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Sony Talks Up Plans for Digital Media Superstore November 20, 2009 
Many companies would give up their right to right-click to be able to duplicate Apple's success with iTunes. However, only one actually has the pieces already in place to do that, and its executives announced their intentions Thursday to take on Steve Jobs' company with its own online content service.
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Playboy's Bunny Couldn't Make the Hop to the Web November 20, 2009 
What the hell happened to the sort of man who reads Playboy? How could he let the Internet develop into the world's strip club -- and worse -- without taking Hugh Hefner's company along for the ride? There's no long tail for the Playboy bunny, judging from the rumored impending sale of Hefner's company for around $300 million to Iconix, collector of apparel brands like Candies and Joe Boxer.
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AA.com Sucks the Fun Out of Trip-Planning November 20, 2009 
It's fitting that the last stop on my tour of travel-planning Web sites for the E-Commerce Times was American Airlines. The site illustrates all of the problems that spurred this special look at travel sites in the first place. Travel sites have developed a reputation for being hard to navigate and poorly designed with cluttered user interfaces.
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Senate Committee Flogs Big-Name E-Tailers for Sneaky Sales Tactics November 18, 2009 
The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee has released a report slamming the online business practices of three direct marketing companies -- Affinion, Vertrue and Webloyalty -- along with hundreds of online Web sites and retailers that participate in these practices. Many of the participating retailers are well-known brand names, such as Classmates.com, Hotwire and 1-800-Flowers.com.
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Bill Aims to Plug P2P Leaks of Government Data November 18, 2009 
Congress moved Tuesday to prohibit federal employees from using the same type of Internet file-sharing software blamed for the disclosure. The Secure Federal File Sharing Act, introduced in the House, would bar government employees and contractors from downloading, installing or using so-called peer-to-peer file sharing software.
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Down With Opt-Out, Opt-Tricky Software Distribution November 18, 2009 
Oh, the joy of downloading and installing free software -- only to have a bunch of unwanted, tag-along junkware, or worse, malware, automatically installed on your computer. Why has this unacceptable practice been the norm in the software industry for so many years? The answer to that question is two-fold: money; and lack of a better option.
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Verizon Weaves AT&T-Bashing Witticisms Into Legal Doc November 17, 2009 
Verizon has filed a response to the lawsuit AT&T brought against its snarky "We've Got a Map for That" advertising campaign. Unlike typical legal briefs, the carrier's filing is replete with witty rejoinders and sarcasm, echoing the ridiculing tone of the ads at the center of the dispute.
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Don't Give Discount Holiday Shoppers Any Reasons to Walk Away November 17, 2009 
The holiday shopping season is rapidly approaching, but optimism is fading for many online retailers, with sales growth expected to trend negative through the remainder of the year. As frugal shoppers continue to cut back on discretionary spending, retailers have responded with deep discounts and special offers. These promotions will have varying degrees of success.
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United Offers a Touch of Class November 16, 2009 
United Airlines was my Internet destination as I continued sampling travel-planning Web sites for the E-Commerce Times. The first item to catch my eye was an unusual graphic -- neither a 1) plane 2) automobile 3) hotel nor 4) iconic celebrity hawker. Instead it was a stylized drawing of a woman's outstretched leg with a big bow on her ankle.
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Creating Exceptional Customer Experiences, Both Coming and Going November 16, 2009 
One of the most important ways marketers can differentiate their offerings in today's unique selling environment is by creating a remarkable customer experience. One step toward achieving this goal is to ensure they have a single database that is tightly integrated with their CRM system to capture inbound and outbound dialogue and create a multidimensional marketing view of the customer.
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Text Analysis and the Next Generation of BI November 15, 2009 
Text-based content and information from across the Web are growing in importance to businesses. The need to analyze Web-based text in real-time is rising to where structured data was in importance just several years ago. Indeed, for businesses looking to do even more commerce and community building across the Web, text access and analytics forms a new mother lode of valuable insights to mine.
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Everyone's Stoked About Cyber Monday - Vendors, Customers and Hackers November 14, 2009 
Less than 20 days until Cyber Monday. You've got staffing queued up. Your warehouse is full. Your shipper is standing by. But have you considered what will happen on your Web site after a flood of qualified buyers click on the irresistible and precisely worded ad for your product or service? You've got one shot -- one day -- to win their holiday business.
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Bing Buddies Up With Wolfram Alpha November 12, 2009 
On Wednesday, Microsoft announced it's teaming up with answer engine Wolfram Alpha to beef up its Bing search engine. This will give Bing users access to Wolfram Alpha's algorithms and curated data. The team-up marks yet another step in Microsoft's battle with Google in the Web search market.
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Clicker Charts the Seas for Online TV Surfers November 12, 2009 
Clicker Media on Thursday publicly launched Clicker.com, its programming guide to Internet television. This comes less than a year after the company began building what it describes as the "ultimate programming guide for Internet television." Clicker catalogs the broadcast-quality movies, music videos and Web videos available online on more than 1,200 networks.
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Pharma Wants FDA to Soften Rules for Online Ads November 12, 2009 
The FDA will convene a two-day meeting beginning Thursday to hear the drug industry's position on Internet marketing. The agency has agreed to consider developing rules for online advertising after companies complained that the current guidelines for traditional media have left them hamstrung on the Web.
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Finding Out What They're Saying About You Is Worth Every Penny November 12, 2009 
Social media monitoring is a new business endeavor, with relatively few companies able to boast a significant track record of achievement. In fact, according to the new Aberdeen benchmark report, "The ROI on Social Media Monitoring," only 27 percent of Best-in-Class companies have engaged in social media monitoring activities for more than two years.
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