03/01/2008 - CreditCards.com Powers Credit Card Channel on LendingTree.com and GetSmart.com: AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--CreditCards.com announced today that it has been selected by LendingTree, LLC to power the credit card channels on LendingTree.com and its sister site, GetSmart.com. Visitors to both LendingTree.com and GetSmart.com can now shop, compare and apply for competing credit cards through the CreditCards.com search engine technology. The search engine, which is updated daily with current credit card offers, provides potential customers a means to compare hundreds of current credit card offers in order to find the best deal for them.

Keith Moore, vice president of LendingTree’s emerging businesses group, says, “This new offering is a win for users of both LendingTree.com and GetSmart.com, allowing them to see multiple offers from competing credit card companies in one easy-to-navigate setting. The CreditCards.com search engine is the best in its class, organizing hundreds of offers by category including low-interest credit cards, credit cards with rewards programs, airline credit cards, cash-back credit cards, small business credit cards, student credit cards, instant approval credit cards as well as prepaid debit cards. We’re delighted to bring this new level of choice, competition and price transparency to anyone who’s looking for the best deals in the credit card category.”

“CreditCards.com strives to help consumers, shop, compare and apply for credit cards in a searchable and easy-to-navigate setting,” said Elisabeth DeMarse, CEO of CreditCards.com. “We are honored to be selected as the choice to power the credit card channels of LendingTree.com and GetSmart.com.”

About CreditCards.com

CreditCards.com is a leading online credit card marketplace, bringing consumers and credit card issuers together. At its free website, www.creditcards.com, consumers can compare hundreds of credit card offers from the nation's leading issuers and banks, and apply securely online. CreditCards.com is also a destination site for consumers wanting to learn more about credit cards; offering advice, news, features, statistics and tools - all designed to help consumers make smart choices about credit cards. In 2007, over 12 million unique visitors used CreditCards.com to search for their next credit card.

01/21/2008 - The Video Game May Be Free, but to Be a Winner Can Cost Money: In a major departure from its traditional business model, E.A. plans to announce Monday that it is developing a new installment in its hit Battlefield series that will be distributed on the Internet as a free download. Rather than being sold at retail, the game is meant to generate revenue through advertising and small in-game transactions that allow players to spend a few dollars on new outfits, weapons and other virtual gear...

The game industry is booming worldwide, largely on the strength of two trends: a demographic expansion of the gaming population beyond the traditional young male audience and the rising popularity of online play.

Electronic Arts, once the industry leviathan, has not taken full advantage of those shifts. Meanwhile, one of E.A.’s main competitors, Activision, is riding high on the strength of the mass-market Guitar Hero series and has agreed to merge with Vivendi’s games division, which makes the world’s most popular online game, World of Warcraft.

With Battlefield Heroes, E.A. is trying to capitalize on both trends at once. Not only will Heroes be distributed online, but also it is meant to provide a simpler, more accessible entertainment experience than the relatively complex earlier Battlefield games. The combat-oriented series has sold about 10 million copies since the 2002 debut of the franchise’s first game, Battlefield 1942.

01/20/2008 - US Game Sales Rose 28 Percent in December: U.S. sales of video game hardware and software rose 28 percent in December from a year earlier as holiday shoppers snapped up new consoles like Nintendo Co Ltd's <7974.OS> top-selling Wii, market research firm NPD said on Thursday.

But after setting a 43 percent pace for all of 2007, growth is expected to cool off this year as attention moves away from the transition to a new generation of hardware and more toward games.

Sales were $4.82 billion in December and nearly $18 billion for all of 2007, NPD said in its latest monthly report.

Nintendo sold 1.35 million Wiis, bringing its total U.S. user base to 7.4 million, NPD said. The Wii's success has been fueled by its motion-sensing controller and simpler games that have won over consumers outside the traditional gaming audience of young men.

Microsoft Corp sold 1.26 million of its Xbox 360 machines, boosted by games such as Activision Inc's "Call of Duty 4," which topped the December charts with 1.47 million copies sold.

The top-selling game of 2007 for a single console was Microsoft's own "Halo 3," which sold more than 4.8 million copies since its launch in late September, NPD said.

The Xbox 360 had the biggest base of U.S. users at the end of 2007, having sold nearly 9.2 million units since it launched in November 2005, a year ahead of its rivals.

Sony Corp <6758.T> sold 798,000 PlayStation 3 consoles in December, bringing its total installed base to nearly 3.3 million. The PS3 was outsold by the aging but far cheaper PlayStation 2, which sold 1.1 million units in December.

01/18/2008 - Slide Slides Into Some Cash: Slide, the maker of applications for social networks, has raised another round of funding – $50 million from the private equity funds at Fidelity and T-Rowe Price, two major Wall Street investment houses. The firms have taken a 9 percent stake in the three-year-old, 64-employee Slide, valuing it at $550 million.

