Articles by Rick Cook

Contrary to the widely accepted notion that older Americans are separated from the Internet and e-commerce by an insurmountable "digital divide," a survey released Wednesday by Media Metrix (Nasdaq: MMXI) shows that Americans born before 1964 are the fastest-growing population on the Web This older group, which expanded its Internet presence by 20 ...

According to a study released Monday by New York-based media research and consulting firm The Myers Group LLC, U.S. advertisers will spend more on advertising online than they will on network broadcast television by 2005 The study suggests that U.S. advertisers will spend $32.5 billion (US$) to advertise their products over the Internet by 2005, co...

Five of the largest homebuilders in the United States have joined together to provide new home listings nationwide and sell home-related after-market products over the Internet Centex Corp. (NYSE: CTX), D.R. Horton, Inc. (NYSE: DHI), Kaufman & Broad Home Corp. (NYSE: KBH), Lennar Corp. (NYSE: LEN) and Pulte Corp. (NYSE: PHM) said they will form a s...

Struggling computer retailer CompUSA, Inc. is attempting to stage a comeback by scrapping efforts to build an online brand and trying to leverage its well-known retail brand name on the Web Last year, CompUSA launched Cozone.com in an effort to go head to head with Dell Computer Corp. in the small office-home office (SOHO) market. However, after th...

The Advisory Commission on Electronic Commerce (ACEC) begins its fourth and final session in Dallas, Texas today, with no sign of an agreement on how, or whether, to tax e-commerce Before the ACEC can make a formal recommendation to the U.S. Congress about taxation, a supermajority of 13 votes is required by the 19-member panel. At this time, analy...

America Online's acquisition of Time Warner -- and its newly-announced strategy to generate e-commerce revenues with Warner Music -- has scuttled plans by a small AOL subsidiary to introduce a software product designed to distribute MP3-encoded music on the Internet for free Nullsoft, a small subsidiary acquired by AOL last year, apparently tossed ...