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With research firms projecting e-commerce revenues of more than $100 billion in 2003, businesses large and small are considering jumping into the electronic commerce marketplace The Internet is quickly becoming a crucial factor in many small companies' growth strategies. According to an e-merchant study released earlier this year by Internet market...

Bertelsman Music Group's BMG Direct, Inc. will now allow its customers to decide which songs belong together on a CD. Through an alliance with CustomDisc.com, BMG plans to offer custom-made CDs to the more than 9 million members of its Music Club The new customizing feature will start on September 30th, when BMG's mail-order customers will be able ...

New Internet venture capital firm eCompanies announced Wednesday that a soon-to-be-launched online hobby site will be the first of many investments in Internet start-ups. The financial terms were not disclosed Backed by the likes of Disney, Earthlink, Sprint and investment banker Goldman Sachs, the Santa Monica, California-based eCompanies believes...

Name-your-price retailer Priceline.com (Nasdaq: PCLN) announced today that it has teamed up with Alliance Capital Partners to offer name-your-price mortgages nationwide. Priceline.com believes that the online mortgage application will save some homebuyers up to $1,000 (US$) in closing costs The new service will be known as Pricelinemortgage. Allian...

According to the Software & Information Industry Association, more than half of the software being offered on Internet auction sites is pirated. After a six-day study by its anti-piracy division, the SIIA issued a "buyer beware" advisory Tuesday to protect online shoppers and software copyright holders from illegitimate sales The SIIA studied the t...

Online pharmacy PlanetRx.com announced today that it will acquire the e-commerce operations of Express Scripts, Inc.'s yourPharmacy.com. The deal will bring yourPharmacy's 36 million users to the site ...

When Joseph Galli stunned Wall Street by becoming Amazon.com, Inc.'s president and chief executive officer instead of taking the helm of PepsiCo, Inc., there was much speculation about what kind of package had made him change his mind Now, several months later, the deal that captured the 41 year-old Galli is a matter of public record -- thanks to A...

Two new Web sites are bringing the $275 billion (US$) commercial printing industry to the Internet, changing the way orders and supplies will be distributed online Impresse Corp. lined up Hewlett-Packard Co. to jointly market and sell its new impresse.com commercial printing services to major corporations through HP's e-services program. Impresse.c

Ancestry.com, one of the Web's leading genealogy sites, has obtained a cool $33.2 million (US$) in second round funding The Orem, Utah-based company said Tuesday that the oversubscribed second round of financing included industry heavyweights Compaq Computers and America Online, as well as French conglomerate Group Arnault. Ancestry.com has recentl...

In an effort to simplify the car-buying process, online automobile dealer Autobytel.com (Nasdaq: ABTL) has launched a new online banking center that will allow buyers to compare loan rates from up to four lenders. The center is partnered with online loan marketplace LendingTree and online credit automation company CMSI (Nasdaq: CMSS) The free finan...

E-smith, formerly known as Powerframe Internetworking, joined the recent flurry of Linux-related activity by announcing version 3.0 of a server and gateway product that turns a PC into a turnkey Internet server The e-smith server and gateway -- which is designed to provide small and medium-sized businesses with Web hosting services -- features an A...

Self-avowed music rebel MP3.com and established media conglomerate Cox Interactive Media announced Tuesday that they will form a new company to create a network of Internet music portal sites Billed as MP3radio.com, the new network will offer free downloads and feature seven popular music formats, including country, pop and urban adult contemporary...

Internet toy marketer eToys, Inc. announced today that it will soon expand internationally by launching a Web site in the United Kingdom The move marks the first time that the Santa Monica, California-based company has ventured outside of the United States. eToys said that it intends to introduce a Web site designed specifically for the U.K. in tim...

Internet privacy, the issue that just won't seem to go away, is back and heating up again. However, while the rhetoric may be flying, the consumer isn't reaping any real benefits. So far, it seems that re-definitions of "privacy" and related concepts are only giving cover to giant corporations who don't want outsiders peering at them through the knothole in the fence...

Netscape Communications, a subsidiary of America Online, Inc. (NYSE: AOL), is launching an initiative to bring a higher level of security to e-commerce patrons who use its Web browser Users of Netscape Communicator version 4.61 can now surf their way to the SmartUpdate service and obtain a significant encryption capability upgrade. The update consi...

By debuting an online collectibles auction house in China, Greg Manning Auctions, Inc. (NASDAQ: GMAI) is gearing up to become a major player in the burgeoning Asian e-commerce market GMAI-ASIA.com, a Greg Manning subsidiary, will launch the official version of its Chinese and English auction site in October and link to other new endeavors including...

Privately held media company Landmark Communications, Inc. announced today that it will pump $9 million (US$) into Burlington, Massachusetts-based Bidder's Edge, Inc. Bidder's Edge, a portal which allows its users to search many different auction sites at once, will use the money to expand its operations by hiring additional staff, developing new marketing programs and building up its capability to cover the growing number of online auctions...

BizRate.com, a Los-Angeles, California-based merchant ratings site, announced Monday that venerable consumer resource Consumer Reports will feature its ratings and research in both the print and online editions The agreement is significant for BizRate.com, which is fighting it out with a number of other merchant ratings sites for control of the up-...

Kinko's, the brick-and-mortar copy center king, announced today that it has formed an alliance with iPrint, an online provider of print shop technology. The new service will offer custom printing solutions to both businesses and individuals Kinko's is using iPrint's iKiosk technology to power the new service. Customers can now design and order prod...

Online auctioneer eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) announced this week that it has added automobiles and everything car-related to its auction lineup. Additionally, a separate section called "The Showroom" will offer collector cars through an alliance with Kruse International, a large collectible auto firm eBay is the new official sponsor of Kruse's 29th annual...