It’s yet another startup valuation that takes one’s breath away. Investors are being sold on the idea of social networks as the new operating system and apps-makers like Slide as the next Intuit. Last year, Microsoft invested $240 million for a 1.6 percent share in Facebook, betting that the rapidly growing social network could mint the next Web platform. Now investors are trying to peg the next Adobe or Electronic Arts.

01/17/2008 - New CEO of Network Solutions Announced: Network Solutions today announced that Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Champ Mitchell and the Company’s Board of Directors have appointed W. Roy Dunbar to succeed Mr. Mitchell as Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Mitchell will continue with the Company as Chairman of the Board. Mr. Dunbar joins Network Solutions from MasterCard Incorporated, where he was President of Global Technology and Operations.

Mr. Mitchell said, “The Board of Directors and I are very pleased that Roy is joining Network Solutions to lead our long-term growth. It was clear to us that bringing an executive of Roy’s talent and experience to Network Solutions at a time when our business is strong and we are successfully executing our growth strategies will help propel Network Solutions on its growth trajectory. He has proven leadership experience and expertise in technology and sales. I look forward to this new chapter in the history of our Company, and to working with Roy and the Board to build on our significant accomplishments.”

Mr. Dunbar said, “I am very excited to join Network Solutions. Under Champ’s leadership, the Company has had tremendous success and positioned itself to continue to be a leader in helping small businesses establish and market their companies online. I am looking forward to working with Champ and the Company’s talented management team to build on this strong franchise and capture the very attractive growth opportunities we see ahead for Network Solutions.”

Mr. Dunbar, 46, joined MasterCard Incorporated in September 2004. As President of Global Technology and Operations, he was a member of the Executive Committee reporting to the Chief Executive Officer. He led a significant number of employees driving technology that processed approximately 16 billion transactions, clearing $2 trillion per year and representing 73% of the company’s annual revenue in 2006.

Previously, Mr. Dunbar was with Eli Lilly and Company for 14 years, serving as President, Intercontinental Region, and as Chief Information Officer. As Lilly’s President, Intercontinental Region, he was responsible for all operations in the world’s fastest growing economies – Brazil, Russia, India and China. Mr. Dunbar had served as Lilly’s Vice President and Chief Information Officer from 1999 to 2003, and is credited with having led Lilly to rank as the most innovative user of technology in the pharmaceutical industry.

Mr. Dunbar currently serves as a director of EDS Corporation and as a director of Humana Inc. He is also a member of the board of the Executive Leadership Council Foundation, an organization supporting the development of African American corporate leaders.

About Network Solutions:

Network Solutions, a leading provider of Web solutions and the pioneer of the domain name registration service, offers a full range of Web-related services, including Web hosting, web design, e-commerce software, search engine marketing, SSL certificates, e-mail services and domain name registration. Network Solutions draws on more than 28 years of experience to make it simple and affordable for customers to build and manage an online presence through a one-stop Web Solutions provider. Additional information about Network Solutions’ offerings is available at NetworkSolutions.com.

01/05/2008 - Warner Backs Blu-ray, Tilting DVD Battle: Hollywood’s squabble over which of two technologies will replace standard DVDs skewed in the direction of the Sony Corporation on Friday, with Warner Brothers casting the deciding vote in favor of the company’s Blu-ray discs over the rival format, HD DVD.

In some ways, the fight is a replay of the VHS versus Betamax battle of the 1980s. This time, however, the Sony product appears to have prevailed.

“The overwhelming industry opinion is that this decides the format battle in favor of Blu-ray,” said Richard Doherty, research director at the Envisioneering Group, a market research firm in Seaford, N.Y.

12/31/2007 - Web Playgrounds of the Very Young: “Get ready for total inundation,” said Debra Aho Williamson, an analyst at the research firm eMarketer, who estimates that 20 million children will be members of a virtual world by 2011, up from 8.2 million today.

Worlds like Webkinz, where children care for stuffed animals that come to life, have become some of the Web’s fastest-growing businesses. More than six million unique visitors logged on to Webkinz in November, up 342 percent from November 2006, according to ComScore Media Metrix, a research firm.

12/29/2007 - The End for the Netscape Navigator Browser: Netscape Navigator, the world’s first commercial Web browser and the starting point of the Internet boom, will be pulled off life support Feb. 1 after a 13-year run.

Its current caretakers, Time Warner’s AOL, decided to end further development and technical support to focus on developing the company as an advertising business. Netscape’s use dwindled with Microsoft’s entry into the browser business in the 1990s, and Netscape all but faded away after the birth of its open-source cousin, Firefox...

12/16/2007 - Google vs. Microsoft Article from the New York Times: The growing confrontation between Google and Microsoft promises to be an epic business battle. It is likely to shape the prosperity and progress of both companies, and also inform how consumers and corporations work, shop, communicate and go about their digital lives.

Google sees all of this happening on remote servers in faraway data centers, accessible over the Web by an array of wired and wireless devices — a setup known as cloud computing. Microsoft sees a Web future as well, but one whose center of gravity remains firmly tethered to its desktop PC software. Therein lies the conflict...