Dot Com News from Week of January 22, 2001

• 1/26/01 - MyPrimeTime has laid off more than a third of its staff, or 30 of 80 employees, in an effort to streamline its operations and improve its chances of turning a profit later this year. MyPrimeTime creates interactive television programming for a target audience of men and women from 35 to 54 years old.

• 1/26/01 - Avenue A, an online marketing company, said its first-quarter revenue would be 30 to 35 percent less than the year-ago quarter and announced that it would lay off 60 to 70 employees, about 6 percent of its staff.

• 1/26/01 - Citing market conditions that cannot support investment in the Internet, book and online publisher Hungry Minds said it will close three offices and reduce its staff by nearly 20 percent. About 130 employees will be let go.

• 1/26/01 - Ibooks.com became the latest Internet company to reduce its workforce when it laid off 77 employees and six contract workers.

• 1/25/01 - A venture capital firm headed by an ex-hacker is sinking $47 million into Letsbuyit.com, the troubled European co-buying portal, to save it from filing for bankruptcy.

• 1/25/01 - Lucy.com, an online women's athletic wear company, is closing its e-commerce and catalog operations next month. The company, though, will keep its New York brick-and-mortar store open. The move marks one of the first times an Internet-only retailer has fled the Web to concentrate on a brick-and-mortar business.
• 1/25/01 - Investor Broadcast Network, a provider of real-time investment information and analysis on the Internet, said it decided to shut down RadioWallStreet.com to focus on other businesses that have represented most of the company's revenues.

• 1/25/01 - Webvan posted a deep quarterly loss and said it has indefinitely postponed the launch of its delivery service in three markets in an effort to conserve cash.

• 1/25/01 - E-commerce software and services company Commerce One Inc. last week laid off roughly 150 workers, including about 75 employees who joined the company last fall as part of Commerce One's acquisition of Bethesda, Md.-based AppNet Inc.

• 1/24/01 - AOL Time Warner plans to cut more than 2,000 jobs in a sign that the new media giant is moving quickly to streamline its merged operations.

• 1/24/01 - Interspeed Inc. is curtailing operations and will cut 85% of its work force to reduce expenses as it looks for a buyer. The supplier of digital-subscriber line access routers said the job cuts will reduce to nine its 53-member staff.

• 1/23/01 - Network Commerce Inc. said it will close its consumer shopping Web site and eliminate 145 jobs as part of a cost-cutting effort. The e-commerce software and services concern said it will discontinue its shopping site, shopnow.com, to focus on its infrastructure business and shutter its sales office in the United Kingdom.

• 1/23/01 - Struggling Internet consultant MarchFirst is laying off 550 people in its second round of staff cuts this month and is reducing expenses to about 10 percent of sales.

• 1/23/01 - Juno Online Services Inc., an Internet Service Provider, cut more than 4 percent of its staff of 325 people. A dozen positions were eliminated as a result of the Internet service provider's (ISPs) efforts to shift its revenue base to billable services and away from advertising.

• 1/23/01 - Excite@Home, a high-speed Internet service provider, is laying off about 250 workers, or 8 percent of its work force in a move designed to reach profitability.

• 1/22/01 - This notice is posted on the BarrysWorld Web site. "BarrysWorld are to cease all operations from 5 February 2001, and have already gone into voluntary liquidation. Basically, we have run out of money and, with the current state of the market, have been unable to secure sufficient alternative funding/revenue." BarrysWorld is an online games company.

• 1/22/01 - iCopyright.com, a leading provider of online copyright permissions and delivery systems and software, announced today that it was eliminating 44 jobs as part of a restructuring plan aimed at positioning the company for future growth and success.

• 1/22/01 - Web Consultant U.S. Interactive filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court and announced that its chief executive and president, Mohan Uttarwar, has resigned.

• 1/22/01 - InfoSpace Inc share price plunged 21% after the company announced that three top executive had left their positions.

• 1/22/01 - Netzee, which provides Internet banking and e-commerce products and services, agreed to sell its DPSC software unit to InterCept Group Inc. for about $14.3 million plus the assumption of operating liabilities. The company will reorganize operations and reduce the company's work force by 29% during the next 180 days.

• 1/22/01 - Fort Point, a Web consulting company, said it has cut 49 employees, or 15% of its work force. The job cuts affected employees at the company's headquarters in San Francisco, and at offices in New York and Chicago but not at Fort Point's Munich, Germany, operation.