ecommerce

I've written before about one of my favorite open-source companies, ad-server company OpenX. However, since I first covered the company, a lot has happened, all seemingly positive.

For one thing, OpenX now tops 300 billion ad impressions per month, 150,000 publishers, and 2,500 paid customers using its hosted offering. This impressive growth, however, belies a big challenge for OpenX:

Next comes the more difficult process of converting the free products and services into revenue-generating operations. The vast majority of the ads served by the installed software were from freely downloaded versions, and few of those using the … Read more

Holiday spending on electronics for family members remains high on the to-do list, according to a survey by IDC and the National Research Network (NRN).

According to results from a survey of more than 3,000 consumers, 62 percent indicated they planned to spend the same amount or more on electronics for family members this holiday.

Those surprising results come as big-box electronics retailers face a challenging time. Best Buy announced a 77 percent drop in earnings and call for employee buyouts earlier this month and Circuit City filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last month.

Nonetheless, consumers are maintaining their … Read more

Well, this is an interesting tidbit: Computer giant Dell told Internet News that its "Twitter sale alerts" have added up to about $1 million in revenue.

As we all know from Mike Myers' "Dr. Evil" character in the Austin Powers movie franchise, a million bucks isn't a whole lot of money for a major multinational corporation. But it does have something to say about how Twitter is transforming from gimmicky messaging tool to marketing powerhouse. Fire-sale start-up Woot showed that it's possible to take advantage of Twitter's rapid-fire nature to advertise fleeting deals; … Read more

After a strong first week of December, e-commerce sales have slowed down but are still on pace with last year's spending rate at this point of the holiday season, according to a report issued Sunday by ComScore.

For anyone accustomed to the drumbeat of sour economic news, that tidbit must come as a pleasant surprise. In fact, ComScore reports that December 9 logged $887 million in online spending, thus setting a record for the heaviest cyber spending day on record. They're not exactly shopping until they're dropping but online sales are keeping pace with last year--no small … Read more

Social network Hi5 has launched a virtual-gift store and currency called "Hi5 Coins."

Hi5 is big on multiculturalism--the San Francisco-based company enjoys its most loyal following in a number of Latin American countries--so many of the gifts have regional cultural significance. The payment system is handled through the third-party service ClickandBuy, and a total of 36 gifts are available at launch.

Expect virtual-gift services to get even hotter in the social-network world over the next few months, as companies scramble for another form of revenue besides advertising. Facebook has modified its in-house Gifts application to allow for … Read more

Announcing a new way to get your friends drunk: GiveReal.com, a Facebook application (and standalone Web site) that just emerged out of private beta. It's hoping to pioneer what the founders call "social e-commerce" by letting people send virtual drinks to each other that can be translated to a real-life libation.

The concept is, in theory, very similar to start-ups like buyyourfriendadrink.com. But services like that are only compatible with participating bars, and Give Real has found a workaround that will make its gifting service compatible with any bar that accepts credit cards. You opt … Read more

Discount retailer Wal-Mart on Monday announced that it has started to sell "tens of thousands" of Nintendo's Wii gaming console online. The 2-year-old gadget, consistently sold out and difficult to obtain, emerged as one of Black Friday's big hits amid a bleak economy.

On Friday night, the Wii was sold out on Wal-Mart's Web site as well as the Web sites of electronics retailers Best Buy and Circuit City, Reuters reported. On Monday morning, they were in stock.

Wal-Mart plans to sell the Wii consoles online for a price of $249.24 (Best Buy's … Read more

Christmas came early for Google.

The Internet search giant posted double-digit year-over-year Cyber Monday gains on a select group of consumer categories, including department stores, books and magazines, home furnishings, and sports and fitness, according to its retail blog.

Paid click results rose a whopping 39 percent for department store searches, while books and magazines were up a healthy 28 percent. Bargain hunters, meanwhile, drove up comparison shopping clicks by 25 percent and sports and fitness by 24 percent, analyst Ben Schachter noted in a research report released Friday.

Home furnishings settled in with a comfortable 14 percent increase, while … Read more

Visitors to e-commerce sites spent $846 million on Monday, an increase of 15 percent over the same day a year ago, according to ComScore.

Monday, referred to as Cyber Monday by online retailers, capped off a successful Thanksgiving holiday weekend for the industry, which overall saw spending jump 13 percent.

It's a welcome relief for an industry that was mostly bracing for the worst.

"Consumers are clearly responding positively to retailers' aggressive online discounts," ComScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni said in a statement. "With Cyber Monday promotions beginning in earnest over the Thanksgiving weekend, consumers have finally … Read more