Credit cards are the main method consumers use to pay for goods and services when engaged in e-commerce transactions. In general, businesses and consumers obtain credit cards by applying for varying lines of credit from one of the many card-issuing banks located throughout the world. Although the process of using a credit card may appear to be simple to an end-user, many steps are actually involve…
The evolution of Web sites from bland depositories of information to sophisticated and user-friendly entities of conscious design carried with it a growing tendency to recognize the achievements of intelligent, artistic, and useful Web design practices with awards. There were countless Web awards created by the early 2000s, ranging from the relatively anonymous to the highly prestigious. Awards we…
When Steve Ballmer assumed the CEO position at Microsoft Corp., he filled the shoes of Bill Gates—the world's richest man and most famous software mogul. He took over at the start of 2000, in the thick of the government's antitrust lawsuit against the company. A longtime friend and number-two man to Bill Gates, Ballmer was tapped as CEO to smooth over Microsoft's transi…
Bandwidth is the amount of data that moves along transmission lines or circuits at a given speed. For example, the time it takes a personal computer to load a word-processing program is dependent upon bandwidth, as is the load time for a World Wide Web page. Transmission speed is expressed either in bits-per-second (bps) for digital devices such as modems, or cycles-per-second, more commonly know…
Bandwidth management refers to the process of optimizing the bandwidth that carries traffic over networks. Bandwidth—the amount of data transferred over a communication channel in a specific amount of time—can be controlled by bandwidth management tools, which often are referred to as traffic or packet shapers. These tools enable network managers to control communications by allowing…
When the clicks-and-bricks euphoria hit in the late 1990s, many banks began to view Web-based banking as a strategic imperative. The attraction of banks to online banking are fairly obvious: diminished transaction costs, easier integration of services, interactive marketing capabilities, and other benefits that boost customer lists and profit margins. Additionally, Web banking services allow insti…
Ever since their debut on the HotWired site in October 1994, banner ads have been the dominant format for online advertising. They also have been a disappointment for advertisers and Web site publishers alike. They have been blamed, perhaps unfairly, for everything from the high rate of failure of content-based Web sites (which are dependent on advertising revenue) to creating a one-inch wasteland…
Scotland native John Barbour took over Toys-rus.com in August of 1999 when Robert Moog, the original CEO of the fledgling e-commerce venture, resigned after a mere five weeks at the helm. Barbour had worked for nine years as a marketing executive at Hasbro when he was tapped for the job at Toys 'R' Us. Prior to that, Barbour served as a marketing vice president for Universal Matchbox…
Jim Barksdale is best known for his role in Nets-cape Communications Corp.'s battle with Microsoft Corp. for the Internet browser market. He joined Netscape as a seasoned executive, having served as vice president and chief operating officer (COO) of Federal Express Corp. from 1984 to 1991; president and COO of McCaw Cellular between 1992 and 1994; and chief executive officer (CEO) of AT&#x…
Before the onset of online bookselling and the rise of Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble Inc. was the un-disputed leader in bookselling. The giant chain had the most brick-and-mortar stores and the largest market share. Its U.S. bookselling subsidiaries included the flagship Barnes & Noble Booksellers, as well as B. Dalton Booksellers, Doubleday Book Shops, and Scribner's Bookstores.…
BASIC stands for Beginner's All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code, a computer programming language known for its simplicity. Many college students are first taught BASIC before moving on to more complex languages like Fortran and C++. Thomas Kurtz, professor of mathematics at Dartmouth College, and John G. Kemeny, chairman of the mathematics department there, developed BASIC, which is one o…
BBBOnLine Inc. serves as the Better Business Bureau of the Web. Since its inception in the summer of 1996, it has operated as a subsidiary of the Council of Better Business Bureaus. Browsers visiting BBBOnLine can search for information on specific companies, view consumer guides, file complaints, and ask for assistance with dispute resolution. This advocate for fair and ethical online business pr…
