Articles by Keith Regan

The good news for Priceline (Nasdaq: PCLN) is that it found the Holy Grail of dot-coms in the most recent quarter. It posted an operating profit. But Priceline hasn't reached e-commerce Nirvana just yet. I don't mean to be a wet blanket. The Priceline story is impressive indeed, the stuff of Hollywood films. Few people thought the company could ev...

Business-to-business (B2B) incubator Internet Capital Group (Nasdaq: ICGE) said Wednesday that its second quarter 2001 losses rose 90 percent compared to a year earlier, reaching more than US$354 million. Nevertheless, Wayne, Pennsylvania-based ICG said it has been building its cash reserves as well. ICG said it ended June with about $212 million ...

Looking to grab customers abandoned last month by defunct competitor HomeRuns.com, online grocer Peapod (Nasdaq: PPOD) officially announced Wednesday that it would expand its service to new areas in and around Washington, D.C. Peapod spokeswoman Paula Wheeler told the E-Commerce Times that while the two companies only overlapped in a few areas, Pe...

Memorandum to executives at Barnes and Noble: If you want to stay in the online bookselling business, it is time to play another game. That game is follow the leader, and if you want, the position of leader is still available to you....

Blaming a sagging market for online advertising, Theglobe.com, which staged one of the first blockbuster initial public offerings of the Internet era, said Friday it would shutter its main site, lay off half its workers and seek a buyer The New York City-based company said it would close Theglobe.com effective August 15th, as well as WebJump, which...

Computer reservations giant Sabre (NYSE: TSG), parent of travel e-tailer Travelocity.com (Nasdaq: TVLY), said Thursday it would raise up to US$400 million worth of working capital, a possible sign the company is looking to fortify itself as the online travel war becomes more intense. Fort Worth, Texas-based Sabre said it will raise the cash by sel...

From coast to coast, burned tech investors are being soothed. Like aloe on a sunburn, the notion that it wasn't their fault is just the balm they'vebeen searching for since their nest eggs went splat Finally, they can chat openly about their Internet stocks at cocktail parties without being embarrassed. They can admit, that yes, I too bought stock ...

One of the 2,000 employees who lost their jobs when Webvan (Nasdaq: WBVN) shut down last month has found new work, as TRW (NYSE: TRW), a US$17 billion-a-year auto parts and technology concern, named the online grocer's chief executive officer, Robert Swan, its new chief financial officer. Swan had been CEO at Webvan for about four months, taking o...

Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) said Tuesday it has reached a multiyear agreement with Sony (NYSE: SNE) that encompasses online movie marketing, e-commerce and Web site development, and leaves the door open for additional deals between the two companies. "This agreement represents a significant commitment of two industry leaders to collaborate on multiple l...

Memo to online advertisers: Keep pushing the envelope, as long as it's in the right direction Yes, you're going to make some people unhappy as you take up more of the screen with your Web ads. But even with larger advertising in place, the ads on the Internet are still a far less intrusive than television ads that hit viewers smack in the middle o...

Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) and Toysrus.com extended their year-old brick-and-click marriage Monday, launching a co-branded children's learning site, Imaginarium.com. The site, which features educational toys and games for children, along with parent and teacher recommendations, is the third online effort the two companies have taken on together. Am...

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 iWon, which lures Web surfers and shoppers to its Internet gateway with promises of potential riches, then said it would raise the stakes i...

Last week, the Internet Advertising Bureau released several studies backing up the argument that when it comes to online advertising, bigger is better. But is it that simple? Analysts say that while the evidence is mounting that larger ads get results, there are still many unanswered questions, including how long the new ads will be able to retain...

Maybe it's a bad self-image brought on by the hundreds of good companies strewn by the wayside. Or a belief that people will be ready one day to buy more online -- just not yet. Whatever the cause, something is holding e-commerce back from reaching its potential. Short of sending the industry to a Tony Robbins seminar, what can be done to unleash ...

With less than one-quarter of car owners visiting automobile-related Web sites on a regular basis, automakers hoping to target potential customers with online advertising must improve their understanding of their audiences, according to a study released Wednesday by Jupiter Media Metrix (Nasdaq: JMXI) and R.L. Polk & Co. "Advertising in traditiona...

AOL Time Warner and Amazon. In some ways, it's a perfect match, a logical cozying-up between the biggest e-tailer and the biggest owner of virtually everything media. And at first glance, it seems like a win-win deal. But for the low, low price of US$100 million, Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) may have sold itself into a corner.

In separate moves, retailers Kmart (NYSE: KM) and Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) both said Monday they would move to bring their online units under control of their parent companies. Troy, Michigan-based Kmart announced an agreement to buy the 40 percent stake in BlueLight.com that it did not already own. Wal-Mart, meanwhile, said it has bought out the vent...

More than half of all online music buyers now say they are willing to buy a label-backed subscription plan to get their digital music, but the music industry must offer more services to keep those customers long-term, according to a reportreleased Monday by Jupiter Media Metrix (Nasdaq: JMXI). Jupiter said that 59 percent of online music buyers ar...

Chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) sells its Athlon processors and others to makers and re-sellers of personal computers, and to consumers. Sunnyvale, California-based AMD considers the Internet an ideal channel for talking with partners and generating sales leads, but questions the use of online advertising as a brand-building medium. T...

Aiming to dispel doubts about the value of online advertising, the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) said Wednesday that three studies reveal that traditional banner ads boost brand awareness and drive purchases while new, larger ads are even more effective. Studies commissioned by the IAB and two of its members -- MSN (Nasdaq: MSFT) and DoubleCli...