Articles by Elizabeth Millard

Digital music has been around for years, but the legitimate online musicindustry did not attract a critical mass of consumers until Apple's iTunes Music Store launched. In fact, expectations were so low that Apple wooed record labels to license their music to iTunes by promising there would be more than 1 million downloads within the first six months. The company reached that mark by the end of the first week.

A few years ago, micropayments seemed like yet another brilliant idea in the midst of the Internet revolution. To download content, consumers could pay in small increments, ranging from just under a dollar to fractions of a penny. Some industry watchers thought micropayments would replace Internet access charges or take the place of subscription fees...

In the six years since Musicmatch opened its virtual doors, the online music business has seen some significant changes. From the death (and then rebirth) of Napster to the success of services like Apple's iTunes Music Stores, the industry has emerged from the dark dot-com fallout to face a bright future. Musicmatch CEO Dennis Mudd spoke with the E-Commerce Times about what liesahead...

Optimism about the tech sector abounded at this year's CES event in Las Vegas, as more than 110,000 attendees gathered to gape at computers embedded in refrigerators, hear about new offerings from Microsoft and watch rhinestone-studded singers belt out selections from the musical "Chicago" at the Samsung booth Although glitzy production value has n...

Last week, the U.S. Congress passed the sweeping "CAN-SPAM" bill, creating the first federal law regulating spam. Advocates of the bill say it is a major step forward in the fight against the deluge of e-mail ads for pornography, cheap prescription medicine and scads of other something-for-nothing schemes On the other hand, critics contend the law ...

A new Internet scam, which arrived in the last two months, has proven to be especially nasty during the online holiday shopping peak. Called phishing, the tactic is utilized to get credit card and account information from consumers who believe they are visiting legitimate bank and credit card sites The newest attack occurred last week when users be...

For many online shoppers, Overstock.com has become a favorite bargain-hunting destination. The e-tailer offers up to 80 percent off the sticker price of items ranging from dresses to computers, and it has dedicated staffers in its customer service and warehousing departments to keep the operation running at Internet speed Yet the road was not alway...

Just as Las Vegas pioneer Bugsy Siegel imagined a city of dice games and slot machines in the middle of the desert, entrepreneurs looked at the Web a few years ago and saw an audience hungry for online gaming They were right to suspect there was gold in all those clicks. A December 2002 report by the U.S. General Accounting Office stated that onlin...

Trust, like love, can be a tricky emotion to evoke. Even tougher, it is all too easy to lose. In business, however, trust is essential if a company wants to retain customers, draw new clients and keep its hard-won reputation shining brightly In the e-business realm, unique challenges abound for firms that are trying to build a loyal customer follow...

As companies have grown more confident in their business process planning, the integration industry has worked to refine its products and services to meet enterprise needs. Many integration offerings now focus on optimizing collaborative relationships between customers, partners and suppliers. As a 25-year veteran in the integration space, Sterlin...

During the holidays, many consumers create product wish lists at Amazon.com. There may be no Amazon equivalent for CTOs, but high-level executives still whip up mental wish lists detailing what they want from software and hardware vendors With the makings of an economic recovery on the horizon, IT budgets are beginning to grow again after a three-y...

In the immortal words of philosopher and cultural critic George Santayana, those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it. Ebenezer Scrooge, the protagonist of Charles Dickens' famous play A Christmas Carol, likely would have agreed with this sentiment In a similar vein, as the holiday season progresses and the prospect of an econom...

In the immortal words of philosopher and cultural critic George Santayana, those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it. Ebenezer Scrooge, the protagonist of Charles Dickens' famous play A Christmas Carol, likely would have agreed with this sentiment In a similar vein, as the holiday season progresses and the prospect of an econom...

In the immortal words of philosopher and cultural critic George Santayana, those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it. Ebenezer Scrooge, the protagonist of Charles Dickens' famous play A Christmas Carol, likely would have agreed with this sentiment In a similar vein, as the holiday season progresses and the prospect of an econom...

The holidays are a time of quiet reflection and generosity, a season of givingand helping one's fellow man. Of course, there is another facet of the holidayseason, too: All of those shiny gadgets displayed in store windows andpictured on Web sites highlight the attraction of upgrading to thelatest and greatest technology Although visions of Dells a...

In a sign of the growing popularity of hosted e-business, Buy.com subsidiary BuyServices has announced it will manage hosted Web sites for several MTV Networks properties, including MTV, VH1 and CMT BuyServices will provide back-end and front-end e-commerce capabilities, distribution, payment and customer support. Shoppers will be able to browse a ...

Although dial-up is still the dominant method by which most U.S. residents access the Internet, DSL and cable are making inroads toward winning the hearts and dollars of broadband-hungry consumers However, not all high-speed Internet providers are created equal. Customers must choose a provider on the basis of availability, rates, customer service ...

As e-commerce shoppers have become as comfortable booking travel online as they are buying a book on Amazon.com, the competition in the online travel market has become brisk indeed Although the sudden decline in travel after the terrorist acts of September 11th caused fiscal repercussions for travel companies long afterwards, the industry seems now...

As homeowners begin scaling their ladders to put up holiday lights and brick-and-mortar store managers start dusting off their reindeer and snowflake decorations, thoughts of revenue sugarplums doubtless are dancing in e-tailers' heads This year, after all, analysts are predicting robust growth in online spending as the gift-buying season gathers s...

In part 1 of this story, the E-Commerce Times looked at how Web sites are gearing up for the holiday buying season by beefing up staff, servers and warehouse operations Most strikingly, Ritz Interactive CEO Fred Lerner told the E-Commerce Times that this year, the company gave most of its employees pagers and put them on call. If there is a problem...