Beth Cox

Following in the wake of downbeat announcements by air travel ticketing rivals Expedia and Travelocity, Priceline.com lowered its third-quarter fiscal guidance and said its bookings so far this week are down 35 to 40 percent. Goldman, Sachs, meanwhile, reduced estimates for all three of the major publicly traded players in the online travel sector following […]

Online travel sites on Tuesday began tallying their own damage inflicted by the Sept. 11 attacks on America. Expedia Inc. said that bookings had declined by as much as 60 to 65 percent following last week’s events in New York City. Meanwhile, Travelocity third quarter revenues will be below its previous guidance. The Bellevue, Wash.-based […]

Suffering from a decline in both visitors and advertisers, CMGI Inc.’s struggling search operation Alta Vista named a new CEO and cut another 160 employees, bringing the staff count down to about 340 people. The company’s comparison shopping service also is being jettisoned. The new boss is James Barnett, the former president of MyFamily.com Inc., […]

Auction giant eBay Inc., responding to a call for help from New York Gov. George Pataki and Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, launched “Auction for America,” a new sales area in which eBay users can buy and sell goods specifically to raise funds to aid those affected by the events of last week. eBay said it “has […]

Stocks of online travel companies were taking a beating this morning, dropping as much as 40 percent in some cases in the first hour of trading after the stock market reopened today following last week’s skyjacking tragedies. Expedia was down $10.60 or 29.24 percent to $25.65. Name-your-own price e-commerce travel site Priceline.com was down $2.02 […]

Tech firms across the board were busy rolling out stock buyback programs today as the market plunged after reopening for the first time after the events of last Tuesday. The moves clearly showed the tech industry’s interest in helping to shore up the market, (which as expected went sharply lower shortly after the opening bell) […]

White Plains, N.Y.-based Learn2.com adjourned a shareholder’s meeting until Monday after discovering that not enough proxies had reached its stock transfer agent to approve a merger with E-Stamp. The merger, first announced last April, requires the affirmative vote of a majority of all outstanding shares of Learn2 common stock. Stephen P. Gott, president and CEO […]

E-commerce outsourcer Global Sports Inc. is acquiring luxury goods purveyor Ashford.com Inc. in a cash and stock deal valued at about $14 million. King of Prussia, Pa.-based Global Sports said it intends to extend its outsourced e-commerce solution to retailers in the luxury goods category and expand Ashford.com’s e-commerce outsource solution in the corporate gifts […]

General Motors Corp. launched a Tokyo-based joint venture with three Japanese companies to develop an e-commerce operation for auto sales to Japanese consumers and businesses. The other companies involved are Suzuki Motors Corp., Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. (Subaru) and Isuzu Motors. GM has a 20 percent stake in Suzuki, a 20 percent stake in FHI […]

The Internet, like American society itself, is a virtual reflection of the best and worst that humanity has to offer. Most people, in response to Tuesday’s attacks of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, reflected the best that we have to offer, with a vast outpouring of grief and vows of support. Thursday, across […]

IT research and consulting firm META Group Inc., which lost its president at the time of a restructuring last spring, has named a top SAP America executive as its new president. The Stamford, Conn.-based company named Mike B. Levine, 45, to the post after a search that began last April. That was when the company […]

Online retail bellwether Amazon.com signed an online sales partnership deal with Minneapolis-based Target Corp., which operates about 1,000 discount stores across the United States and competes with Kmart and Wal-Mart. Amazon said it plans to open a Target store on its site later this fall, and will expand the product offerings available at its site […]