Tim Berners-Lee is founder and director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). His greatest invention draws numerous comparisons to Gutenberg's printing press because it brings information and tools, formerly reserved for a select few, to the masses. Sitting at a tiny cubicle in a physics laboratory in Switzerland, the reclusive, soft-spoken Berners-Lee gave birth to the World Wide Web and…
German publishing giant Bertelsmann AG is the world's third-largest media company, behind AOL Time Warner and Walt Disney. Book publishing operations include Random House, Bantam Books, Dell Publishing, Crown Publishing, Ballantine Publishing, Knopf Publishing, Doubleday, and Broadway Books. The firm's entertainment arm, known simply as BMG, oversees all Bertelsmann music, television…
Beyond.com designs, builds, and manages e-stores for companies like Symantec Corp. and Inprise/Borland, which have established name brands. The firm sets itself apart from other e-commerce service providers by offering back-end services, such as product distribution, along with more traditional Web page design services. Thanks to its eStore 3.0 system, Beyond.com can construct an online store in l…
Jeff Bezos is the founder and CEO of Amazon.com, the world's largest online retailer of books, CDs, electronics, and more. Although the site experienced explosive growth from the time it was founded in 1995 through the end of the 1990s, analysts in late 1999 began to question the firm's likelihood of achieving profitability. As a result, stock prices plummeted and Bezos found himself…
Biometrics is a field of security and identification technology based on the measurement of unique physical characteristics such as fingerprints, retinal patterns, and facial structure. To verify an individual's identity, biometric devices scan certain characteristics and compare them with a stored entry in a computer database. While the technology goes back years and has been used in highl…
Bionomics is a field of economic thought. It breaks from previous economic philosophy by situating economics as an extension of biology and ecology. Proponents of bionomics, such as its founder Michael Rothschild, reject what they describe as the idea of the economy as a mechanistic process, and instead view the economy as an "evolving ecosystem." Adherents interpret all actors and e…
Ira Fuchs and Greydon Freeman founded the Because It's Time Network (BITNET) on May 5, 1981. Used mainly in academia, BITNET quickly became one of the world's largest networks, eventually connecting more than 500 U.S. and 1,400 international universities and research institutions by allowing for the electronic transfer of messages and files. Although BITNET itself had become obsolete…
Just five after its inception, BizRate.com grew to become one of the Internet's busiest retail hubs, second only to Amazon.com. Monthly traffic rates at the end of 2000 reached an average of 6.5 million different visitors, and in early 2001 that number jumped to more than 7 million. Along with allowing shoppers to search for items they would like to purchase and then offering direct links t…
Michael R. Bloomberg runs Bloomberg L.P., one of the world's largest financial information, news, and media companies. Considered an industry mogul by most accounts, Bloomberg is best known for parlaying his financial information services upstart into a billion dollar media giant that competes with the likes of Dow Jones, Knight-Ridder, and Reuters. Despite Bloomberg's initial reluct…
Bloomberg L.P. is among the world's leading financial information, news, and media companies. Along with selling real-time financial data to banks, investment firms, government agencies, and other institutions, the firm operates 79 news bureaus throughout the world, publishes magazines, produces radio and television shows, and manages one of the Inter-net's most frequently visited fi…
The Bloomberg U.S. Internet Index is a stock market benchmark for the dot-com contingent. It is owned and operated by Bloomberg L.P., a leading business publisher with scores of products relating to business news, statistics, and analysis. Among the nearly 300 companies tracked by the index are Web retailers of all varieties, Web-based advertising firms, content providers, Internet software vendo…
BlueLight.com was established in 1999 as part of Kmart Corp.'s efforts to gain an Internet presence. The venture, majority owned by Kmart and funded by SOFTBANK Venture Capital, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, and Yahoo!, originally operated as an Internet Service Provider (ISP). However, in just two years BlueLight grew into an online discount shopping destination, as well as a leading IS…
When individuals use search engines to find information on the Internet, the Boolean Operators "AND," "OR," and "NOT" are often used to maximize the relevancy and effectiveness of their search. By entering them in the form of a search query, these operators specify the parameters of a search. For example, someone searching for information about surfing in …