Articles by Mick Brady

While investors hold their breath waiting for Amazon to turn the profitability corner, the folks over at Buy.com seem to be holding their street map upside down, searching in vain for the profitability neighborhood Judging from their respective market capitalizations, the $10.5 billion (US$) Amazon and the $500 million Buy.com both deserve to be ca...

If the Internet were a giant classroom, eBay would be the fair-haired child who never gets into trouble and always gets an "A" just because she always has. Never mind that on the playground she's just as likely as the next kid to give someone a sharp kick in the shins Motorola just announced that it is suing to stop the illegal sale of its radio se...

In Part I of this special report, the E-Commerce Times explored an Internet industry segment that we have dubbed "odd-commerce," highlighting some of the weirdest and wackiest items being offered for sale online However, some of the offerings on the far side of e-commerce are more interesting and surprising than weird. For example, The Property Org...

If you want Harry Potter, you can get him on the Internet. But if you are in the market for the blood of a real live wizard, guess what? You can get that on the Internet too Let your fingers do the clicking and you can find just about anything you can imagine online. E-commerce may be the hot topic in investor circles, but the industry has a lesser...

Some people love the thrill of roller coasters and keep getting back in line for more, but others can hardly take a single stomach-churning ride. When the torture is finally over, they stagger toward the nearest bench and breathe deeply, savoring the simple pleasures of life on solid ground. For dot-com investors who have been yearning to stay connected with earth's gravity, the rough ride may be nearing its end...

Just two years ago, analysts, venture capitalists and the media were feverish with excitement over the prospects of the infant business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce industry. Dazzling projections spurred unrestrained funding followed by giddy news coverage as one dot-com after another joined the IPO party. But the rug was pulled out from under some of the brightest B2C babies before they had a chance to get up on their feet, and low murmurs of disillusionment quickly became a dull roar. A shakeout was coming...

The high-tech economy spawned a new breed of the super-wealthy by appealing to the gambling lust of some very smart and extremely ambitious people. They made their fortunes not through blood, sweat and tears, but through stock options. Some of the billionaires thus created are worth a few billion dollars (US$) less now that the high-tech frenzy seems to have rolled to a more manageable pace -- if not quite a halt...

With the recent vote by The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to expand the number of top level domains (TLDs) on the Internet, some e-tailers may be asking not only if a rose by any other domain name will smell as sweet -- but also whether its price will be as steep The Marina del Rey, California-based ICANN has been over...

"Free" always begs the question: What's the catch? The prospect of something-for-nothing usually causes a tingle of excitement that is followed by a predictable letdown when the natural law, "You get what you pay for," kicks in In its early days, the World Wide Web -- responsible for so many paradigm shifts -- seemed to provide the means for a radi...

Excite@Home reported that it already signed up more than a thousand new e-tailers within the first 24 hours of launching its new free online storefront service. The new offering, named "Freetailer," allows e-commerce newcomers to get a foot in the door by enabling them to set up an Internet store at no cost While Excite@Home is not the first Intern...

When one of the towering leviathans of high-tech civilization takes a false step, it is not always immediately clear whether the tremors in the earth are caused by the giant's stumble or by the stampede of all the little people fleeing for cover The outcome is the same: things fall apart. Perhaps in the quake prone world of e-commerce, the damage c...

In Part I of this special report, the E-Commerce Times probed beyond the hype surrounding the alleged downfall of the dot-coms, to examine the big picture of the new U.S. e-conomy. Part II of this special report on the state of the e-commerce industry examines the burgeoning international market Despite the widely-held perception that the rest of t...

It is difficult to know whether industry analysts are feeding the media's tendency to dwell on fear, uncertainty and doubt -- or vice versa -- but in the past several months, Internet air space has been crackling with dire predictions regarding e-commerce In light of the torrent of anecdotal evidence suggesting that e-commerce firms may be on the e...

"Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to implant a secret cyber-wiretap on the World Wide Web. Then you must search a giant's trash for proof of a conspiracy against the government. Finally, you are to launch a spy satellite to eavesdrop on the telephone and e-mail communications of an entire continent." No, this is not the opening of t...

The bells tolling in the e-commerce distance seem to be growing louder, but whether the ringing bodes ill is a matter of perception. For some dot-coms, the sound is surely a death knell, but for others, it is the tinkling of a carol In all the news reports about struggling and failing e-tailers, the same message is often buried somewhere toward the...

The Internet is often compared with the wild American west, and e-commerce seems to be the manifest destiny of early Web explorers In spite of the dangers from train robbers, cattle rustlers and assorted other scoundrels, early American settlers pressed westward to the Pacific, and the bad guys were unable to prevent the law abiding citizens from e...

When the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) released its "Internet Ad Revenue Report" earlier this week, the common misperception that "banners are dead" was shaken to its foundation According to the report, Internet advertising reached over $4.62 billion (US$) in 1999, representing an increase of 141 percent over the $1.92 billion spent on online a...

Online giant Amazon.com, which has already invested $30 million (US$) in California-based Internet startup WineShopper.com, announced Tuesday that it has forged a partnership with the newly-launched e-tailer WineShopper.com currently serves customers only in California, but plans to expand its coverage across the United States. The company intends ...

In the film "The Truman Show," the hapless title character is the star of his own life -- an extended TV show that includes advertising spots that are seamlessly woven into the content While the movie is a pointed commentary on the voyeuristic nature of American society, many of its underpinnings are not as farfetched as they may seem. Many Interne...

As optimistic reports from research firms hail the revenue potential of the fast-growing business-to-business (B2B) market, companies in nearly every industry are launching slick new Internet portals -- but many have failed thus far to rise above the functionality of plain old Web sites Businesses are scrambling to identify themselves as "Internet ...