Articles by Keith Regan

Music file-swapping network Napster inched closer to being reborn as alegitimate, paid service Monday when it announced a preliminary settlementof a class-action lawsuit filed by songwriters and music publishers Napster said it agreed to pay US$26 million to the National MusicPublishers' Association (NMPA) and other groups, and an additional $10mil...

Pure-play e-tailer Drugstore.com (Nasdaq: DSCM) said Friday that the September 11th terrorist attacks on the U.S. should not hurt its third quarter financial results. Bellevue, Washington-based Drugstore.com also said it remains confident that it can achieve profitability before running out of cash. Drugstore.com has forecast it would be in the bl...

Timing is everything in life. And for Amazon.com, the timing lately couldn't be much worse First, Amazon launched a personal computer shop on its retail site, despite severely slumping computer sales and a weakening economy....

No one can say Buy.com doesn't have a sense of humor. The e-tailer, which was recently saved from financial ruin by its founder, briefly published a sign across its site that read: "Not Going Out of Business Sale." But will a tongue-in-cheek acknowledgement of Buy.com's woes be enough to keep its customers from getting weak in the knees about deal...

eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) said Monday it has set up a charity auction to benefit the families of victims of last week's terrorist attacks on the United States and challenged its massive community to raise US$100 million in 100 days. eBay said it will waive all fees for listings and sales made through the Auction for America. That move will allow all mon...

Automobile manufacturers are poised to wrestle control of the online car buying marketplace from third-party auto sales sites such as Carpoint.com and Autotrader, according to a report released Monday by Jupiter Media Metrix (Nasdaq: JMXI). Although the third-party sites currently draw far more Web visitors than the sites of carmakers themselves, ...

Sellers hoping to cash in on the terrorist attacks against the U.S. on Tuesday have opened auctions hawking things related to the tragedies, despite bans on such auctions instituted by the two largest online auction sites Both eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) and Yahoo! Auctions (Nasdaq: YHOO) posted policies shortly after the attacks banning items from the Wor...

In the wake of Tuesday's terrorist attacks, much of America has come to a stop. From darkened baseball stadiums where pennant races were being played to the world of e-commerce, much of what made up normal daily activity has been put on hold. And experts say it might be a while before things begin to look normal again.

The gaping hole in the New York City skyline is proofthat America is forever changed. And that scar is a symbol of what all Americans are feeling. It will be impossible to get back to where we were before September 11, 2001. To try would be foolish Suddenly, important things that seemed tomatter so much at one point are no longer important. We have...

Internet auction leader eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) said late Tuesday it had temporarily haltedtrading in all items related to the World Trade Center or the Pentagon, the scenes of devastating terrorist attacks earlier in the day. The ban on items relating to the attacked locations is an extra measure that San Jose, California-based eBay said it was takin...

Detailed information and recommendations about products are the most important reasons that customers return to e-tail sites, according to a report released Monday by Jupiter Media Metrix (Nasdaq: JMXI). In its report, "Back to Basics: Enhancing User Experience at Low Cost," Jupiter said that 59 percent of those surveyed cited increased product in...

Want to see the future of online advertising? Among other things, it looks just like something you would find on your TV set....

For you and me, it's death and taxes, as the old saying goes. Certain things are inevitable And in the world of e-commerce, several issues are sure to return, each and every year. These are perennial Internet issues, the ones that you can count on being wrestled with, pondered over, but never quite put to rest....

Internet auction powerhouse eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) said Thursday it might seek to sell up to US$1 billion worth of stock in coming months. In a shelf-filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, eBay said it would use proceeds from the share sale for general corporate purposes, including capital expenditures. eBay also said some of the ca...

Following the lead of five other movie studios, Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) and News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) said Wednesday they intend to launch a video-on-demand Internet-based service early next year. Movies.com will be a joint venture between Disney and Australia-based News Corp., the companies said, and will offer films from Walt Disney Studios, Tw...

Looking to meet the much-anticipated consumer demand for electronic books, leading portal Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) joined with four publishing houses Wednesday to launch an e-book site on its shopping network. Yahoo! said the deals with Simon & Schuster, Penguin Putnam, Random House and HarperCollins give it one of the largest collections of e-books ...

Like spoiled children who get every toy they could possibly want for years, only to have Santa Claus skip their house one Christmas, e-commerce is in for a rude awakening. Don't get me wrong, e-commerce sales might well post strong growth for the rest of 2001. But one thing seems certain: The days of rocket-ship, triple-digit growth are a thing of...

By all accounts, use of the Internet continues to grow steadily, undaunted by an economic slowdown and the 18-month-old dot-com shakeout. In fact, 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...

Fry's Electronics said Friday it has agreed to buy electronics e-tailerOutpost.com (Nasdaq: COOL) in a deal that includes an immediate US$13million loan. The all-cash deal values Outpost shares at 25 cents each, for a total of about $8 million. Including the cash loan, the deal is worth about $21 million....

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 As Buy.com noted in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), more than 90 percent...