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Business
California Joins the Internet Sales Tax Fray; Federal Legislation Coming?
July 21, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan
The Internet sales tax issue continues to roil, with California the most recent state to enact a bill mandating that out-of-state online retailers with affiliates in the state collect state sales tax. Amazon and Overstock immediately responded by cutting off their affiliates in Californ...
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Finance
Groupon Files for IPO: Rapid Growth, No Profits
July 15, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan
Founded in Chicago in November 2008, Groupon filed to go public last month after reportedly rejecting a $6 billion takeover offer from Google last December. As with other recent filings by ecommerce firms, a few surprises emerged. Groupon is a pioneering marketing company that has achie...
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Business
Zynga Opens the Kimono; We See Facebook
July 8, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan
If you have ever played FarmVille, CityVille or Zynga Poker you're in good company — 148 million other people in 166 countries play Zynga's games monthly. And because people usually play more than one game each month, they account for 232 million monthly visits. All of this is disclosed...
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Finance
Our List of Publicly-Traded Ecommerce Companies
June 30, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan
The rise of online retailing has fostered many companies in that industry to become publicly owned, selling shares on major stock exchanges. We've been tracking publicly-traded ecommerce companies, and we've prepared a list of them, together with publicly traded, pure-play Internet com...
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Business
How LinkedIn Makes Money; Behind the IPO Numbers
June 23, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan
In May, LinkedIn went public. To much fanfare, the business-oriented social networking site sold common shares at $45 each, for a total offering of $352.8 million and an overall valuation — public and private shares — of $4.3 billion. It was the biggest Internet initial public offering ...