Articles by Keith Regan

Small business seems to have a split personality when it comes to the Internet. Although nearly three quarters of U.S. small businesses have found it prudent to set up Web sites, most of them are strangely noncommittal. It is as though they neither want to miss the party nor have too much fun and end up hugging the porcelain A survey last week from...

By definition, couch potatoes dislike getting active, and they may be even less inclined to get interactive When the idea of accessing the Internet through a television set initially floated into public consciousness, it stirred quite a bit of excitement. But the killer Web convergence technology that allows TV viewers to actually -- well, do thing...

Goldman Sachs' Anthony Noto is highly respected as one of the most knowledgeable analysts in the dot-com world. But his recent listing of several online companies -- separating firms that are in the pink from those gasping for air -- should have everyone casting a more skeptical eye toward all "industry analyst predictions." The three-tiered list is top-heavy with Goldman Sachs underwriting clients...

Having set the Microsoft bonfire blazing, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson just cannot seem to resist piling on the logs First, he found in favor of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) by ruling that Microsoft abused its monopoly. Then he gave the government a second victory by ordering a breakup of the software giant.

It was either American humorist Mark Twain or British politician Benjamin Disraeli who said there are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies and statistics. Considering that both gentlemen lived a century ago, it is amazing how applicable those words are today to the way industry analysts measure the success of e-commerce Web sites This week, USA T...

A year or so ago, an oft-aired television commercial showed a businessman driving along a dusty, empty road and then pulling over to the shoulder where a colleague waited -- a solitary figure in a barren landscape. This very spot, the businessman was told, was where the company should build its headquarters It would cost pennies a foot and it was o...

Viewed from any angle, immigration is a divisive issue. Unfortunately, politicians on both sides of the fence now have the power to sap considerable energy from the United States' high-tech fueled economy -- making immigration policies everyone's problem The critical issue is visas -- specifically those issued under the H-1B program, which allows i...

Spurred on by the acquisition of Lycos by Terra Networks SA, Yahoo! will take an "aggressive and opportunistic" approach to moving into the European market this year, according to co-founder Jerry Yang "We all have to look outside the U.S. for growth and the next big wave," Yang told Reuters Thursday as he took part in the Fortune Global Forum. "We...

A recent report from the Pew Research Center rattled cages in the offices of TV news programs with the headline-making revelation that a third of Americans get news from the Internet every week. But the survey should serve as a wake-up call for e-commerce companies as well Although content was the information superhighway's original raison d'etre, ...

America Online is once again leading the charge, this time on Internet security. But the leadership comes not through breakthrough technology or a stringent self-policing standard -- it comes through advertising In a new wave of TV commercials that portray AOL as the easiest and fastest way for families to join the Internet revolution, the company ...

Top executives at Staples, Inc. thought they had done everything right. Recognizing the need to take decisive action on the e-commerce front, they calmly consulted experts from the Harvard Business School to devise an effective strategy Only when they felt confident did they go public with their plans to attack the dot-com world. They said they wou...

No one can accuse Webvan of lacking the killer instinct. In the past year, the company has pledged to spend $1 billion (US$) on infrastructure and has steered itself into competition with the likes of Amazon.com But whether the company's underlying strategy is sound is another matter. The real question may be whether the old adage -- that the key t...

ToyTime.com, a latecomer to the competitive online toy retailing world, has pulled the plug on operations just nine months after its heavily advertised entry into a crowded market ToyTime's Web site informs customers that it is no longer accepting orders. While an online message tells visitors to check back often, the site also provides an e-mail l...

Last year, U.S. Vice President Al Gore elicited peals of laughter when he took credit for inventing the Internet. But long after the laughter died down, Gore continued to express his strong belief in what the Internet can do for society So it was no surprise when the vice president used a campaign stop Monday to announce that -- if elected presiden...

Online grocer Webvan Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: WBVN) said Monday that it will offer consumer electronics, videos, DVDs and other entertainment products as it steps up efforts to expand its reach and boost revenues The move comes just weeks after Webvan said it will expand into the online book sales realm. The firm also rattled the grocery industry with ...

Headlines and airwaves crackled with hyperbole following the U.S. House of Representatives vote last week to extend permanent normal trade relations to China, as analysts peppered their discussions with enthusiastic speculation about how a new era of international trade could help keep the high-tech juggernaut alive Technology companies are already...

Break out the crying towels. Some of the founding fathers and mothers of the World Wide Web gathered in Cambridge, Massachusetts this week for the Harvard University Internet and Society conference and took the opportunity to lament the current state of the Internet HTML inventor Tim Berners-Lee offered a brief defense against the frequent complain...

A new report claims that the potential for successfully selling cars online has been greatly exaggerated and adds that while more car buyers will research their purchases online, the number actually buying a car without seeing it first will remain relatively small The report, "Automotive Retailing in the New Millennium," was released Wednesday by t...

Just a few weeks ago, it seemed that Microsoft had a strong chance of staving off a government-mandated breakup by taking its case up the judicial ladder of appeals -- all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, if necessary While a judicial victory remains a possibility for the software giant in its lengthy court battle with the U.S. Department of Just...

Less than two weeks after financial woes forced Boo.com to shut down its operations, the online retailer announced Tuesday that it has sold its core technology assets to Internet services company Bright Station After Boo.com charged onto the Internet a year ago and then rapidly burned through its $135 million (US$) in financing, Bright Station was ...