WSJ online subscribers rise, sales fall

WSJ online subscribers rise,
sales fall

Dow Jones (DJ) said Thursday paid subscribers to Wall Street Journal
Online totaled 574,000 at the end of March, marking the end of the
company’s first quarter. However, advertising revenue associated with
WSJ.com "fell off significantly from last year’s exceptionally
robust levels," Dow Jones said. The company has shut down its
Work.com Web site and has delayed launch of a site containing material
from the newspaper’s Weekend edition.

More outsourcing moves for Amazon.com

Amazon.com (AMZN) is reportedly seeking help to handle some customer
service functions. Thomas Weisel analyst Sara D’Eathe said Amazon
recently put out a "request for a quote" to a large private
outsourcing fulfillment company, CNET reported. The company already has
outsourced its call-center and product-fulfillment operations for some
product categories. Amazon is itself exploiting that business practice,
handling e-commerce operations for both Toys R Us (TOY) and Borders
Group (BGP). "Amazon is seeking new avenues to improve the
economics of its business, in our opinion," analyst D’Eathe said in
the report.

Barnesandnoble.com cuts back sales
categories

Barnesandnoble.com (BNBN) is getting out of the software and gift
businesses. Tabs for those sales categories are no longer on the e-tailer’s
home page. A spokesman for the company told Newsbytes, "We are
concentrating on businesses that we see have more potential for us,
hence the decision to end those two stores."

Dot-com bubble inflated by greed – survey

More than half of Americans believe Internet companies had no clear
plans for making money and were supported by investors who wanted to
make big money fast, according to a survey financed by the Pew
Charitable Trusts. The February research project reported 67 percent of
respondents who had heard about dot-coms’ financial woes subscribe to an
"irrational exuberance" view of the cause of their troubles —
that Internet companies are struggling because investors’ desire to turn
quick profits led to too many business risks. Some 39 percent blame the
youth and inexperience of some of the Internet firms’ executives. About
three-fifths (57 percent) of those who have heard about dot-com troubles
agree that closing some Web sites is a good thing because the Internet
had too many sites with too little to offer.

TV Guide adds Web offering

TV Guide Inc. debuted a guide to daily live Internet events. Its
online Web Guide will point to online chats, interactive games and
contests. More than 40 event sites have signed up to affiliate with Web
Guide, including RollingStone.com, Seventeen.com, Launch.com and CBS.MarketWatch.com
(the publisher of this report). "TV Guide is a true entertainment
authority and this will allow us to do for the Internet what we did for
television — bring

quality programming and information to an entertainment-hungry
public," said Peter C. Boylan III, co-president and co-chief
operating officer of parent Gemstar-TV Guide International (GMST).

RealNetworks technology to the rescue

RealNetworks Inc. (RNWK) said its new advertisement insertion
technology is a solution to an issue that broadcasters suddenly have
found themselves confronted with — namely, that Webcasting commercials
made for radio can make advertisers liable for additional talent fees.
RealNetworks said one of the parts of its Radio Business Applications
lets stations remove commercial messages or replace them with other
messages.

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