E-Commerce News: Hot Topics

Comcast Considers Pinching Pipes on Broadband Plans

Thursday - May 8, 2008

In a move sure to renew debate over how broadband access should be sold, Comcast is reportedly mulling a cap on how much data a customer buying its basic high-speed Internet access package can use each month. Comcast, the No. 2 provider of high-speed Web access in the U.S., would establish a preset monthly data usage level and then charge a fee for users who exceed that level. Reports of the possible move first appeared Wednesday on the BroadbandReports.com Web site. [More...]

Azul Systems: Jazzing Up Java

Thursday - May 8, 2008

In early 2002, the founders of Azul Systems wagered that Java was going to become a prominent enterprise platform. If that happened, they suspected enterprise customers of Java would soon need relief from the pain points caused by poor scaling and disappointing deployment costs. [More...]

Gates: We Don't Need No Stinking Yahoo

Wednesday - May 7, 2008

A few days after the seeming culmination of its failed bid to acquire Yahoo for $47.5 billion, Microsoft appears to be contemplating an entirely new Web 2.0 strategy: a partner-free, organic approach to besting Google. The news was delivered by none other than Chairman Bill Gates: "Now at this point, Microsoft is focused on its independent strategy." [More...]

Goldsmith Jewelry: Tapping Into the Blogosphere Treasure Trove

Wednesday - May 7, 2008

As a small brick-and-mortar jeweler with retail stores in Central Florida, Goldsmith Jewelry may seem like an unlikely potential e-tail star. Goldsmith, however, has had early success by using blogging to drive traffic to its Web site and gain exposure for its fledging Internet store. The company is committed to continuing and refining those efforts, said Don Lair, the online arm's cofounder. [More...]

P2P and P4P: The Tangled Web We Weave

Wednesday - May 7, 2008

It was Monday morning, and Haiyong Xie was running late. His flight to Los Angeles had been delayed, and then he had to face LA's beastly morning traffic. Xie, of Yale University, was on his way to the P2P Media Summit at the Hollywood Renaissance Hotel to take part in a panel discussion about the P4P Working Group. [More...]

Truthiness Challenge, Google Bombing Earn Colbert Top Webby Accolade

Tuesday - May 6, 2008

The winners of the 12th Annual Webby Awards were announced Tuesday. Taking home top honors is comedian Stephen Colbert as the Internet's "Person of the Year." Other big name honorees include Will.i.am for "Artist of the Year" and Michael Gondry, who won "Film & Video Person of the Year." Colbert received the award for his innovative use of the Internet to interact with fans of "The Colbert Report." [More...]

CEOs: Change Will Be Permanent in Future Enterprise

Tuesday - May 6, 2008

Chief executive officers worldwide believe major change is coming to the global economy and their businesses, according to IBM's biennial study of CEOs. The executives are are also eager to find ways to keep happy consumers who are increasingly information-savvy and who expect the businesses they buy from to be more socially responsible and green. [More...]

Microsoft, Yahoo Game Going Into Extra Innings?

Tuesday - May 6, 2008

The collapse of this weekend's negotiations between Microsoft and Yahoo looked like game over. When the news first broke that Microsoft was walking away from its $44 billion bid, it seemed as though Redmond was the loser: It had tried a high-stakes, high-profile acquisition gambit and failed. [More...]

QuestKeys: A Workaround for the Long URL Tangle

Tuesday - May 6, 2008

Daniel Allen sees a problem faced by Web surfers: How to share long URLs with others and quickly locate favorite Web pages or documents without wading through lists of browser bookmarks? Allen and his wife, Mary Jane, are both self-taught programmers, among other professions. Their answer to the above problem is QuestKeys. [More...]

A Tale of Two Steves

Monday - May 5, 2008

I'm writing this from the Microsoft Management Summit at Interop with 5,000 of my closest friends in Las Vegas, and I'm still thinking about the book I brought up recently, titled Inside Steve's Brain. The result is, I think I've had an epiphany -- and no, I didn't call a doctor. [More...]

Psystar Launches First Sally in Mac Clone War

Friday - May 2, 2008

Despite myriad indications to the contrary, Psystar does appear to be an actual company offering a real -- but perhaps not entirely legal -- product. Psystar, of course, is the company that burst onto the national scene with news that it was offering a Mac clone, dubbed the "Open Computer," capable of running the Macintosh OS X Leopard operating system. [More...]

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