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Executives with the big five recording companies had barely raised the champagne flutes to their lips when notices from the U.S. Department of Justice got delivered. The possible charge? Antitrust violations.

There has been no typhoon of bankruptcy filings since September 11th, but there have been scattered showers of Chapter 11 here and there. The job among many tech and e-commerce companies right now is to reassure investors that they are solvent, and that the New Economy is not destined to be a sac...

By now, observers of the various e-commerce markets can see what business models work online and which do not. Online travel sites? Check. Online bookstores? Check. Online music? At first glance, no. But guess what? Check.

When money is being exchanged, chances are that somebody sometime is going to cheat. Unfortunately, that's the case whether the money is being spent for products, services or philanthropic causes. The process of exchanging money electronically is ripe for fraud.

In the midst of our national tragedy, some important due dates are likely to get lost in the shuffle. Such as October 21st, the day the current ban on new Internet taxes will expire. Those with a lot to lose or gain from how the Internet tax debate concludes are trying to make sure the deadline ...

I spent some time in New York after September 11th. The city's business community has at least temporarily shifted its focus from profit-making to recovering from the terrorist attacks. Not surprisingly, people are not spending much money. Where does e-commerce fall in this mix? In some ways, e-t...

No one in the dot-com world was pinning great hopes on venture capitalists before September 11th, and since our national tragedy, many believe such investors have all but disappeared. The truth is that like the rest of us, they have not disappeared. They're simply regrouping and trying to determ...

Two years ago, I bought a new car using the Internet in lieu of dealing with a high pressure salesperson. Once I had firmly decided on a make and model, found a dealership that would work with me electronically and almost sealed the deal, all I had to do was show up at the dealership, sign my nam...

When they write the definitive history book about the evolution of electronic commerce, 2001 may emerge as a pivotal year in the industry's growth. That may sound surprising, particularly since the year so far has seen a bunch of dot-coms dying on the vine, not to mention general skepticism among...

With the indomitable spirit that Americans typically display in times of crisis, essential online industries have hung tough. Chief among them is the online travel industry, a sector that is experiencing its greatest volume of work and level of chaos to date -- and is admirably rising to the occa...

In a normal time, in a normal place, with summer nearly ending, e-tailers would be bracing themselves for the annual nail-biting and teeth-grinding weeks that precede the holiday gift-buying season. E-tailers have annually counted on the holidays to be their most profitable season. That the word...

Just as every American will forever remember where he or she was on September 11, 2001, the day may also be remembered as the greatest test for technology and the Internet. Did the Internet and telecommunication play a major role in the horrific events that unfolded on Tuesday? Indeed they did, and...

A few years ago a popular song asked, "How do you keep the music playing?" Owners of music file-sharing services and recording companies are now asking the same question, with a twist. "How do we keep the music playing on the Internet?" is more like it these days. What seemed a highly progress...

If you lost 100,000 customers in the course of one fiscal year, as Internet-only banks have, what would you do? Close up shop? Revamp your product line? Perhaps you would take the plunge and pour venture capital into a major marketing push. Some businesses might study their market to determine w...

Remember when the concept of a "paperless society" was all the rage? Offices would eliminate file cabinets, newspapers wouldn't need newsprint and the stationery business would become obsolete. Oh, and books? Books would become the greatest dinosaurs of all. Books wouldn't be necessary. Enter e-...

The ever-expanding dot-com graveyard added a new name to its roster over the weekend. Flooz.com, the company that dealt in Internet-based currency and electronic gift certificates, quietly closed its virtual doors. Among its other difficulties, Flooz was, according to early reports, a victim of ...

Aside from its obvious commercial potential, the greatest promise of e-commerce has always been its potential to be an all-inclusive forum. All of the interpersonal exchanges that seem to slight certain ethnic or minority groups offline were supposed to be less of a problem when doing business el...

The latest best friends in the world of multichannel sales are Amazon.com and Circuit City. The news that the e-tail leader and the electronics giant are joining forces should come as no surprise to observers of the dot-com landscape. Powerful alliances are what it's all about, especially now th...

Throughout these pioneer days of e-commerce, the greatest challenge facing the industry has been creating and sustaining consumer need. Do consumers need to buy houses, cars and groceries on the Internet? If not now, will they need to do so in the future? Possibly. However, we have learned that n...

Demand for instant gratification and results seems to be casting a spell over e-commerce. Technically, we refer to it as a "broadband" dilemma, but it's all about short attention spans and uneven fast access across the country. As to who will win this race -- cable companies or telecom companies ...