Stories about: MySimon

Randy Watts likes to design Web pages, but he doesn't like to pay unnecessarily high prices for new development tools. Like a growing number of small businesses and consumers, Watts has started relying on shopbot technology to help him find killer deals on a wide array of products. But while current 'bots can offer a great service to small-volume buyers and individuals, similar tools for larger companies are just starting to appear. And if you're an online merchant, the very thought of such margin-slimming shopping assistants may cause you to groan.

AltaVista Co. announced Friday that it will cut 25 percent of its workforce and consolidate its four California offices into its Palo Alto headquarters.

Of course you buy stuff online. You love the convenience. And you'd like it even more if you could easily get what you wanted at the best price--without clicking constantly from one e-tailer to another to compare prices, shipping charges, and so on. Another thing you'd like: not having to hand out your credit or debit card number all over the Internet.

Online technology news service CNET will swallow up tech publishing company Ziff-Davis Inc. in a $US1.6 billion deal unveiled Wednesday.

From the way some of the dot-coms babble on, you'd think changing e-commerce business models was as easy as changing your shirt. Of course, anything's possible in a company with six twenty-somethings. But what if you're running a large company trying to grow its e-commerce business? How do you keep up? Without tearing the rest of your company apart, I mean.

A group of companies have joined together so users of the Motient eLink wireless service can access the MySimon Inc. comparison shopping service. The partnership shows the underlying complexity involved in letting handheld devices access Web services.

Okay, so we're not the first to publish an article with this title. News magazines, finance magazines, family magazines--everybody's gotten into the act. Even your local newspaper has probably ventured to pick the Best of the Web. But how many of these articles have really said which site is the Web's very best? Call us crazy, but we're gonna do it. We won't ruin the surprise--skim ahead if you must--but in this article, we name the single best site on all the Web. Along the way, we pit dozens of great sites against each other and name our favorites in 32 categories, including news, sports, travel, music, and lots of tech-related areas.

You know that beady-eyed paper clip that stares at you from your Windows 98 applications? It's an intelligent software agent. It's a cool one, too - though most people will never know that, because they switch the creepy thing off as soon as they can.

Almost moment by moment, computers get cheaper, faster, more feature-rich. So why don't they get any easier to buy? Alas, figuring out where to purchase a PC remains a tricky proposition. That's true even if you happen to know exactly what system you want--and only more so if you require some assistance zeroing in on the perfect PC.

"DoDots" may sound like some new kind of candy, but it's not. And it's not the latest kid-crazy, animated Japanese import.

Search firm Flyswat Inc. is taking a new whack at helping you hunt for online information with an update that boasts faster searches, a streamlined toolbar, and compatibility with any desktop application.