overstock

AUSTIN,Texas--If you haven't heard of Juan Diego Calle's company quite yet, consider yourself not among the in-the-know here over the last few days.

Yes, the buzz at this year's South by Southwest Interactive has been around social apps like Highlight and Glancee hoping for a Twitter-like breakout. But there's another hot startup here that gets little press and yet is everywhere.

I'm referring to .CO Internet, the Miami company that fought hard to land a contract with the government of Colombia so it could commercialize the country's top-level-domain, or TLD.

At last year'… Read more

Just months after rolling out a media blitz to promote its new branding, Internet retailer Overstock.com is backpedaling on its O.co moniker.

The company ran TV ads declaring that "Overstock.com is now O.co," revamped its Web site's signage to O.co, and spent millions of dollars on the naming rights to the stadium in the San Francisco Bay Area where the Oakland Raiders and Oakland Athletics play.

But now the company concedes that it was too aggressive with the rebranding strategy and is stepping back from the effort "for now," Overstock.… Read more

In a long-awaited decision that could shape the debate over Internet taxes, a New York appeals court today reinstated Amazon.com and Overstock.com's lawsuit claiming a state law forcing them to collect sales taxes is unconstitutional.

A New York appeals court ruled 5-0 that the "dismissal of the entire complaint was premature" and that the lawsuit should continue.

The legal actions, filed a few weeks apart in early 2008, claimed that the state law was "invalid, illegal, and unconstitutional." Amazon has, however, been collecting sales taxes on shipments to Empire State customers while the … Read more

Like most social-networking sites, Twitter isn't immune to lurkers, fakes, and creeps. The 404 Twitter account received over 600 followers in the last 24 hours, which leads us to believe that we're either becoming wildly popular or more likely, the new adds are demonized accounts; in other words, people that had their accounts taken over by a spam bot. This has to stop, Biz--stop teasing our egos!

In other ridiculous news, the CBS video print ad we picked apart in Episode 411 is fetching up to $400 on eBay--what the what? If we'd known that prices would skyrocket on the black market, we would have ganked a few more copies from our parent company, CBS! This is a great example of how you can buy practically anything online, including an 800 thread count Egyptian Cotton duvet cover or a set of custom-made Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle drapes from your humble host's childhood...don't ask, just watch the show.

After the break, we get to a few Calls From the Public, including one from a caller all the way in the Caribbean! We also run down the 20 best cartoons from the 1990s, but they forgot about the X-Men cartoon! And where is "Teenage Mutant Ninja Frickin Turtles?!" Take a look at the list and let us know your favorites!

Can you communicate what a Web site is about to millions of sports fans looking for entertainment above all else? Now that the Super Bowl is over, let's examine how well the online firms that bought ads fared in delivering spots that effectively communicated their online services.

Some companies did well. But it looks like others left viewers scratching their heads...

CareerBuilder Online career search service CareerBuilder offered up a 60-second ad for the Super Bowl that used the tagline, "It might be time (to look for another job)" after providing examples of thoughts some workers might … Read more

A New York State court judge denied on Monday Amazon.com and Overstock.com's attempt to avoid lawmaker demands that the online retailers collect sales tax from New York state residents, even though the companies don't have a physical presence in the state. Neither company has commented on the decision, but there is a strong possibility that the case could move into the Court of Appeals as Amazon and Overstock continue their fight.

CollegeWikis, an online group for college students to send messages and create their own groups based on class year, dorm, or courses, has become Regroup.com. … Read more

A class action lawsuit filed earlier this week targets Facebook and eight of the participants in Beacon, its ill-fated advertising product that shared information about third-party site activity with the social network. The set of 20 plaintiffs, mostly residents of Texas, filed the suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on Tuesday. Named as defendants are Facebook, as well as current or former Beacon participants Blockbuster, Fandango (owned by Comcast), Overstock.com, STA Travel, Zappos, Hotwire (owned by IAC/InterActiveCorp), and GameFly.

A Facebook representative told CNET News on Thursday that the company had … Read more

Overstock.com has filed a lawsuit challenging a New York law that expands the state's requirements for online retailers to collect sales taxes.

The Utah-based company announced Friday that it is asking the court to issue an injunction and declare the law unconstitutional.

In April, Gov. David Paterson signed a new law requiring companies that pay New York-based entities for "directly or indirectly referring customers" to their retail business to collect sales taxes from New York-based customers. The new law goes into effect Sunday. It's an attempt to get around a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court … Read more

New York's expansive new online sales-tax requirements are drawing mixed responses from major e-tailers that haven't previously collected such fees in the Empire State.

Despite a pending lawsuit challenging the law's constitutionality, Amazon.com has said on its Web site that it still plans to abide by the law and add sales tax to orders shipped to New York when the mandate kicks in June 1.

But online outlet store Overstock.com wants nothing to do with collecting the new tax, according to reports at the Affiliate Tip blog and The New York Times.

A few weeks … Read more