatings will pay Jupiter US$15 million in cash to acquire two of Jupiter's technology patents for Internet audience me...

Flowers and popcorn. This is what it's come down to for e-commerce. The cheerleaders are waving their pom-poms for a company that sells flowers And now popcorn. 1-800-Flowers.com plunked down about US$12 million to buy The Popcorn Factory, which, as the name implies, sells tins of popcorn and candy and the like....

EBay has announced plans to work with consulting firm Accenture to link retailers and manufacturers that want to sell excess merchandise directly to eBay's 46 million customers around the world. The program, known as "Connection to eBay," targets what the two companies said is US$80 billion worth of excess or unwanted inventory produced each year ...