Deal clinched for EMusic.com buyout

Deal clinched for EMusic.com
buyout

The music business division of Vivendi Universal (V) said Monday it
has signed a definitive agreement to acquire EMusic.com (EMUS). The Web
music distribution company, whose assets include RollingStone.com and
Downbeat.com, revealed last week it was in negotiations with an unnamed
potential partner that reports identified as Universal Music Group.
"We believe that this transaction is in the best interests of our
stockholders,” said Gene Hoffman, EMusic’s president and CEO. Universal
will pay 57 cents per share for the Redwood City, Calif.-based company,
whose shares finished trading Friday at 44 cents.

The ‘mall that never closes’

The Internet is transforming America into a nation of nocturnal
shoppers, according to a research report conducted for the Unilever
Interactive Brand Center. "The survey suggests that the Internet is
giving late-night TV serious competition for the attention of millions
of shoppers," said Mark Olney, vice president of the Unilver (UL)
unit. Results indicate that nearly half of Web users — 46 percent of
women, 47 percent of men — say they’ve become late-night shoppers,
using the Internet as "the mall that never closes." And nearly
one in three men and one in five women "sneak shop" while on
the job. The research project also described characteristics of online
shoppers’ behavior.

New domains gain support

A handful of software companies will include software to enable
consumers to gain access to Web sites whose domains are not sanctioned
by the organization chartered by the federal government to coordinate
Internet addresses. New.net, a company backed by Pasadena, Calif.,
entrepreneur Bill Gross, has created 20 new domain suffixes, including
".shop," ".mp3," and ".tech." Without the
software, users searching for sites having those domains would get error
messages. Deals to distribute the software, or plug-in, were reached
with makers of file-download manager GoZilla and file-sharing products
iMesh and BearShare, the company said.

Amazon shelves data center

Amazon.com (AMZN) is shopping the lease on a 95,000 square-foot data
center located in the Washington, D.C., suburbs. Amazon is looking to
cut an unprofitable asset, Stephen Zrike, senior analyst specializing in
online retail market analysis at Forrester Research in Cambridge, Mass.,
said in a report in the Washington Business Journal. Amazon leased the
space in December 1999 but did not occupy more than 10,000 square feet,
according to the report.

CMGI shopping AltaVista

CMGI (CMGI) is reportedly offering to sell its AltaVista search
engine company. In the past year, AltaVista shifted from a portal
strategy to focus on its search technologies, jettisoning its e-mail
service and consumer operations in the process. No price for the
company, which Andover, Mass.-based CMGI paid top dollar to acquire from
Compaq Computer (CPQ), was mentioned in the San Francisco Chronicle
report.

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