Articles by Elizabeth Blakey

This year's Internet cause celebre, the Pets.com Sock Puppet, goes one better than last year's major ploy, viral marketing For those of you who haven't heard, viral marketing motivates every customer to refer friends and associates, turning customers into salespeople. The Sock Puppet is an advertising spokesperson who turned into a product. Call th...

While the rest of the world works on expanding the number of top level domains (TLDs) available, adding dot-travel and dot-sex to dot-com and dot-org, a couple of big-name companies are demanding absolute control of the Web in their own way Most recently, Ford Motor Company sued online automotive marketplace Model E Corporation and principal invest...

JCPenney is the largest national "three-tailer," utilizing traditional brick-and-mortar stores, catalog operations and the Internet to drive sales of its products. Nielsen//Net Ratings ranked JCPenney.com as the top apparel and home site, and a top ten site overall, in May and June 2000 With an average of over 40,000 customer orders per week, JCPen...

Back when the Internet was still known as the "Information Superhighway," many pundits predicted that "interactivity" would soon change the way everyday people live Although nobody believed that what was going to happen between a computer and a person in cyberspace would be more interactive than what happens between human beings, the Information Su...

Following an uproar over Toysmart's intention to break the privacy promise it made to its customers, the defunct e-tailer has done an about-face, deciding not to sell its database of customer information, after all Before Toysmart's collapse, the company had adhered to a strongly worded privacy policy, promising its customers that it would never se...

In a brief filed Wednesday with the U.S. Supreme Court, Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) urged that its appeal of the antitrust judgment against it be sent back to a lower court. The Redmond, Washington-based software giant prefers that the case be reviewed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia In its "Jurisdictional Statement," M...

Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) president and chief operating officer Joseph Galli, Jr., appointed just 13 months ago, has resigned Galli, whom Amazon said is leaving for "personal reasons," will become president and chief executive officer of business-to-business (B2B) trading network VerticalNet (Nasdaq: VERT).

Although Toysmart.com is now free to sell its online customer database in a bankruptcy asset sale, just who will be willing to step into the harsh limelight surrounding Toysmart's demise and pick up its customer list remains to be seen The sale is subject to numerous restrictions outlined in a settlement agreement reached late Friday between the fa...

Garden.com was launched in September 1995 by Cliff and Lisa Sharples, Jamie O'Neill and Andy Martin with an eye toward creating a virtual store offering a "garden of products, plants, gifts, and services that could grow and bloom on the Internet." The company had its initial public offering in September 1999 In April 2000, Garden.com (Nasdaq: GDEN)...

Portals are increasingly leading their massive audiences to the e-commerce watering hole, according to June ratings just released by Nielsen//NetRatings The ratings firm said that the large number of Web visitors to portal-affiliated shopping sites indicates that portals have evolved from large directories that helped people find places to go on th...

Because notorious cybercriminal Kevin Mitnick is barred under the terms of his plea agreement from touching a computer -- much less a computer connected to the Internet -- he is going to need some help submitting the online column he has been hired to write for Contentville.com But what's an extra personal assistant or two for a Web writer? Mitnick...

While still facing language and cultural challenges in the international e-commerce arena, Asian e-commerce is set to boom at home, and U.S. companies smelling opportunity are already diving into the region with big-dollar investments According to research firm Forrester, the surge in Asia-Pacific e-commerce will result in $1.6 trillion (US$) of re...

As online shopping rapidly gains acceptance in U.S. society, the auction houses of cyberspace have begun to sell some of the most cherished items of American culture to the highest bidder Talk about the ultimate in Americana. The most valuable baseball card in the world is for sale at Web auction house eBay. The T206 Honus Wagner card, dating from ...

Catalog-and-click retailer Lands' End has introduced a virtual spin to this year's bathing suit shopping season by making its interactive"Personal Model" available to online shoppers who want to see what different swimsuits would look like on their body type. The feature allows anonymous or registered shoppers to choose from a variety of face shapes, hair colors, skin tones and physical proportions to create custom models that "try on" Lands' End swimwear. The models can be turned around to show several different views...

Most e-commerce companies, including pure plays and brick-and-clicks, have come to understand that content is King and that product selection is critical. If a site is poorly designed, however, compelling content and a variety of products do not count for much The dominant players know that ease of use is a core value for e-commerce sites -- Amazon...

The first celebrity-driven film produced exclusively for online distribution made its premiere last week, and the producer says there are no plans to exhibit the film in theatres. "Quantum Project,'' starring British comic actor John Cleese, is available for download from SightSound.com for $3.95 (US$) The 32-minute film blends computer animation a...

eToys, Inc. (Nasdaq: ETYS) was a nearly ubiquitous presence in the news this week, as the online toy seller launched a splashy, summer-themed marketing campaign in advance of a mixed quarterly report The e-tailer announced Thursday that net sales for its fiscal year ended March 31st reached $151 million (US$) -- up five-fold from $30 million one ye...