E-Commerce Times (www.ecommercetimes.com)
covers the world of business online, and because, as it says in its tagline,
"e-business means business," it covers all of business. It is the flagship
of several components of the ECT News Network (www.ectnews.com/about/), which also
includes LinuxInsider, TechNewsWorld, CRNBuyer, and MacNewsWorld (www.ectnews.com/about/advertising.xhtml#publications).
Cyber first mentioned
E-Commerce Times in June 2000--back before all businesses were online--and
again in July/August 2006. The site has changed in response to technology and
markets over the years but retains much of its original focus, quality, and
content.
Today's News
The bulk of the visible site space goes to top stories--four
or five are posted each weekday, but a single story is usually added on the
weekend, as well. When I started researching the site in depth in March, the
big story was FCC Chair Genachowski calling it quits. Over the next ten days,
stories covered the Blackberry Z10, Zynga and Facebook, the debut of Marin
Software on the NYSE, Nevada's licensing of London-based 888 Holding to offer
online gambling in the state, Yahoo's purchase of the Summly newsreader app, a
Walmart in-store locker pickup service for online purchases, Amazon's acquisition
of Goodreads, lots of speculation on Michael Dell and the activities of
Facebook, and much more. Most of the
stories originate from E-Commerce Times, but occasionally one of the featured stories
is from another ECT News Network publication.
To the right of the featured story line-up, shorter title
lists from the other four ECT publications appear; rolling over the title
brings up a text box blurb of the article. At the top of the right column there
is a link to This Week on ECT News Network, which displays a page of linked
headlines from each of the five publications. Another link from the main page,
Most Popular, gives a page of linked "top ten" lists for the last 24
hours, the last week, and the last thirty days.
You don't have to go to the website to receive notice of the
latest news, of course. A series of free newsletters is available for email
delivery: the daily E-Commerce Minute, which, unlike some other technology site
newsletters, really can be scanned in a minute, and Tech News Flash, which is a
similarly formatted daily newsletter from the TechNewsWorld side of the ECT
network. There is also an ECT News Network Weekly Newsletter, and an Editor's Pick publication. RSS
feeds are provided for E-Commerce Times and TechNewsWorld.
Alerts &
Searching
Another link at the top of the right column leads to News
Alerts (www.ectnews.com/about/newsalerts/)
where there is a comprehensive description of how this free service works. If
you scroll all the way to the bottom of this page you will also see the only
search tips I was able to find on the site:
+virus
+worm (finds articles with BOTH the word "virus" AND the word
"worm")
virus worm (finds
articles with EITHER the word "virus" OR the word "worm")
virus -worm
(finds articles that contain the word "virus" but NOT the word
"worm")
"computer
virus" (finds articles that contain the exact phrase "computer
virus")
You enter alerts on a separate page that is linked to your
account. (Subscribing to newsletters and alerts requires registration--free,
easy, and unobtrusive enough so as to be non-memorable). You can choose between
daily or real-time alerts. Within minutes of setting up four, some as daily,
some as real-time, I received my first email. Unfortunately, the four were
grouped, but for each story, there was a notation telling which keywords were
matched in that article. Within the email, a short teaser is given for each
story, then you are pushed to the web for the completion. The email also tells
you which ECT network publication the alert is drawn from.
Search functionality is fast but basic, in a single box that
supports AND, OR, NOT, and phrases, and apparently searches all text words. Results
are automatically sorted in relevance order but may be changed to date (newest
first) and are displayed in pages of 20 items. Through a couple laborious tests
(publication date searching is not supported) I deduced that content from as
far back as 1999 is available. It is not easy to get to, however, as the jump
list to subsequent pages only offers 6 pages at a time. It takes a long time to
jump to page 6 and then 11 and then 16 and so on until you get to whatever page
number contains item number 6158 for apple or
5517 for windows.
Article Tools
Every article in E-Commerce Times carries an impressive
range of article tools. First, for browsing, there is the convenient A A
text size icon at the top right. You can click on the larger A once or more to increase the size of
the text, and on the smaller A to decrease size. All article text except
the lead paragraph responds to the command. You can also click on a Print
Version link to get the full article on one page without display ads (the
clearly marked text ad that invariably follows the lead paragraph does not go
away, however). Text size may be changed on the Print Version page, too.
On both the Print and the original article pages there is a
link labeled "Get Permission to License or Reproduce this Article." A
single click takes you, via a new window, to Copyright.com from the Copyright Clearance Center.
You land at a pre-filled out form for the requested article, and an array of
options where you indicate how you want to use the article. Click once more and
usually you have a price instantaneously. Elsewhere (www.ectnews.com/about/reprints.xhtml)
you can find information on how to buy multiple reprints from ECT for
promotional purposes. Here also is a copyright notice and linking information (www.ectnews.com/about/link-to-us.xhtml#rss)
that clearly indicate that E-Commerce Times means business when it comes to its
intellectual property rights.
Other options for sharing notice of the article (not the
text) abound on article pages. Icons to the left encourage sharing via Twitter,
Facebook, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, and a host of other networks. You can email a
link to the article to up to five recipients at a time with a minimum of
hassle--entry of a robot-discouraging security code is required, but it is only
four characters in length and more legible than many.
The site encourages online commenting on individual articles
via a TalkBack icon: "Be the first to comment on this story," and you
can select from among several icons to lead your comment: an exclamation mark,
flame, light bulb, question mark, thumbs down, or thumbs up. Comments are
moderated and "gratuitous promotions or advertisements" are not
permitted.
More Research and
Services
Additional ways of delving into the deep archives of
E-Commerce News stories are available from the navigation bar at the top of all
pages. Major sections are offered in these categories:
- Business
- E-Commerce
- Enterprise IT
- Mobile
- Security
- SMB (Small and Mid-sized Business)
- Social Media
- Trends
Several of these have subcategories; Mobile includes BYOD (Bring Your Own Device),
Carriers, M-Commerce, and Mobile Advertising sections. The layout of these
archived stories differs from that in the current news presentation, but you
still see the title, date, and lead paragraph for each selection.
A Research section opens to a list of several in-depth
research reports (BYOD Deployment and Windows 8 Deployment, for two examples).
You need to fill out a form to download the PDF versions of these reports, but
they are free.
Finally, the Reader Services tab at the right end of the navigation
bar is the place to control your account, newsletters, and alerts. It also
leads to useful site maps for E-Commerce Times and its sister publications, a
description of an affiliate program, and Discussions.
The Discussion link opens to a lively set of discussion
boards. (www.ectnews.com/perl/board/mboard.pl).
In addition to two general forums (Open Discussion and Wide World of
Technology) there are Article Talkback forums for each of the five ECT
publications. Threaded software and various views make it easy to follow the
discussion. I checked five pages (out of more than 100) of subject headers, and
found that "The High Cost of Free Shipping" had generated 11
comments. Clicking on the header reveals a link to the full story and to each
of the comments. "Priceline: Flawed or Fraud" had garnered 82
comments, the most recent in February 2013. The article itself was published in
2001! Another post "Please respond all of you who have been suspended by
ebay wrongly" was started in 2002, apparently not linked to a specific
article; 280 had responded. Note that discussions are part of the content
covered by the ECT search function, and results can be filtered by Articles and
Discussions.
Bottom line: Don't forget E-Commerce Times for information,
analysis, and customer opinion on the online business of any enterprise in the
past decade.
Susanne Bjørner
provides editorial services to publishers, librarians, authors, and
researchers. Contact her at bjorner@earthlink.net or www.bjorner.info.
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