Articles by Mary Hillebrand

The name that has become synonymous with direct mail music sales is now about to swallow up one of the Internet's retail music pioneers. CDNow Inc. (Nasdaq: CDNW) plans to merge with Columbia House, the music and video club owned by Sony Corp. of America (NYSE: SNE) and Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX). Sony and Time Warner will each own 37 percent of the new company, with the rest owned by CDNow's shareholders...

With the rise of a new way to capture consumer eyeballs on the Internet, by paying them to surf the Web, one entrepreneur has found a new way to put the surfing programs to work for him Get Paid to Be Online is a new site that provides basic descriptions of a variety of money making surf programs, including "pay by the hour" services, "pay by the e...

The Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) announced Monday a plan to merge its Buena Vista Internet Group with GO.com partner Infoseek Corp. (Nasdaq: SEEK) and take GO.com public. If approved by Infoseek and Disney stockholders, the agreement will yield Infoseek holders 1.15 shares of GO.com for each of their Infoseek shares. Disney hopes the new stock will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol GO...

Predictions for the growth of electronic commerce throughout the world vary, but almost all are extremely bullish, as more and more consumers gain access to computers and the Internet Nonetheless, the last leg of completing an online sale -- getting the product to the buyer -- remains a logistical hurdle for many companies selling to international ...

Where will the online shoppers be in the next several years? Three separate Internet studies this week offer a glimpse Overall findings suggest buyers in the United States are, and will continue to be, predominantly white middle-class consumers. College campuses, many of which are melting pots of people from varied backgrounds, may provide a lucrat...

College, private high school and distance learning students may soon find some relief from the textbook price gouge they endure each semester if a new program from VarsityBooks.com takes off. The online textbook seller has launched a new partnership program, aimed at fulfilling book sales for schools across the country For participating schools, th...

Advertisers and investors should be tuning into Internet audio if they want to get in on the next big online boom, a new study out this month says. According to market research firm Frost & Sullivan, the Internet audio market will grow to more than $100 million (US$) in revenues this year Frost & Sullivan's World Internet Audio Market study, releas...

Barnes & Noble's Web arm -- barnesandnoble.com (Nasdaq: BNBN) -- Wednesday became the latest online bookstore to add downloadable audio to its offerings The barnesandnoble.com Music Store is hoping to cast the widest net of all the online audio services, emphasizing its sizable classical music collection and variety of different jazz styles.

One of the world's top newswire services is exploring the Internet's potential for increasing its reach -- and revenues. Reuters (Nasdaq: RTRSY), the London-based television and print news agency, assigned Executive Director David Ure to help the company's Trading Systems Division exploit the Internet's potential. Ure gets a seat on the company's board of directors in exchange for his new focus on tapping electronic commerce to generate new business for Reuters...

If U.S. Secretary of Commerce William Daley's new Internet campaign goes as planned, trees across America will be rejoicing in three years At this week's E-Gov '99 Internet Conference, Daley pledged to make the Department of Commerce paper-free by 2002.

In an effort to add yet another reason for online consumers to start their Web surfing at the popular portal, Lycos, Inc. (Nasdaq: LCOS) is putting its money behind what it believes is the bank of the future The Internet's fastest growing Web portal announced a deal Thursday with WingspanBank.com, an Internet-only bank that claims to provide faster...

Online phone book GTE SuperPages.com is putting together an online directory of e-commerce sites, aimed at providing shoppers with a single place to find out where on the net their coveted goods reside Web searching "spiders" are using a new classification technology from GTE Labs to put the list together. The database forms the foundation for a ne...

Hailed by capitalists as one of the few federal government agencies that operates like a private sector company, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) is taking steps to keep up that image via the Internet The PTO recently deployed a new system to accept online orders for reference information on its Web site, using an order entry management s...

At least one company appears to have been listening when Microsoft (NYSE: MSFT) laid out a plan last week to force online advertisers to improve their privacy measures The Walt Disney Co.'s (NYSE: DIS) Buena Vista Internet Group says it will stop buying ads on Internet sites that do not post their privacy policies. The company's GO Network Web port...

With a new service from DealTime.com, consumers looking for a good deal on a specific product no longer have to scour the Web themselves -- DealTime.com will do it for them. The Internet search service finds online offers for products based on the customer's preferences for that product, such as manufacturer, price range and other specifications Ho...

The General Services Administration has picked a favorite bookseller on the Web. The GSA, which handles major purchases for a variety of federal government agencies, signed a contract with barnesandnoble.com (Nasdaq: BNBN) to give its employees access to books through the bookseller's Business Solutions program The five year contract allows federal...

Perhaps responding to plans by two other major drugstore chains to expand their Internet presences, Walgreen Co. (NYSE: WAG) announced Monday it will launch an online pharmacy in September Walgreens will challenge CVS, Rite Aid and vitamin store General Nutrition Company for online prescription sales. CVS recently bought online drugstore Soma.com f...

CyberCash, Inc. (Nasdaq: CYCH) and NetGravity, Inc. (Nasdaq: NETG) have created a new online advertising process that aims to enable online sales to be completed within an ad banner, eliminating the need for the Web surfer to connect to the advertiser's Web site to close a deal NetGravity has adapted its AdServer online interactive advertising serv...

Electronic commerce and communications are taking center stage in Washington, DC as the weeklong E-Gov conference and exposition kicks off Running June 28 through July 1, the conference provides the best opportunity for information technology companies to catch the attention of the many government agency decision-makers trying to shift the governme...

With online commerce now a hit for nearly every conceivable product category, from baseballs to diamonds, health insurance to Hot Wheels cars, Adshop Online is taking the next step: selling an entire Web site via the Internet Adshop, a New York Internet advertising agency, plans to sell its Econotrade brokerage Web site in a private e-mail auction ...