Spotlight Features

A $30 billion information technology market is hard to pass up. That's why the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' program to invest that huge amount of money in health records technology has received a lot of attention in the IT vendor community. That's normal. It is decidedly unusual, ho...

Many businesses have begun to use some form of user-generated content on their sites, and while this content can help to build a brand and develop a community, there is some risk involved. Some of the issues requiring management and moderation include abusive language, spam attacks, dilution of keyw...

Until recently, a phone was just a phone. Sure, it got cooler when it lost the rotary dial, the cord, the wire and its voice-only restrictions. Still, it was just a phone. Businesses knew that the sound of its ring usually meant money (for what company with silent phones is profitable?) -- but few w...

Every year since 2001 has been hailed as the year of mobile. But after years of hype and over-revved anticipation, the year of mobile may never come to be. Instead, it looks as though this is the year mobile will morph into something else entirely. In the years after the mobile generation, content w...

As landing a high ranking through search engine optimization grows more competitive by the day, often blocking small-to-medium-sized enterprises from achieving top spots online, more businesses are turning to social media to find new customers. Many customers, meanwhile, are also starting use the se...

Empty office space litters skylines, freeways and office parks. Once-busy hives of cubicles have become empty steel and concrete caverns. Their previous occupants met with a variety of fates: Some were victims of a deep recession; others were washed away by tsunamis of cheap labor in foreign lands; ...

Social media strategies are not just for consumer-focused companies anymore. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and their ilk are finding their way into business-to-business firms. Solid waste service provider Waste Management, for example, has set up a Web 2.0 shop. Interactivity is key, and social media...

Voice over IP technology is getting a makeover, and service providers hope it will reinvent the industry. There's a shift away from VoIP toward hosted unified communications -- that is, integrated voice, instant messenger, email, workflow applications, CRM and procurement. Eight companies formed the...

Cloud computing and SaaS are on the rise in a big way, but for some companies, there's an issue that is starting to come up in a lot of conversations with their service providers: the geographical location of their data. While it may not seem a big deal to some, conflicts with national privacy laws ...

Many college students have been spending the week on the beaches of Padre Island and other balmy locales, soaking up equal parts sun and alcohol. Meanwhile, the families of America are starting to think about where they'd like to dig their toes in the sand for summer vacations -- if they're not alre...

Climate change, peak oil, and precarious food systems seem finally to have entered the realm of relatively mainstream discourse. Corporate employees now routinely discuss their gardening plans and dreams of a hobby farm over lunch. Photographs of whole foods guru Michael Pollan grace the covers of p...

Paying bills with a few computer clicks sounds like a great idea for consumers -- and it is. Online bill paying is increasingly popular with millions of consumers, and the potential for paperless payments is many times greater than it is today. The number of households that used an online payment se...

Millions of consumers have switched their bill-paying practices from tedious sessions with a stack of statements and checkbooks to streamlined, paperless payments through a variety of online channels. However, the movement to electronic payments still has a long way to go, and a huge majority of con...

Everybody loves an online deal. When it comes to cross-border shopping, though, not every online transaction turns out to work to your advantage. Shipping fees, customs delays and a fluctuating dollar can sometimes turn a great deal into a so-so one -- or even a losing proposition. Cross-border shop...

When stumbling around the Web in search of a new toaster or a great deal on a new pair of sneakers, it's not unusual for consumers to come across ominous policy dialogs warning of mismatched or expired SSL certificates. In fact, recent surveys have shown nearly 20 percent, or even more, of popular W...