Articles by Andy Wang & James Hollander

For e-commerce companies, raising brand awareness through offline promotion can be an extremely costly yet crucial part of their marketing strategy. On Friday, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) announced that it had scored a significant coup in that regard Microsoft will launch Expedia Radio, a one-hour, syndicated weekly radio program that is designed as a...

For first-time automobile buyers, one of the few things as frustrating as visiting a car dealership is figuring out which insurance company to use. On Thursday, online auto retailer Autobytel.com (Nasdaq: ABTL) announced a partnership that could help customers avoid that hassle Autobytel.com has teamed up with InsurQuote -- a technology provider fo...

Music and entertainment retailer Musicland (NYSE: MLG) is hoping that e-commerce will turn its fortunes around. Musicland, which operates more than 1,300 brick-and-mortar stores including Sam Goody, Suncoast, MediaPlay and OnCue, announced Wednesday that it has launched e-commerce stores for all of its brick-and-mortar brands The move comes as Musi...

Banks like electronic billing because it is cost-efficient and can be faster than traditional forms of securing payment Now, three major banks are teaming up to streamline the process. Today, U.S. banking giants Chase Manhattan (NYSE: CMB), First Union (NYSE: FTU) and Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) announced that they are forming a new company that will a...

Last month, business-to-business online marketplace BizBuyer.com announced a $1 million (US$) seed round of financing from investors including eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) CEO Meg Whitman. Today, the buyer-drive marketplace -- founded in September of 1998 and based in Santa, Monica, California -- was greatly bolstered with the announcement of a $5 million commitment from @Ventures, the venture-capital arm of leading Internet incubator CMGI (Nasdaq: CMGI)...

In a direct blow to Amazon.com's (Nasdaq: AMZN) auction strategy, leading portal site Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) unveiled a new program today that is designed to help sellers with large inventories of items manage their auctions more efficiently The new service, known as Yahoo! Auction Express, allows businesses of any size -- or even individuals -- to ...

It seemed like only a matter of time before the various companies that have Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen as an investor started signing deals. One such deal was announced on Thursday. Mercata, a new e-commerce company that helps consumers get together as a group to receive discounts on merchandise, announced that it has partnered with online network Go2Net (Nasdaq: GNET) to create a new category on Go2Net's shopping channel...

In a move that could add shareholder value, leading utility software provider Symantec (Nasdaq: SYMC) announced today that it plans to spin off its Internet Tools business unit to create a new, independent company Symantec, which manufactures such well-known products as Norton Antivirus and Visual Page, plans to leverage its position in the Java de...

Online investment bank Wit Capital (Nasdaq: WITC), which went public on Friday, suddenly has some major competition. On Monday, online investment bank E*OFFERING, which is backed by online broker E*Trade (Nasdaq: EGRP), launched its Web site Wit Capital has distinguished itself by offering individual investors access to shares of initial public off...

Direct e-commerce company XOOM.com (Nasdaq: XMCM), which will soon become part of NBC's new Internet division, added to its wide variety of services on Wednesday with the acquisition of MightyMail Networks MightyMail Networks is the developer of MightyMail, an e-mail platform that gives companies an online one-to-one marketing strategy. XOOM.com ac...

Online music, movie and software distributor Navarre (Nasdaq: NAVR) has jumped on the Linux bandwagon. On Wednesday, Navarre announced that it has entered into distribution deals with the four premier publishers of commercial versions of Linux: Caldera Systems, Red Hat Software, SuSe, Inc. and Simon & Schuster Interactive "It is Navarre's intention...

Shares of discount retailer CyberShop (Nasdaq: CYSP) are rocketing ahead in early trading today, after the company announced the launch of its online auction service, CyberShop Auctions. At about 10 a.m. ET, CyberShop stock was trading up 2-5/8 to 13-1/2, nearly 25 percent higher than Thursday's close CyberShop, which sells brand-name products at d...