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Investors include America Online and BMG Entertainment, one of the "big five" record companies. Other investors include Bertelsmann Ventures, the Mayfield Fund and Trans Cosmos USA, which has also invested in companies such as Liquid Audio, RealNetworks and Spinner. The funding announcement comes one week after Riffage.com announced an e-commerce agreement with barnesandnoble.com. In addition, Riffage.com and AOL recently announced a digital music distribution deal to promote Riffage.com's offerings throughout many of AOL's brands. Riffage.com, which launched in March, also has agreements with companies such as CNET, Digital on Demand, eCircles.com, Listen.com, MusicMatch, RealNetworks, Scour.net and ZDNet. "We view our relationship with Riffage.com, with its community-building approach and growing music catalog of talented artists, as an important component of our own digital music strategy," said Ted Leonsis, president of AOL's Interactive Properties Group. Funding For Technology Riffage.com plans to spend its new funding on technology that will allow the company to expand on its personalization, community and music functionality. Some of the money will also be spent on marketing programs. "In addition to the capital infusion, we're looking forward to the synergistic and cross-business opportunities presented by our new relationships with these leading companies," said Ken Wirt, CEO of Riffage.com. Bertelsmann Ventures is the venture fund of Bertelsmann AG. Bertelsmann, notably, has a collection of businesses that are already or could be future partners with Riffage.com. Bertelsmann is the world's third-largest media company with annual sales of approximately $18 billion. The company's subsidiaries include Random House, Bantam and BMG. Bertelsmann has stakes in more than 600 companies, including AOL Europe, barnesandnoble.com, CompuServe Europe and Lycos Europe. BMG Entertainment owns more than 200 record labels in 53 countries, including Arista, RCA and Ariola Music, as well as the world's largest mail-order music club. The company also has a stake in online music community site GetMusic.com, which is a joint venture with Universal Music Group, About Riffage.com Based in Palo Alto, California, Riffage.com was founded by Wirt, who was previously vice president of corporate marketing for Diamond Multimedia Systems. At Diamond Multimedia, Wirt was responsible for the strategic planning and launch of the portable Rio MP3 player. Investors include America Online and BMG Entertainment, one of the "big five" record companies. Other investors include Bertelsmann Ventures, the Mayfield Fund and Trans Cosmos USA, which has also invested in companies such as Liquid Audio, RealNetworks and Spinner.
Information Markets Corp. launched a beta test version of its infomarco.com site this week, allowing information seekers to bid for expert answers with play money. The real deal, with real money, is slated to launch early next year Infomarco.com operates on the assumption that people will pay top dollar for quality answers to tough questions. "Huma...
According to a new report from Deloitte & Touche, e-commerce will revolutionize the way that consumers will purchase energy "The Internet fundamentally changes the economics of transactions in key industries in ways that benefit both buyers and sellers," the report says. "The new dynamics of buyer-seller interactions could work fundamental changes ...
Domain registrar Register.com unveiled a new service for corporate clients Tuesday that it says will help prevent cyber-squatting, the practice of registering a domain name in a effort to hold it hostage from the holder of an established trademark The company said its Corporate Services Division will monitor more than 260 top-level domains for its ...
Retail analyst Lehman Brothers Holdings is predicting that holiday season failures will cause online merchants to fold or go up for sale at a rapid rate in the new year The fact of the matter is that, despite a tripling of e-commerce spending this year, many online merchants will find themselves falling far short of the shopping season they needed ...
As the third meeting of the Advisory Commission on Electronic Commerce (ACEC) wraps up today in San Francisco, California, a group of brick-and-mortar retailers is claiming that a recent national poll indicates that more than 60 percent of respondents believe that online retailers should be subject to the same taxes as their offline counterparts Ac...
Online postage provider E-Stamp (Nasdaq: ESTM) announced today that it has signed an agreement with Microsoft to expand the strategic alliance between the two companies The San Mateo, California-based E-Stamp said that the agreement with Microsoft will extend its reach to hundreds of thousands of small businesses that roam the MSN Network and its b...
Once the holiday sales boom subsides and online spending settles down, e-commerce is likely to shift into the mergers and acquisitions mode. However, predicting who will be left standing once the dust settles is almost impossible By many accounts, e-businesses that present a unique selling proposition to the online buyer may have a greater chance f...
Online retailer Bluefly.com (Nasdaq: BLFY), which sells designer apparel and accessories at outlet-store prices, announced today that it has expanded its strategic relationship with Internet infrastructure company Inktomi (Nasdaq: INKT) Under the terms of the expanded alliance, Bluefly gets added exposure on Inktomi's Shopping Engine. Bluefly's pro...
Internet solutions provider iAsiaWorks announced today that it has received an $85 million (US$) financing package from a group of investors in preparation for its expansion in eight Asian markets The San Mateo, California-based company, which is in the process of changing its name from Aunet, claims that the latest round of financing gives it $110...
Experts agree and evidence abounds that profitability in e-commerce is all about creating loyal customers and driving repeat sales Leaders like Amazon.com report that more than 65 percent of revenues are due to repeat sales. And since it is roughly six times less expensive to sell to an existing customer than to acquire a new one, the value of cust...
A new study from BizRate.com shows that nearly 60 percent of online shoppers would make fewer purchases if sales taxes were implemented on the Internet BizRate.com's "Flash Survey" includes comments from nearly 17,000 online buyers, surveyed at the online point-of-sale through a partnership between BizRate.com and the Association for Interactive Me...
Internet and Intranet-centric business solutions provider WebTrends Corp. (Nasdaq: WEBT) has released the latest version of its security management, analysis and reporting solution, adding support for Linux to the cross-platform software The WebTrends Security Analyzer product, which now also works with Solaris, includes some 180 new tests in the u...
eCongo.com, a provider of free e-commerce services, announced yesterday that it will host and manage up to 100,000 co-branded Web stores for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and portals that wish to offer free Web stores to their customers "We will authorize up to 1,000 free Web stores to an ISP or portal, who can then offer these free Web stores ...
This week, Canadian startup Zero-Knowledge Systems began selling a service that will allow Internet users to choose fictitious names for such activities as sending e-mail, visiting Web sites or joining newsgroups The closely held company claims that it is protecting the privacy of Web surfers and takes its name from the fact that it will not have t...
According to a report from the UN-supervised International Y2K Cooperation Center, the massive effort made by governments and companies around the world will prevent widespread computer problems from marring the arrival of the Year 2000 "The combination of a great deal of dedicated effort, the limited use of digital controls in most infrastructures...
According to published reports, Yahoo! and Kmart will announce tomorrow that the two companies have forged a wide-ranging distribution pact that will include a co-branded free online service The free Internet access will be offered to all users via Kmart's Bluelight.com Web site. It will also be marketed to customers who shop at one of the company'...
Life-science and healthcare business-to-business solutions provider Chemdex Corp. (Nasdaq: CMDX) announced today that it has signed an agreement to acquire SpecialtyMD.com in an all-stock transaction worth approximately $115 million (US$) SpecialtyMD.com is an online information, marketing and sales channel for specialist physicians and procurement...
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